‘Christmas comes but once a year,Den every nigger git his shear.’
‘Christmas comes but once a year,Den every nigger git his shear.’
‘Christmas comes but once a year,Den every nigger git his shear.’
‘Christmas comes but once a year,
Den every nigger git his shear.’
“Hurry up, gal! hurry up!”
“Don’t come round me, boy, wid your ‘hurry up, hurry up.’ Don’t you see I’se hurryin’ up all I kin hurry up already? I b’lieve you is drunk, anyhow!”
“Pretty close to it, thank de Lord.
‘Christmas comes but once a year,Every nigger—’”
‘Christmas comes but once a year,Every nigger—’”
‘Christmas comes but once a year,Every nigger—’”
‘Christmas comes but once a year,
Every nigger—’”
“I tell you git out o’ dis kitchen, and mind you don’t fall and break dat dish, wid your ‘Christmas comes but once a year.’ Go ’long, boy. Dat ham’s seven years old, and you jess let it fall!”
“Hi!” thought Uncle Dick, as he entered the dining-room. “What’s he doin’ at de table?”
Richard was surprised.
For, as I am pained to have to say, the Virginians had in those days the very irrational habit of drinking before dinner; and it was to this fact that Uncle Dick alluded in the somewhat figurative language recorded above. If the truth must be told, our venerable serving-man never doubted but that the Don stayed up-stairs simply because he was too drunk to come down. The facts were far otherwise.
“Charley,” said I that night, as we were smoking our last pipe, “what was the matter with the Don to-day? Why was he not with us when we sat down to dinner?”
“Because,” said Charley, lazily lolling back in his rocking-chair, and sighting with one eye through a ring of smoke that he had just projected from his mouth,—“because he was in his room.”
“Another word, and Solomon’s fame perishes.”
“It is a well-known physical law” (Charley used to avenge himself on me in private for his silence in general company),—“it is a well-known physical law,” said he, inserting his forefinger with great precision into the centre of the whirling ring, “that a body cannot occupy two—”
“To be continued in our next. But why was he not punctual, as usual?”
“Nothing simpler,—because he was behind time.”
“Solon, Solon!”
“Yes, Sir William Hamilton has well observed that it is positively unthinkable that the temporal limitations of two events occurring at different times should be identical. Let’s have another pipe.”
Charley had forced me to change the subject; but I contrived to make the change not very satisfactory to him. “By the way,” I began, “what were you and the charming Alice saying to one another on your way from the landing to-day?”
Charley laid his halt-filled pipe on the table and gave a frightful yawn. “Let’s go to bed,” said he, and immediately began to doff his clothes with surprising swiftness.
“Two bodies,” said I, striking a match, “cannot”—Charley kicked off one boot—“occupy the same space”—off flew the other; “but, as Sir William hath well put it,—or was it some other fellow?”—and leaning against the end of the mantel-piece, and poising myself on my elbow, I assumed a thoughtful attitude,—“two bodies are sometimes fond of being very close together. Why this sudden and uncontrollable somnolency? Were we not to have another pipe?” But not another word could I get out of Charley; and nearly four years passed by before he gave me the account (which I will now lay before the reader) of what he saw that day.
The Don, as we know, had escorted Mrs. Poythress from the landing at the foot of the lawn to the house, and had gone immediately to his room. As she leaned upon his arm, he had seemed to her to be tremulous; and a certain disorder in his features as he left the parlor had led her to fear that he was not well; having, as she surmised, given himself an undue wrench in his efforts to arrest her fall. Then, when the Don had failed to put in an appearance at dinner, Charley had gone in person to his room. To a gentle tap there was no reply, and successively louder knocks eliciting noresponse, a vague sense of dread crept over him, and his hand shook as he turned the knob and entered the room. “Great God!” cried Charley, stopping short, as he saw the Don stretched diagonally across the bed, his face buried in a pillow. There he lay, still as death. Was he dead? Charley hurried to the bedside with agitated strides, and leaning over the prostrate figure, with lips apart, intently watched and listened for signs of life. “Thank God!” breathed Charley. For reply the Don, with a sudden movement, threw back his right arm obliquely across his motionless body, and held out his open hand. The released pillow fell. It was wetted with tears. Charley clasped the offered hand with a sympathetic pressure that seemed quite to unnerve the Don; for the iron grasp of his moist hand was tempered by a grateful tenderness, and convulsive undulations again and again shook his stalwart frame. For a while neither spoke.
“You will be down to dinner presently, I hope?”
The Don nodded, and Charley crossed the room and poured out some water and moved some towels in an aimless sort of way.
“I’ll go down now; come as soon as you can.”
Another nod.
Charley moved, half on tiptoe, to the door, and placing his hand on the knob, turned and looked at the Don. A sudden impulse seized him as he saw the strong man lying there on his face, his arm still extended along his back; and hurrying to the bedside, he bent over him, and taking the open hand in both his, with one fervent squeeze released it and hastened out of the room. But he had not reached the door before there broke upon his ear a sound that made him shiver.
It was a sob.
One!—No more! It was a sound such as we do not often hear and can never forget,—the sob of a strong man, bursting, hoarse, guttural, discordant, from an over-wrought heart,—a stern, proud heart that would stifle the cry of its bitterness, but may not. A look,—a word,—the touch of a friendly hand,—has sufficed to unprison the floods.
So, once, the dimpled finger of childhood pressed the electric key; and the primeval rocks of Hell-Gate bounded into the air.
Charley hurried along the upper hall, and arriving at the head of the stairs, blew his nose three times with a certain fierce defiance. This strictly commonplace operation he repeated in a subdued form as he neared the dining-room door, and stopping again, with one hand upon the knob, he passed the other again and again across his forehead and eyes, as though he had been an antiquated belle who would smooth out the wrinkles before entering a ball-room. Then, with that severe look of determined reticence of which I have spoken above, he entered the dining-room; exciting in all breasts, male and female alike, a keen but hopeless curiosity. This feeling, however, soon subsided; for the Don had entered shortly after Charley, and, begging Mrs. Carter to excuse his tardiness, had taken his seat and passed out of our minds. For besides that the dinner was good and the wine generous, most of us had our own little interests to look after. Jones, for example, and Jones’s girl were too happy to care whether any one in the world were late or early for dinner. My grandfather, Mrs. Carter, and myself were sufficiently occupied as hosts,—and Charley, too, though he devoted his time principally to one guest. As a matter of fact, therefore, during the early part of the dinner the Don sat unobserved by the greater part of the company; and but for one faithful pair of eyes, I should have had nothing to record.
In the spirit of mischief, Alice had so manœuvred that the seat left vacant for the Don was between Lucy and little Laura. “Won’t it be sweet, mother, to see all three of them in a row,—Lucy—Mr. Don Miff—Laura? Quite a little family party!”
“Very well,” replied Lucy, laughing, “arrange it asyou will; I am sure I should like very well to sit by ‘the Don.’ Do you still call him by that name?”
“Of course. It has a grand sound, and grand sounds, you know, are precious to the female heart.”
The Don’s looks when he entered were downcast, his manner hesitating, and his voice, when he made his apologies to Mrs. Carter, scarcely audible. Charley, the moment the Don entered, had begun stammering away at Alice with a surprising volubility, and in a voice loud for him. He never stammered worse; and such a pother did he make with his m’s and his p’s that he drew upon himself the smiling attention of all the company; so that even Jones and his girl ceased murmuring, for a moment, their fatuous nothings. It was under cover of this rattling volley that the Don had taken his seat and begun intently to examine the monogram on his fork.
“Will you have some soup?” asked Charley, in a frank, off-hand way.
The commonplace nature of this question was an obvious relief to the Don, and he raised his eyes and looked about him. “Thanks, no soup. What!” said he, for the first time espying little Laura seated by his side, “you here by me!” And taking her sunny head between his hands, he bent over and kissed her on the forehead.
A mother’s smile trembled in Mrs. Poythress’s eyes. “She is a very little diner-out,” said she.
At the sound of Mrs. Poythress’s voice a shade passed over the Don’s face. “He’s the one, mumma, that built me the block-houses.” And the smile came back.
Mary watched the play of the Don’s features during the triangular conversation that followed between himself, Mrs. Poythress, and Laura, and was much puzzled. Light and shadow, shadow and light, chased each other over his changeful countenance like patches of cloud across a sunny landscape. Presently, chancing to turn his head, his eyes fell upon Lucy, seated on his right, and Mary’s interest grew deeper.
“You on my right and Laura on my left! I feel that I am indeed among friends.”
“You may be sure of that,” said Lucy, in her low and sweet, but earnest voice.
The Don’s pleasure at finding that Lucy was his neighbor at table was very obvious, and we must not blame Mary if it gave her a pang to see it. She could not but recall the stranger’s manifest interest in Lucy when he first met her, at breakfast, in Richmond. Then she had not cared. Now it was different. For the next half-hour, while contributing her share to the conversation at her end of the table, she had managed to see everything that took place between the Don and Lucy. She saw everything, and yet she seemed to herself to see nothing. The meaning of it all—that she could not unravel. All she knew was that she was miserable; and her wretchedness made her unjust. She was vexed at Lucy,—vexed for the strangest of reasons; but the human heart—if the plagiarism may be pardoned—is full of inconsistencies. Had Lucy made eyes at the Don, coquetted with him, Mary would doubtless have thought it unkind on her part; though that would have been unjust, as Lucy had no cause to suspect that her friend felt any special interest in the mysterious stranger. It was the entire absence of everything of this kind in Lucy’s manner that nettled Mary. In her eyes the Don was a hero of the first water. Why didn’t Lucy try to weave fascinations around such an one as he? What kind of a man was she looking for? Did she expect the whole world to fall at her feet, whence to choose?—or did she, perhaps,—and the thought shot through her heart with a keen pang,—did Lucy feel that the quarry was hers without an effort on her part to grasp it?
The Don’s deportment, too, if incomprehensible, was at least irritating. “His lordship,” thought she, bitterly, “has hardly vouchsafed me a glance since he took his seat. Yet, before the Poythresses came—there he sits now, patting Laura’s head in an absent way, and studying Lucy’s features, as she talks, as though he were a portrait-painter. One would think he had quietly adopted the entire Poythress family. Upon my word, Mr. Sphinx is a marvel of coolness! Howlittle he talks, too!—and yet he has contrived to bring Lucy out wonderfully. She is rattling away like a child, telling him about herself and all the family. How interested he seems! Heavens, what a look!”
“Yes,” she had heard Lucy say, “Laura is a regular Poythress, with her high color and golden hair; mine is just like mother’s. I don’t mean now,” said she, with a little laugh and glancing at Mrs. Poythress’s snow-white hair; “but mother’s was coal-black once. It turned white—years ago—suddenly;” and she sighed softly, with downcast, pensive eyes, so that she did not observe the look of pain that her words had wrought and that had startled Mary. Looking up and seeing his face averted, Lucy thought he was admiring her little sister’s curls. “What beautiful hair Laura has!”
“Lovely,” replied he, tossing a mass of ringlets on the tips of his fingers.
“Won’t you make me a boat, after dinner, with rudder and sails and everything?” And Laura looked up into his troubled face with a confiding, sunny smile.
At last, the ladies rose to leave the table.
“As soon, Mrs. Carter, as the gentlemen have had a cigar or so,” said Mr. Whacker, “we shall have the honor of joining the ladies in the parlor and of escorting you to the Hall, where we shall have some music.”
“But when he hears her play!” thought Mary, as she left the room, arm in arm with her dreaded rival.
“I drink your health,” cried the Herr, dropping down into his chair as soon as the ladies had left the room. “I drink your very good health,” said he, filling the Don’s glass. Of course he pronounced the words after his own fashion.
One would err who supposed that Herr Waldteufelfelt any unusual anxiety as to the physical condition of his neighbor. A decanter of sherry invariably wrought in his responsive mind a general but quite impartial interest in the well-being of all his friends. But on this occasion Mr. Whacker was particularly anxious that some limit should be put to the expression of that solicitude; and he checked with a glance the zealous hospitality of Uncle Dick, who was about to replenish the nearly exhausted decanters.
For this was to be a field day over at the Hall. There was to be a quintet,—think of that,—and a pint or so more sherry might disable the ’cello.
My grandfather had been looking forward to this glorious occasion with nervous joy. It had been several years since he had taken part in so august a performance; and before the first cigars were half burned out he had begun to fidget and look at his watch. Charley, therefore, was not long in proposing a move.
“Now, ladies,” said my grandfather, on reaching the parlor, “I, for one, cannot understand how it is that there are some people who don’t love music; but there are such people, and very good people they are, too. Now, this is Liberty Hall, and every one must do as he pleases. We are going to make some music; but no one need go with us who prefers remaining here. If there are any couples, for instance,”—and Mr. Whacker raised his eyes to the ceiling—“who have softer things to say than any our instruments can produce” (Jones and his girl looked unconscious), “let them remain and say them. Here is the parlor, there is the dining room; arrange yourselves as you would. And now, Mrs. Poythress, will you take my arm and lead the way?”
Jones and Jones’s girl were the first to move, and we were soon on our way across the lawn; while dark cohorts brought up the rear and covered the flanks of the merry column.
“To me!” said Mary, when the Don had offered her his arm. “I feel much honored.” And with a formal bow she rested the tips of her fingers upon his sleeve.
The irony of her tones grated upon his ear, and heturned quickly and bent upon her a puzzled though steady gaze.
“Honored?”
That look of honest surprise reassured her woman’s heart, but made her feel that she had forgotten herself in meeting a courtesy with an incivility.
They always know just what to do.
Passing her arm farther within his, and leaning upon him with a coquettish pressure, she looked up with a gracious smile.
“Certainly. Have I not the arm of the primo violino,—the lion of the evening?”
And the primo violino wondered how on earth he had ever imagined that she was vexed.
Very naturally, I cannot remember, after the lapse of years, what quintet they played that evening. All that I distinctly recall is that it was a composition in which the piano was very prominent. My grandfather was (as I have, perhaps, said before) as proud of Lucy’s playing as though she had been his own daughter; and I suspect that he and the Herr made the selection with a view to showing her off.
Mary thought she had never seen Lucy look so graceful as when, sounding “A,” she turned upon the piano-stool, and, with her arm extended backwards and her fingers resting upon the keys, she gave the note to each of the players in turn; her usually serene face lit with the enthusiasm of expectancy. It was a truly lovely face,—lovely at all times, but peculiarly so when suffused with a certain soul-lit St. Cecilia look it wore at times like this. Alice sparkled, and Mary shone; but Lucy glowed,—glowed with the half-hidden fire of fervid affections and high and holy thoughts. Alice was a bounding, bubbling fountain, Mary a swift-flowing river, Lucy a still lake glassing the blue heavens in its unknown depths. Wit—imagination—soul.
It chanced that the piano had to open the piece alone, the other instruments coming in one after another. Nervously smoothing down her music with both hands, rather pale and tremulous, Lucy began.
“Why,” thought Mary, gazing with still intensity from out the isolated corner in which she had seated herself,—“why doeshelook so anxious?”
For, coming to a rapid run, Lucy had stumbled badly, and the Don was pulling nervously at his tawny beard. But soon recovering her self-possession, she executed a difficult passage with ease and brilliancy. “Brava! brava!” cried he, encouragingly, while the Herr nodded and smiled. As for my grandfather, a momentary side-flash of delight was all he could spare the lovely young pianist; for with eyes intently fixed upon his score, and head bobbing up and down, he was in mortal dread of coming in at the wrong time. With him the merest nod of approval, by getting entangled with the nod rhythmic, might well have introduced a fatal error into his counting, while even an encouraging smile was not without its dangers.
Mrs. Poythress gave the Don a grateful smile.
“He seems to be taking Lucy under his protection,” thought Mary.
One after another the players came in; first the Don and Herr Waldteufel, then the second and the viola; and away they went, each after his own fashion; Charley pulling away with close, business-like attention to his notes; the Herr calm but smiling good-humoredly, when, from time to time, he stumbled through rapid passages where his reading was better than his execution; Mr. Whacker struggling manfully, with flushed cheeks and eager eyes, and beating time with his feet with rather unprofessional vigor. As for Lucy, relieved of her embarrassment, when fire had opened all along the line, she made the Herr proud of his pupil; while the Don, master of his score and his instrument, kept nodding and smiling as he played; watching her nimble fingers, during the pauses of his part, with undisguised satisfaction.
Mary, sitting apart, saw all this. Nor Mary alone.
“He is a goner!” whispered Billy to his girl, in objectionable phrase.
“Oh, yes;hopelessly!” looked she.
“Mr. Frobisher, too,—he’s another goner.”
The beloved of William glanced at Charley and bit her lip. Somehow it seemed comic to every one that Charley should be in love.
Then Billy, folding his arms across his deep chest, and summoning his mind to a vast generalization: “The fact is, everybody is a goner,” said he; “as for me—”
His girl placed her finger upon her rosy lip, and reproved his chattering with a frown that was very, very fierce; but from beneath her darkling brows there stole, as she raised her eyes to his manly face, a glance soft as the breath of violets from under a hedge of thorns.
The allegro moderato came to an end with the usual twang twing twang.
“Unt we came out all togedder!” exclaimed the Herr. “Dot is someding already. Shentlemen und ladies, I tell you a little story, vot you call. Berlioz was once leading an orchestra, part professionals, part amateurs. Ven dey vas near de ent of de stucke vot you call morceau, ‘Halt, shentlemens!’ cry Berlioz, rapping on the bulbit-desk, vot you call. ‘Now, shentlemens amateurs,’ says he, ‘you just stop on dis bar unt let de oders blay, so dat we all come out togedder.’”
The excellent Herr, after laughing himself to the verge of asphyxiation, explained that “Berlioz, you unterstant, vas a great vit, vat you call, unt make many funny words.” It was a peculiarity of our friend Waldteufel that his pronunciation of English varied with the amount of water that he had neglected to drink; and as this was an uncertain quantity, you could never be quite sure whether he would say vas or was, words or vords. At certain critical moments, too, when his soul stood vascillating between contentment and thirst, the two systems were apt to become mixed as above. I will add that I make no attempt at accuracy in reproducing his dialect, preferring to leave that, in part at least, as I have done in a parallel case, to the resources of the reader.
The remaining movements of the quintet were played in somewhat smoother style; but the only onerequiring special mention, for our purposes, was the larghetto, or slow movement. In this number, the technical difficulties of which were inconsiderable, Lucy’s tender religious spirit revealed itself most touchingly. It so happened that the composer had placed this part mainly in the hands of the piano and the first violin, the other instruments merely giving an unobtrusive accompaniment. First the violin gave out the theme, and then the piano made reply.
“It is the communing of two spirits,” felt Mary, in her imaginative way.
Now the piano gave forth its tender plaint, and the violin seemed to Mary to listen; at one time silent, at another interrupting,—assenting rather,—breaking into low-muttered interjections of harmonious sympathy. And then the violin would utter its lament, finding its echo in the broken ejaculations that rose from beneath Lucy’s responsive fingers; so, at least, it seemed to Mary.
The quintet and the congratulations to the performers over, Mr. Whacker took pity on the thirsty Herr and ordered refreshments. Jones, finding among the rest a glass of double size, filled it and handed it to the ’cellist.
“Goot!” cried he, with a luminous wink; “I play de big fiddle already.”
Mary smiled, wondering what “already” could mean; but she had other things to occupy her thoughts. When the Don rose from his seat and laid his violin upon the piano, she had been struck with the serenity of his countenance, whence the music seemed to have chased every cloud. He was looking for some one. Yes, it was for her. Catching her eye, he filled a glass, or two, rather, and coming to her side and taking a seat, he expressed the hope that she had enjoyed the music.
“More than I can express. You have convinced me that I have never heard any real music before. Do you know, your quintet was as pleasing to the eye as to the ear? You would have afforded a fine subject for a painter. Three young men, a lovely girl, and a grandfather, all bound together as one by the goldenchains of harmony! You can’t imagine what a lovely picture you made.”
“Thanks!”
“Oh,” said she, smiling, “there were five of you, so I have paid you, at best, but one-fifth of a compliment.”
“A vulgar fraction, as it were.”
“Yes,” said she, laughing; then with eyes cast down, and in a hesitating voice, she added, “I am going to make a confession to you; will you promise not to think meveryfoolish?”
“Such an idea, I am sure—”
“But, you know my friends all say I am so very sentimental,—that is to say, silly. You shake your head, but that is what they call me, and that is what it means.”
“You do your friends injustice; but give me a specimen, that I may judge for myself.”
“Do you promise not to agree with my friends?”
“Most solemnly.”
“Well, you must know there is something very pathetic to me about old age. The sight of an old man sympathizing with the young, hearing up bravely under the ills of life and his load of years, always touches me to the heart. Now, you and Mr. Frobisher and Mr. Waldteufel—well, I need not comment on your appearance. Lucy—well, Lucy was just too lovely. She had what I call her inspired look, and was simply beautiful.” And lifting her eyes for a second,—no, a second had been an age, compared with the duration of that glance so momentary and yet so intensely questioning,—she flashed him through and through. Through and through, yet saw nothing. The Don, felt he or not the shock of that electric glance, sat impassive, spoke no answer, looked no reply. She raised her eyes again to his. No, his look was not impassive; he was simply awaiting with interest the rest of her story. That, at least, was all she could see.
“Where was I?” she began again, driving from her mind, with an effort, a tumultuous throng of hopesand fears. “Oh I well, you gentlemen handled your bows gracefully, of course, and all that, and Lucy was irresistible” (another flash), “of—course; but the central figure of the picture was Mr. Whacker. Dear Uncle Tom! Isn’t he a grand old man? I don’t know why it was, but when I saw in the midst of you his snowy head contrasting so strongly, so strangely, with Lucy’s youthful bloom, with the manly vigor of the rest, my eyes filled with tears. Was it so very foolish?” And her eyes, as she lifted them to his, half inquiring, half deprecatory, were suffused afresh with the divine dew of sympathy.
“Foolish!” exclaimed the Don, with a vehemence so sudden that it made her start, his nostrils dilating and a dark flush mounting even to his forehead,—“foolish!” And bending over her he poured down into her swimming eyes a look so intense and searching that she felt that he was reading her very heart.
“Thanks!” said he, with abrupt decision. “Thanks!”
Mary breathed quicker, she knew not why. The tension was painful. “Yes,” said she, rather aimlessly, “and then you all looked so earnest, so serenely happy, so forgetful of this poor sordid world.”
“Yes,” said he, musingly, “that seems to me the office of music,—to give rest to the weary, to smooth out the wrinkles from the brain and brow, to give respite; to enable us, for a time, at least, to forget.”
He seemed to muse for a moment, then turning suddenly to her with a changed expression: “It was always so,” said he; then looking up quickly, “Do you like Homer?”
“Homer!” exclaimed she, startled by the abrupt transition. “I cannot say that he is one of my favorite authors.”
“Do you know, I cannot understand that?”
“He is so very, very old,” pleaded she, in extenuation.
“So is the human heart, of which he was master; so is the ocean, to which he has been compared,—eternal movement and eternal repose. But what you said just now, as to the Lethean effect of music, remindedme of that grand scene in the Iliad, where Ulysses and Phœnix and Ajax go, as ambassadors of Agamemnon, to Achilles, with offerings and apologies for the wrong that has been done him. This man, whose heart was full of indignant shame because of the insults which had been heaped upon him,—who, though the bravest of the Greeks, had gone apart by the sea-shore to weep bitter tears,—him they found solacing his sorrows with music. But a little while ago and he had been ready to strike Agamemnon dead in the midst of his troops. What a surprise when the poet draws the curtain, and there flashes upon our astonished eyes the inexorable, flinty-hearted captain of the Myrmidons seated with his friend Patroklus, peacefully singing to his lyre the illustrious deeds of heroes! What a master-stroke!” cried he, with flashing eyes. “It is like the sudden bursting upon the view of a green valley in the midst of barren rocks. And you don’t like Homer?”
“Oh, that is beautiful, really beautiful!” she hastened to say, abashed at the sentiment she had just uttered. “One often fails to see beauties till they are pointed out. Won’t you talk to me some day about Homer?”
“Gladly,” said he; and he smiled, then almost laughed aloud.
“Ah, it is really unkind to laugh at me!”
“Not at all. I was laughing to think how little you dream what you are drawing down upon your head when you ask me to talk to you about Homer. You see I, too, have a little confession to make.”
“What is it?” she asked, eagerly.
“Perhaps I should have said confidence rather than confession; but, upon second thought—”
“Oh, do tell me!”
He hesitated.
“I shall positively die with curiosity!”
“If there be any danger of that,” said he,—and he put his forefinger and thumb in his vest-pocket and looked at her and smiled.
“Well?”
“Will you promise not to think me so very, veryfoolish?” said he, mimicking her tones of a little while before. And he drew an object from his pocket and held it up.
“What is it,—a book?”
“Yes, a book;” removing from a much-worn morocco case a small volume.
“Oh, yes, your Testament!”
Mary had not forgotten what I had told of a certain incident that had occurred in the Don’s rooms in Richmond, and had heedlessly alluded to it.
“My Testament!” said he, with a quick, suspicious look.
She felt that she had blundered; but Mary Rolfe, like the majority of her sex, was a woman. “Why, isn’t it a Testament?” asked she, carelessly; “it has just the look of some of those little English editions.” And she held out her hand.
“Oh!” said the Don, looking relieved. “No, it is not a Testament.”
“What is it, then?” said she, her hand still extended.
“It is a copy of the Iliad; and my little confession is, that I have carried it in this pocket ever so many years.”
“Indeed!” cried Mary, much interested.
“So, you see, when you askmeto talk to you about Homer, you are getting yourself into trouble, most probably.”
“Let me have it.”
The Don smiled and shook his head.
“What!” cried she, with amazement, “I may not touch it?”
“Well, as a special favor, you may; but it must not go out of my possession. Here, you hold that lid and I this. No, this way,” added the Don, rising. He had been seated on her right; but now placing his chair to her left, he held out the little volume to her, holding the left lid, together with a few pages, between finger and thumb. What could be his object in changing his position? Was there something written on the flyleaf? She gave a quick glance at his face, but instantly checked herself and broke out into a merry laugh.
“How perfectly absurd!” said she. “We look, for all the world, like two Sunday-school children reading the same hymn-book! What!” exclaimed she, with quick interest, and looking up into his face: “The original Greek?”
“Yes,” replied he, quietly; “no real master-piece can ever be translated.”
Just then some chords were sounded on the piano, and the Don turned and looked in that direction. Mary raised her eyes and scanned his face narrowly. She was reading him afresh by the light he had just cast upon himself.
For her, being such as she was, this man of surprises had acquired a new interest.
“Ladies unt shentlemens, I have de pleasure to announce dot Miss Lucy will now favor de company mit a song.” The Herr was seated at the piano, while Lucy stood by his side.
“What! does she sing, too?” inquired the Don, with interest.
“Oh, yes; Lucy has a very sweet voice.”
The Don sat and listened, with a pleased smile, nodding approvingly from time to time. “Not very strong,” remarked he, when the song was ended, “but, as you say, sweet and sympathetic—very.”
A second ballad was called for, which Lucy gave, and then her mother suggested Schubert’s “Serenade.” She had hardly sung half a dozen notes, when Mary noticed a peculiar expression on the Don’s face. It was a face which, when in repose, was always grave, to say the least; and there were times when it seemed to many stern, even grim. But now as he gazed, wide-eyed and dreamy, upon the bank of coals before him, the firm lines of his features melted into an inexpressible softness.
“Oh, that I were a musician, to bring that beautiful look into his face! Lucy’s fingers have stolen half his heart, her voice the rest.” Thus sighed Mary in the depths of her troubled spirit.
The Don rose softly from his seat. “Excuse me,” said he; and moving silently and on tiptoe across the room, took up his violin, placed it under his chin, and poising the bow over the strings, stood there waiting for a pause in Lucy’s song. By Lucy alone, of all the company, had these movements of the Don been unobserved; and when there leaped forth, just behind her and close to her ear, the vibrating tones of the Guarnerius, echoing her own, she gave a quick start and a pretty little “oh!” but turning and seeing the Don behind her, she beamed upon him with a radiant smile.
“Aha, an obligato! so!” cried the Herr. “Very goot, very goot.” And he bent him over the piano with renewed zeal.
If I knew what an “obligato” was, I would tell you most cheerfully; but even Charley could never get it into my head. It was not an accompaniment, that I know; for the Herr was playing the accompaniment himself.
“I tell you venn to come in,” said the Herr to Lucy, who was naturally a little confused at first. “Now—ah—so, very goot.”
This time the Don broke in here and there upon Lucy’s song in a fragmentary kind of way, as it seemed to me, and just as fancy dictated, producing a very weird and startling effect; and when the pause came in her score, he continued the strain in an improvisation full of power and wild passion. “Wunderschön! Ben trovato!” cried the Herr, lapsing into and out of his mother-tongue in his enthusiasm.
I gave the reader to understand, when I brought him acquainted with Waldteufel, that he was a musician of far greater ability than one would have expected to find teaching in a country neighborhood; regretfully giving the reason for this anomaly. Aroused now by the Don, he showed the stuff that was in him; dashing off an improvisation full of feeling on the themeof the “Serenade.” “Now,” said he, striking the last notes, “coom again, coom. Vot you got to say now?” he added, in challenge.
The Don gave a slight bow to Lucy.
“Ah, das is so,—I forgot.”
Lucy began anew, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling with excitement, nodding approval, first to one, then to the other of the rival artists, as each in turn gave proof of his virtuosity. Schubert’s “Serenade” is of a divine beauty, and improving upon it is like adding polish to Gray’s “Elegy.” But such considerations did not disturb our little audience. Our local pride was up. The stranger had been carrying everything before him, and when our honest Herr came back at him with a Roland for his Oliver, as described above, there had been a lively clapping of hands. And now, first one or two, then the entire company had risen in a body and clustered around the performers, applauding and cheering each in turn, but the Herr, as I remember, most warmly; for few of us had ever heard him improvise before, and, besides, he seemed to deserve special encouragement for his pluck in contending with this Orpheus, newly dropped among us from the skies, as it were.
Mary had not at first risen with the rest. An unconquerable reserve was her most marked trait. But at last even she rose (not being able, perhaps, to see the Don from where she sat), but did not join the cluster that surrounded the piano. She stood apart, resting her elbow upon the mantel-piece, her cheek upon her hand, listening to the music,—the music half drowned by the fevered tattoo her own heart was beating. For now Lucy was singing the last stanza of the song, and the Herr had dropped into something like an accompaniment, while the Don, seeing that his antagonist had called a truce, had reined his own muse down into a “second.” Sustained by this and rising with her enthusiasm, Lucy’s voice came forth with a power and a pathos it had not shown before; and the mellow Guarnerius, kindling and enkindled in turn, rose to a passion almost human in its intensity. Andbefore Mary’s eyes there seemed to float, as voice and violin rose and fell, and fell and rose, a vision (and it was her nature to dream dreams); there floated a vision as of two souls locked in eternal embrace and borne aloft on the wings of divinest music.
She did not close her eyes that night; for, to add to the perturbation of her spirit, Mrs. Poythress, seeing Charley making ready to cross the River and spend the night under her roof, as he did every Friday, had so cordially invited the Don to accompany him that he, when the invitation was warmly seconded by Mr. Poythress and Lucy, had, after some hesitation, consented to do so.
He had entered the very grotto of Circe.
The Poythresses were cordiality itself. No sooner had the Don’s foot crossed their threshold, than Mr. Poythress, taking him by the hand, gave him a warm welcome to Oakhurst. “Yes, you are truly welcome,” said Mrs. Poythress, taking the other hand; while Lucy, too, smiled in hospitable assent.
The latter has told me since that she was struck, at the time, with a certain something very singular in his manner of meeting these courtesies. As the boat had neared the shore, she had observed that the Don grew more and more silent; and now, in response to greetings of such marked cordiality, he had merely bowed,—bowed low, but without a word. “Are you cold?” asked Mrs. Poythress, looking up into his face, as they entered the sitting-room. “Why, you are positively shivering! Mr. Poythress, do stir the fire. Are you subject to chills? No?”
“The wind was very keen on the River,” said the Don. He spoke with difficulty, and as he leaned over the fire, warming his hands, his teeth chattered.
Charley whispered to Mrs. Poythress.
“Not a drop,” replied she; “you know Mr. Poythress will not allow a gill of anything of the kind to be kept in the house. I am so sorry.”
“Well, it does not matter. Do you know it is past one o’clock? Suppose all of you go to bed and leave him to me.”
“Now,” said Charley, when he and the Don were left alone, “let’s adjourn to the dining-room and have a quiet pipe, after the labors of the evening. I don’t know why it is,” continued Charley, as they entered the room, “but fiddling—” Here Charley quickly drew back, as a horse when sharply reined up, with a look that seemed to show that his eyes had fallen upon some unwelcome object. The suppression of all appearance of emotion was, as we know, a foible of his. There was one thing, however, which he could not suppress; and it was this which often betrayed him to his friends; to wit, his infirmity of stammering; of which, as I do not care either to deface my pages or to make sport of my friend, I shall give but sparing typographical indication, leaving the rest to the reader’s imagination. “F-f-f-f-iddling,” continued he, “always gives me a consuming thirst for a smo-mo-mo-moke. By the way, thirst for a smoke strikes me as a mixed metaphor, but ‘hunger’ would scarcely improve matters. I presume that if our Aryan ancestors had known the divine weed, we should have had a better word wherewithal to express our longing for it.”
Whenever Charley began to stammer and philosophize, he always suggested to my mind a partridge tumbling and fluttering away through the grass; there was always a nest somewhere near.
“As it is,” continued he, “we must be content to borrow from the grovelling vocabulary of the eater and the drinker, leaving to civilization—there, toast your toes on that fender—to evolve a more fitting term.”
The Don, who had been looking serious enough before, could not suppress a smile at this quaint sally of our friend,—a smile that broadened into a laugh when Charley, having succeeded, after a protracted struggle, in shooting a word from his mouth as though from apop-gun, parenthetically consigned all p’s and m’s to perdition; that being the class of letters which chiefly marred his utterance.
There is, about the damning of a mere labial, a grotesque impotency that goes far towards rescuing the oath from profanity; and we may hope that Uncle Toby’s accusing angel neglected to hand this one in for record.
“This is very snug,” said Charley, drawing together the ends of logs which had burned in two.
Charley had neglected to light the lamp, but the logs soon began to shed a ruddy glow about the room, in the obscure light of which the stranger began to look about him, as was natural. Charley could always see more with his eyes shut than I could with mine wide open; but I cannot very well understand how, in that dimly-lighted room, he contrived to observe all that he pretends to have seen on this occasion; especially as he acknowledges that he was steadily engaged at his old trick of blowing smoke-rings, sighting at them with one eye, and spearing them with the forefinger of his right hand.
The stranger did not stroll about the room with his hands behind his back, examining the objects on the sideboard, and yawning in the faces of the ancestral portraits, as he might have been pardoned for doing at that hour, and in the absence of the family. “Yes, this is very snug,” echoed he, in a rather hollow voice, while he glanced from object to object in the room with an eager interest that contrasted strangely with the immobility of his person; his almost motionless head giving a rather wild look to his rapidly-roving eyes. Presently, seeming to forget Charley’s presence, he gave vent to a sigh so deep that it was almost a groan. Charley removed his pipe from his mouth, and with the stem thereof slowly and carefully traced a very exact circle just within the interior edge of one of his whirling smoke-wreaths, in the spinning of which he was so consummate an artist.
The stranger, coming to himself with a little start, gave a quick glance at the sphinx beside him, who,with head resting on the back of his chair and eyes half closed, was lazily admiring another blue circle, that rose silently whirling in the still air. Had he heard the moan? And in his embarrassment the stranger seized the tongs and, with a nervous pull, tilted over one of the logs which Charley had drawn together on the hearth.
They flashed into a blaze.
“Why, hello!” exclaimed the stranger, chancing to cast his eye into the corner formed by the projecting chimney-piece and the wall. “There’s a dog. He seems comfortable,” he added, glad, seemingly, to have hit upon so substantial a subject of conversation. “That rug seems to have been made for him. Does he sleep there every night?”
“That’s his corner, whenever he wants it,” said Charley, rather dryly, and without looking towards the dog. “Let me fill your pipe for you.”
Charley, somehow, did not seem anxious to talk about the dog, but his companion, not observing this, very likely, would not let the subject drop. Rising a little in his chair and peering into the somewhat obscure corner: “He seems to be a—a—”
“Pointer,” said Charley. “He is very old,” added he, by way of a finisher.
“Oh, I understand,—an old hunting-dog of Mr. Poythress’s that he cherishes now for the good he has done in his day.”
This was not exactly a question, but it seemed to require some sort of a reply.
“Well, yes, so one would naturally think; but Mr. Poythress was never much of a Nimrod. It is Mrs. Poythress who claims the old fellow as her property, I believe.”
Charley pulled out his watch in rather a nervous way, looked at the time, and, thrusting it back into his pocket, gave a yawn.
“What rolls of fat he has along his back!” said the stranger, rising, and taking a step or two in the direction of the sleeper.
“Yes,” said Charley, rising, and knocking the ashesfrom his pipe with a few rapid taps, “it is the way with all old dogs.”
“Ah, I am afraid I have disturbed the slumbers of the old fellow,” said the Don, softly retracing his steps.
“He is as deaf as a post,” said Charley.
The old pointer had raised his head, and was rocking it from side to side with a kind of low whimpering.
“Speaking of slumbers,” said Charley, looking at his watch again, and closing it with a snap, “suppose—”
“What can be the matter with the old boy?”
The dog was acting singularly. He had risen to his feet, and, with staggering, uncertain steps, was moving first in this direction then in that, sniffing the air with a whine that grew more and more intense and anxious.
“He will soon get quiet, if we leave him.” And Charley made two or three rapid strides towards the door, then stopped as suddenly, stopped and stood biting his nails with unconscious vigor, then slowly turned, and, walking up to the mantel-piece, rested his elbow upon it and his cheek upon his hand. The attitude was one of repose; but his quick breathing, his quivering lips, his restless eyes that flashed searchingly, again and again, upon the face of his companion,—these told a different story.
“He is trying to find you,” said the Don, with a sympathetic smile. “Poor old fellow, he seems blind as well as deaf. Hello! he is making for me. What! is he in his dotage? Whom does he take me for?” he added, as the old dog, coming up to him and sniffing at his feet and legs with an ever-increasing eagerness, kept wriggling and squirming and wagging his tail with a vigor that was remarkable, considering his apoplectic figure and extreme age. Growing more and more excited, the old creature tried again and again to rear and place his paws upon the breast of the Don; but his weak limbs, unable to sustain his unwieldy bulk, as often gave way; and at last, with a despair that was almost human, he laid his head between the knees of the young man; and rolling his bleared, opaque eyes, as if searching for his face, he whimpered asthough for help. The Don looked bewildered, and glancing at Charley, saw him standing, motionless, leaning upon the mantel-piece, his eyes fixed upon the fire. The Don started, then bent a sudden, eager glance upon the dog. The latter again strove to rear up, but falling back upon his haunches, lifted up his aged head, and rolling his sightless eyes, gave forth a low howl so piteous as must have moved the hardest heart.
It was then that the stranger, that man of surprises, as he had done once or twice before in the course of this story, revealed by a sudden burst of uncontrollable impetuosity the fervid temperament that ordinarily lay concealed beneath his studied reserve. Stooping forward like a flash, he lifted the dog and placed his paws upon his breast, sustaining him with his arms.
It was touching to witness the gratitude of the old pointer, his whining and his whimpering and his eagerness to lick the face that he might not behold. He was happy, let us hope, if but for a moment. Suddenly he fell,—fell as though stricken with heart-disease, all in a heap; then tumbling over and measuring his length along the carpet, his head came down upon the floor with a thump.
There he lay motionless,—motionless, save that every now and then his tail beat the floor softly, softly, and in a sort of drowsy rhythm, as though he but dreamt that he wagged it,—gently tapped the floor and ceased; once more, and stopped again, and yet again; and he was still. The stranger knelt over the outstretched form of the dying pointer.
“Ponto! Ponto, old boy! Can you hear me? Yes? Then good-by, dear old fellow, good-by!”
Deaf as he was, and breathing his last, that name and that voice seemed to penetrate the fast-closing channels of sense; and with two or three last fluttering taps—he had no other way—he seemed to say farewell, and forever.
The young man rose, and, staggering across the room, threw his arm over his face and leaned against the wall. Charley made two or three hasty, forwardstrides, then halted with a hesitating look, then springing forward, placed a hand on either shoulder of the figure before him, and leaned upon his neck.
“Dory!” whispered he, in a voice that trembled.
A shiver, as from an electric shock, ran through the stalwart frame of the stranger. For a moment he seemed to hesitate; the next he had wheeled about, and, clasping his companion in his mighty arms, hugged him to his breast.
“Charley!” cried he, in a broken voice; and his head rested upon the shoulder of his friend.
I greatly fear that when I stated, somewhere in the course of the foregoing narrative, that I had firmly resolved to exclude love-making from its pages,—I greatly fear that none of my readers gave me credit for sincerity. Yet it was not a stroke of Bushwhackerish humor; I was in sober earnest, and was never more convinced than at this moment of the folly of breaking my original resolution. Here I am with three pairs of lovers on my hands,—all sighing like very furnaces—I, who am quite incapable of managing one couple. I suppose I have only myself to blame. I assembled a number of young Virginians in a country house. I should have known better. Yet, when I brought them together, it was an understood thing (on my part, at least) that there was to be no nonsense.
The truth is, I think I have a just right to complain of my characters. I had a little story to tell,—the simplest in the world—the merest monograph,—and I introduced the main body of my personages as a setting, merely; just as a jeweller surrounds a choice stone with small pearls to bring its color into fuller relief.
And here they are, upsetting everything.
Look at Billy, for instance. I could not have gottenon at all without him. In the first place, no Christmas party at Elmington could have been complete without him and his jovial laugh. It would have been against all nature not to have invited him, and equally against Billy’s nature to have stayed away. But as ill luck would have it, his girl, though of a different county, must needs be of the party; but I, knowing nothing of this, caused him to gallop up to the Hall, that cold Christmas Eve, simply that he might enliven the company with his “Arkansas Traveller” and the rest of his not very classic repertoire, and still more by his memorable dive under the table. Now I like my Billy; but his loves are not to our purpose. And so—for I cannot have the course of my story marred any longer by his antics—I have shipped him off to the University. Imagine him bursting into No. 28, East Lawn, and shaking his room-mate’s hand to the verge of dislocation. Five or six cronies have crowded in to welcome the truant back (writhing, each in turn, under the grasp of his obtrusively honest hand).
“No, Tom, you need not take that old gourd out of the box. My fiddling days are over.”
“What!” exclaimed an indignant chorus.
“Come back solemn?” asked Tom. “Bad luck?”
Billy colored a little. “Solemn? Not I. But oh, boys, I have such a story to tell you! You like to hearmescrape,—wh-e-e-w!”
“What is it?”
Jones threw back his head and gave a roar as though Niagara laughed. While he is telling the story of his discomfiture we will take our leave of him; for as soon as the chorus have departed, he will begin to tell his friend Tom about his girl, and we have no time to listen to any more of that. But he is such a good fellow that I think we may forgive him the delay his loves have cost us.
It is somewhat harder to pardon Charley’s falling in love so inopportunely; but even as to him my heart relents when I remember that it was his first offence, and how penitent, how sheepish, even, were his looks, whenever I alluded to his fall. Let him go on castingout of the corners of his eyes timid, admiring glances at the inimitable Alice; drinking in deep, intoxicating draughts of her merry, laughter-spangled talk; happy in her presence; in her absence fiercely wondering why, in this otherwise wisely-ordered world (as we Virginians have been taught to believe it), he alone was a stammering idiot. Let all this go on, and more; but as with Jones, so with Charley, their loves must equally be brushed from the path of this story.
The case of lover No. 3 presents greater difficulties. When I recall certain passages of the preceding narrative, I am forced to acknowledge that, in the case of the Don, I have unwittingly entered into an implied obligation to my readers. Unwittingly, for I solemnly assure them that when (for instance) I described the gallant rescue of Alice and Lucy by the stalwart stranger, it did not so much as cross my mind what tacit promise I thereby held out. Had I been a novel-writer or even a novel-reader, instead of the philosopher and bushwhacker that I am, it could not have escaped me that by suffering two of my heroines to be valiantly rescued from deadly peril by a handsome, nay, a mysterious and hence painfully interesting young man, I had, in effect, signed a bond to bring about a marriage between the rescuer and one of the rescued, or both; the more charming of the two being reserved for the end of the book, the less to be thrown in earlier as a sort of matrimonial sop to Cerberus,—an hymeneal luncheon, as it were. Yes, I allowed one of my heroes to rescue two of my heroines, while a third gazed trembling upon the scene from her latticed window. Nay, worse; for whether drawn on insensibly by the current of events, or hurried thereto by the entreaties of my friend and collaborator, Alice, who, woman-like, declared that she would have nothing to do with my book unless I put some love in it,—whether inveigled, therefore, or cajoled, it is a fact that I have made allusion here and there, in the course of these pages, to such sighings and oglings and bosom-heavings and heart-flutterings, accompanied by such meaning starts and deep ineffable glances, that I am willing toadmit what Alice claims: that it would be almost an actual breach of faith not to tell people what it all meant.
“If you are going to write a novel, Jack” (I have been plain Jack since she married Charley), “why don’t you write one and be done with it?”
“How many times must I tell you that I am not writing a novel, but a philosophico-bushwhackerian monograph on the theme—”
“Bushwhackerian fiddlestick!” cried Alice, impatiently, but unable to suppress a smile at the rolling thunder of my title. “You may write your monograph, as you call it, but who would read it?”
It was during this discussion that Alice agreed to edit the love-passages that illumine these pages. Butwhatlove-passages? After much debate we effected a compromise. If she would engage to spare the reader all save a mere allusion to the heart-pangs of the jovial Jones, she should have full liberty to revel through whole chapters in the loves of the Don. “As for your little affair with Charley,” I added, “I agree to dress that up myself.”
“Indeed, indeed, Jack, if you were to put Mr. Frobisher and myself in your book—and—and—make him—”
“Make him—” (Here I smiled.)
“You know, you villain!”
“Stammer forth praises of your loveliness?”
“You dare!”
And so we are reduced to a single pair of lovers: the Don and—
But he was enough. At the period at which we are now arrived, his conduct became more perplexing than ever. The neighborhood was divided into two camps, one maintaining that Mary found favor in his eyes, the other that Lucy and music had carried the day. Mostof the gentlemen were of the latter party. They pointed out his frequent visits across the River, the hours he spent playing for or with her, his obvious efforts to win the good-will of her mother. Some few of the girls were on our side; and I remember that they, at times, commented with some asperity on the alleged court that the Don paid Mrs. Poythress,—rather plainly signifying that intheircase a swain would find it to his interest to make love to them rather than to their mothers. But a majority of the girls, headed by Alice, scouted the idea of the Don’s being enamoured of the gentle Lucy; the difference between their party and that of the men being that they could give no reason for the faith that was in them. They thought so—they knew it—well, we should see—persisted they, in their irritating feminine way.
As a natural result of this state of things, there arose among us a sort of anti-Don party. His popularity began to wane. What did he mean by playing fast and loose with two girls? Why did he not declare himself for one or the other? Whowashe, in fact?
But against this rising tide of disapprobation Charley was an unfailing bulwark. It was obvious to all that a close intimacy had sprung up between Frobisher and the Don. They were continually taking long walks together. Secluded nooks of porches became their favorite resting-places. The murmur of their voices was often to be heard long after the rest of the family had retired for the night. Charley, therefore, gave this suspicious character the stamp of his approval, and that approval sustained him in our little circle. I sayourlittle circle, though I, of course, had long since returned to Richmond, and my supposed practice at the bar. Fortunately for the reader, Alice remained on the scene; else where had been those delicious love-passages that are in store for us?
Of all this circle, Alice was most eager to ascertain the actual state of the Don’s sentiments. Nor was hers an idle curiosity. Her penetrating eyes had not failed to pierce the veil of bravado by which Mary had sought to hide her heart from her friend. But didheloveher? She believed so,—believed half in dread, half in hope, Now was the time to learn something definite.
For the Poythresses had given a dinner, and she and Charley were promenading up and down the Oakhurst piazza. Presently, there sounded from the parlor the “A” on the piano, followed by those peculiar tones of a violin being tuned,—tones so charmingly suggestive, to lovers of music, so exasperating to others.
“Ah, they are going to play!” said my grandfather, quickly; and he turned to go into the parlor, followed by all of the promenaders save Charley and Alice, who still strode to and fro, arm in arm.
“They are going to play,” repeated he, as he got to the door, turning and nodding to Charley, and then passed briskly within.
At this some of the girls smiled, and Charley reddened, poor fellow, and bit his lip; while Alice gazed, unconscious, at two specks of boats in the distance.
Suddenly Mr. Whacker reappeared, thrusting his ruddy countenance and snowy hair between the fair heads of two girls who were just entering the door,—a pleasing picture.
“The Kreutzer Sonata!” he ejaculated at Charley, and disappeared.
At this the two girls fairly giggled aloud, and, darting Parthian glances at Alice, tumbled through the hall into the parlor.
“What merry, thoughtless creatures we girls are!” said Alice, removing her gaze from the specks of sails.
“Yes, and no fellow can find out, half the time, what you are laughing about,—or thinking about, for the matter of that.”
“What! doyoudeem us such riddles,—you who, they say, can read one’s thoughts as though we were made of glass?”
“I? And who says that of me, pray?”
“Everybody says it.Isay it,” she added, with a smile of saucy defiance.
“I read people’s thoughts!”
“Do you disclaim the gift?”
“Even to disclaim it would be preposterously vain.”
Charley would have avoided that word “preposterous” had he bethought him, in time, how many p’s it contained. His face was red when he had stumbled and floundered through it, and his eyes a trifle stern. He had been a stammerer from boyhood, but of late his infirmity had begun to annoy him strangely.
“Then, modest young man, I suppose you have yet to learn the alphabet of mind-reading?”
“Yes,—that is, women’s minds.”
“Women’s minds? Do you think that we are harder to read than men? Do you think, for example, that people find it harder to see through such an unsophisticated girl as myself than such a deep philosopher as you?”
“You? Why, you are an unfathomable m-m-m-mystery?” (“Confound it!”)
“The idea! I a mystery? And this from you, unreadable sphinx!”
“Yes, and unfathomable! Why, I have no idea what you think upon the—upon—well, all sorts of subjects.”
Charley caressed with a shy glance the toes of his boots, and felt red.
“Indeed? How strange!” And she gazed upon the dots of boats and felt pale.
“Yes; for example, I have often wondered what in fact, for example, you thought, for instance, of—of—of—me, for instance. Oh, no, no, of course not, I beg your pardon; of course I never imagined for a moment, of course not, that you ever thought of me at all, in fact. What I mean is, that whenever you did think of me,—though I presume you never did for an instant, of course,—I mean that if by chance, when you had nothing else to think about, and I happened to pass by—Oh, Lord!” cried Charley, clasping in his hand his burning brow.
What is the matter with my people? Chatterbox reduced to monosyllables, and the Silent Man pouring forth words thick as those that once burst from the deep chest of Ulysses of many wiles; andthey, as we all know, thronged thick as flakes of wintry snow.
“Don’t you think I am an idiot? Have you theleastdoubt of it?” exclaimed the poor fellow, with fierce humility.
Alice gave a little start and looked up.
“A confounded stammering idiot?”
“Mr. Frobisher!”
He didn’t mean it. Charley could never have done such a thing on purpose; but his left arm suddenly threw off all allegiance to his will, and actually pressed a certain modest little dimpled hand against his heart so hard that it blushed to the finger-tips. Alice looked down with quickened breath, slackened pace; but Charley swept her forward with loftier stride, drawing in mighty draughts of air, and glaring defiance at the universe. He did not, however, stride over the railing at the end of the piazza. Taking advantage of the halt—
“Strange!” said Alice, in a low voice; “do you know that I, too, have often wondered what you thought of me? Seeing you sitting, silent and thoughtful, while I was rattling on in my heedless way, I often wondered whether you did not think me a chatterer destitute as well of brains as of heart. No? Really and truly? You are very kind to say so!”
“Kind!” exclaimed Charley. “Kind! ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻.”
“✻ ✻ ✻ ✻” said Alice, looking down—“✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻.”
“✻ ✻ ✻” continued Charley, “✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ yes, ✻ ✻ first and only ✻ ✻ Richmond ✻ ✻ very first moment ✻ ✻ never again ✻ ✻ dreaming and waking ✻ ✻ despair ✻ ✻ torments of the ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ abyss!”
“✻ ✻ ✻ mere passing fancy? ✻ as ever were caught out of it. ✻ ✻ Richmond ✻ week ✻ ✻ ✻ out of sight, out of ✻ ✻.”
“✻ ✻ ✻ ey, fiercely, ✻ ✻ ✻ while life ✻ yonder river flows down to the sea ✻ ✻ ✻ by all that’s ✻ ✻ never ✻ ✻ ✻ so long as the stars ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ no, never!”
“✻ ✻ ✻ naturally enough ✻ ✻ country-house ✻ ✻ ✻ passing whim ✻ absence ✻ ✻ ✻ another dear charmer ✻ ✻ effaced.”
“No ✻ ✻ graven ✻ ✻ indelible ✻ ✻ revolve upon its axis ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ sheds her light ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ shall beat ✻ ✻ ✻ obliterated!”
“✻ ✻ ✻ others ✻ ✻ vows ✻ before ✻ and yet ✻ ✻ ✻ woman’s confiding nature ✻ ✻ forgotten.”
“✻ ✻ ✻ then if ✻ ✻ bid me ✻ not ✻ altogether ✻ ✻ permit me ✻ ✻ ✻ absolute aversion ✻ ✻ ✻ grow into ✻ ✻ time ✻ ✻ ✻ fidelity ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ray of hope?”
“✻ ✻ ✻ so totally unexpected,” [Oh!!!J. B. W.] “✻ ✻ ✻ breath away with surprise ✻ ✻ ✻ my own mind ✻ ✻ test ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ both of us ✻ ✻ for the present ✻ ✻ as though not said.”
“✻ ✻” said he, “✻ ✻ ✻ absolute dislike?”
“✻ ✻ ✻” dropping her eyes, “✻ ✻ ✻ cannot altogether deny ✻ ✻ at times ✻ acknowledge ✻ ✻ ✻ perhaps ✻ ✻.”
Here the cooing of these turtle-doves was interrupted.
“The adagio is about to begin!” [Does the learned counsel allude, when he speaks of the “adagio,” to theandante con variazioniof Beethoven’s so-called Kreutzer Sonata,—A major, Opus 47? But did a lawyer ever count for anything outside of his briefs?Ch. Frobisher.[1]]
“The adagio be—” thought Charley, with a flash of heat; but reined himself back on that modest little verb; so that no man will ever know what he intended to think. [A thousand pities, too, for as his mind,though originally sound, never had the advantage of legal training, ’tis a recreation that he treats it to but seldom.J. B. W.]
My grandfather has passed out of the parlor on tiptoe, to make this announcement; though why on tiptoe (there being an intermission in the music) I leave to psychologists to determine.
The two giggling girls had popped into seats near the door; and when they saw him moving past them, bent on his errand of mercy (Charley was not to miss the adagio), they fell upon each other’s necks and wept sunny tears.