[1]Dance of the period.
[1]
Dance of the period.
[2]Clothes.
[2]
Clothes.
[3]If our fierce Bushwhacker could but witness the annual parade of our New York Coaching Club, he would be heartily ashamed of this venomous passage.—Ed.
[3]
If our fierce Bushwhacker could but witness the annual parade of our New York Coaching Club, he would be heartily ashamed of this venomous passage.—Ed.
Never, perhaps, was there a merrier Christmas party than that which was now laughing and chattering as they seated themselves before that noble hickory fire which lit up the Hall with its ruddy glow. Thepleasantest thing of all was to see the happy change that had come over the Don. He was a different man. That air of self-restraint and conscious reserve, which had never left him before, had entirely vanished. It was evident that, whatever his motives for concealing his musical talents, it was an immense relief to him to have abandoned the singular rôle he had been playing; and his long-imprisoned feelings had bounded up like a released spring. We hardly knew him. He was not only unconstrained and cheerful, he was even jolly. “I say, old boy,” said he, slapping Jones on the shoulder, “you must not suppose that it was I who laid that trap for you yesterday evening. My playing was purely unintentional,—even involuntary. But who could have resisted Uncle Tom?” This was the first time he had ever called my grandfather by that name.
“No apologies, no apologies,” replied Billy. “Mr. Charles Frobisher set that snare for my unwary feet.”
“Not at all,” rejoined Charley. “I kept my wary feet out of it, that was all.”
“But wasn’t it capital!” cried Jones; and showing all his massive white teeth, he made the hall resound with a laugh that echoed contagiously from group to group.
But there was one person in the room who did not share in the general joyousness,—our friend Mary. She had taken her stand apart, by a window that commanded the western horizon; and turning with a half-startled air, at the sound of the laughter, responded to it with a faint and preoccupied smile. In truth, the poor child was ill at ease; though what it was that troubled that young heart none of my readers, I feel assured, would ever guess. Yet, while to most of them the cause of her annoyance will appear whimsical in the extreme, as it was characteristic of her to suffer from such a cause, I must state it, and towards this end a few prefatory words will be necessary.
Neither the Virginians nor the American people, nor any branch of the great race from which they spring, are lovers of music. Our boys, it is true, will troop up and down the streets of village or city, following theband-wagon of a circus. We manufacture an enormous number of the very best pianos in the world, and thousands of our girls labor for years learning to play a few tunes on them. Mothers without number pinch themselves that their daughters may have the desired instruction. It is the correct thing. Yet, her graduating concert over, her piano soon ceases to constitute any more considerable element of a girl’s happiness, or that of her family, than her copy of Euclid.
Yet, although English of the purest breed, there are Virginians who really love music; just as you shall find Spaniards with red hair, bashful Irishmen, women with beards, hens that crow, bullies with courage, mules without guile, and short sermons and true happiness. I do not allude to our charming girls who flock to the occasional opera that visits Richmond,—for in Richmond, as elsewhere, there are dozens of reasons for flocking to the opera.
No; I had in my mind the far-famed Virginia fidddler—mock him not, ye profane—who, though frowned upon by the moralist, viewed askance from the pulpit, without honor as without profit in his own country, still scrapes away as merrily as he can under the load of obloquy that weighs him down. But his devotion, if heroic, wins him no glory; for the people of Virginia, forgetting, with the usual ingratitude of republics, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, regard the worthlessness of the whole fiddling tribe as axiomatic. Nay, worse, there is a vague feeling that the thing is vulgar.
Now, in that word lies the key to Mary Rolfe’s distress of mind. Born and bred in the midst of that singularly pure, and simple, and refined society of Richmond in the ante-bellum days, inheriting from her father a love of all that was most beautiful in English prose and verse, as well as led by his hand to the nooks where were to be culled its choicest flowers; her manners formed and her instincts moulded by her mother upon the classic types of Virginia patrician life of the olden time, she was more than a representative of her class. The refined delicacy of her nature amounted,if not to a fault, at least to a misfortune. In the society of those like herself she was easy, affable, winning; but the slightest deviation from high breeding chilled her into silence and unconquerable reserve. The most trivial social solecism shocked, vulgarity stunned her.
And fiddling!
According to her high-wrought soul the thing was unworthy of a gentleman. Nor is this so much to be wondered at, for, although distinguished violinists had visited Richmond, it so happened that she had never heard one. Her knowledge of violin music was confined to fiddling pure and simple,—the compositions, jigs and reels; the performers, as a rule, negroes.
If, then, I have in any measure succeeded in depicting Mary as she really was,—an exquisitely refined, oversensitive girl just out of school, her head full of poetry and romance, her heart beginning to flutter with a sweet pain in presence of an Ideal Hero, so suddenly, so strangely encountered,—my reader (being a woman) will appreciate the shock she felt on that Christmas morning. It will be remembered that it was Aunt Phœbe who had been the first to describe the Don’s performance to the young ladies.
“Play de fiddle? Canheplay de fiddle? I b’lieve you, honey! Why, Lor’ bless me, I do p’int’ly b’lieve into my soul dat Mr. Smith is de top fiddler of de Nunited States!”
A fiddler! And a top fiddler! Shades of Byron and of Bulwer! Mary felt an icy numbness at her heart.
Half an hour afterwards, when the two girls were nearly ready for breakfast, she was standing behind Alice, pinning on her collar.
“Oh, Alice,” cried the little hypocrite, suddenly, as though the thought had but just occurred to her, “what charming music we shall have now!”
“Oo-ee,” cried Alice, shrinking.
“Ah, did I prick your neck?”
“Yes; but no matter. Oh, yes, I am just dying to hear him play,—and play he shall, or my name is not Alice Carter. There you go again! Bear in mind, please, that the collar is to be pinned to my dress, notto my lovely person. Whatcouldhave induced him to hide such an accomplishment!” added she, stamping her little foot.
“There! That sets very nicely! I don’t know what made me so awkward. So you think it is—wait a moment,—ah, that’s just right,—an accomplishment?”
One man in a thousand may acquire somewhat of the art, but every woman is born a perfect actress. True, you shall not see this perfection on the stage. There the ambition of women is to be actresses, rather than actresses women.
It was perfect! But Alice was not thrown off the scent.
Men can deceive men; men may hoodwink women, and be hoodwinked in turn; but it has not been given to one woman to throw dust into the eyes of another. The silliest girl can see through the most astute as though she were of glass.
“An accomplishment? What? To pin people’s collars to their necks?”
“Of course not, goosey! An accomplishment for gentlemen to play on the fid—violin?”
“Oh!” said Alice, dryly. “Why, of course it is. Any art which gives pleasure is an accomplishment.”
“Yes, I know; but—”
“Go on.”
“I don’t think it is—exactly—oh, I don’t know what I think about it.”
“But I do,” replied Alice, quickly, turning and facing her friend.
“And what do you know that I think, that I do not know myself?” said Mary, putting her hands on Alice’s shoulders, drawing her close, and smiling affectionately into her eyes.
“Don’t you remember my laughing, once, at school, over the story about Alcibiades’ refusing to learn to play on the flute, because he deemed the necessary puckering of the mouth undignified, and that you thought he was right? Heroes, my dear, according to your romantic notions, must always be heroic.”
“Heroes!” exclaimed Mary, with wide-eyed innocence. “Who, pray, mentioned heroes!” But a heightened color tinged her cheeks.
Alice, without making reply, placed her hand over Mary’s heart, and stood as though counting its beats. “’Tis a dear little heart,” mused she, “but—”
“But what?”
“But very susceptible, I fear.” And lifting her right hand, she shook her forefinger at her friend. “Take care!” said she, with a voice and look half serious, half jocular.
“Oh, don’t be uneasy about me!” And with a bright smile on her flushed face Mary frisked away to join some of the other girls who were descending to the breakfast-room.
Falling in love is like getting drunk,—we blush when we betray symptoms of the malady, yet rejoice in its progress!
We now return to our friends assembled in the Hall.
Especially among the ladies who had not heard the Don’s first performance, expectation was on tiptoe. The excellent Herr is bustling about, rubbing his hands, and smiling through his spectacles the vast Teutonic smile. Charley places the case containing the Guarnerius upon the table. The Don opens it with an almost nervous eagerness.Sheis to hear him, and he will outdo himself.
But where is she? Presently he espies her partly concealed behind the stalwart form of Jones. She is gazing at the western sky,—she alone of all the company unconscious that he is about to play.
The thought is a sudden shock. And then he remembers that she alone of the ladies had made no allusion, during the day, to the performance of the evening before,—had expressed no regret at not having been present.
The artist nature is caprice itself,—changeful as an April sky; and the Don with sudden impulse released the neck of the violin, which sank back upon its luxurious cushion of blue satin. He would excuse himself,—hecouldnot play. But the strings, vibrating beneath an accidental touch, gave forth a chord, and instantly reversed the current of his feelings. Yes, he would play; and taking up the instrument, he sauntered over, with as careless an air as he could command, to the window by which Mary stood, touching the strings lightly as he went, as though to see whether they were in tune. Mary felt his approach; and partly turning her face and raising her eyes to his, as he reached her side, she said, with what was meant for a smile, “Now we shall have some merry music.” And she dropped her eyes.
“Why merry?”
Mary, startled as well by the abruptness of the question as by a certain hardness in his voice, gave a quick glance at his face.
“Why, is not the violin—” began she, but could get no farther,—held, as was the Wedding Guest by the glittering eye of the Ancient Mariner.
“Is this, then, a merry world?”
The smile faded from Mary’s face. These words had thrilled her; for it was not by nature a blithesome heart that beat in that young bosom, and its strings gave forth readiest response to minor chords. A slight tremor ran through her frame as she met the gaze of his darkly gleaming eyes, and a vague sense of having in some way wounded his feelings oppressed her mind.
Perhaps he read her thoughts; for in an instant a reassuring smile—sad, almost pathetic—came into his eyes, followed by a look,—one momentary, indescribable glance; and her untutored heart began to throb so that she thought he must hear it.
“I, at least,” he added, slowly, “have not found it such, so far; and see,” said he, pointing with his bow to the faint streaks of red that tinged the western horizon,—“still another Christmas Day—and the only happy one that I have known since I was a child—one moreChristmas Day—is dying!” And his voice trembled as he averted his face.
Mary felt a choking sensation in her throat; for a kindred thought had been weighing upon her naturally melancholy spirit, as she stood there gazing upon the western sky; and the Don, in giving voice to her inmost thoughts, had touched a chord that thrilled with overmastering power. As he moved away to take his place by the piano, she sank into a chair trembling from head to foot. They had stood together by the window hardly one minute, and had not exchanged above a dozen words; yet as she followed his retiring form with her eyes, he was no longer the same person to her that he had been a moment before. She was stricken to the heart, and she knew it.
The Don spoke to Charley in a low voice. “Yes,” replied he, “we have it;” and hurrying into the adjoining room he soon returned, bearing in his hand some sheet music. “Thanks,” said the Don, placing the piano-part before the Herr, and laying the violin score upon the piano. “Never mind about the stand; I know it by heart. Can you read yours, Mein Herr, by the light of the fire?”
“Oh, I tink so.” And adjusting his spectacles, he looked at the title of the piece. “De Elegie von Ernst! Ah, das ist vat you call very sat, very vat you call melancholish,”—and he struck a chord. “So!”—and poising his hands, he glanced upwards to signify his readiness to begin.
A sudden stillness came over us at the sight of the sombre face of the Don. Obviously, we all felt there was to be a change of programme. There were to be no musical fireworks on this occasion.
Had the Don been a consummate actor, posing for effect, he could not have brought his audience into more instant, more complete harmony with the spirit of the piece he was about to render. Tall, broad-shouldered, gaunt, he seemed in the ruddy glare of the great bank of coals to tower above us, while his eyes, fixed for a moment with a far-away look upon the fire, seemed doubly dark in contrast with the red light upon his brow.
He placed the violin beneath his dark, flowing beard, and poised the bow above the strings.
I fear that but few of my readers will follow me in this scene. To have heard pathetic music only in theatres and concert-halls, amid a sea of careless faces distracted by bright toilets, and under the glare of gaslight, is to have heard it, indeed, but not to have felt it. The “Miserere” chanted in the dim religious light of St. Peter’s rends the heart of the listener. It has been found to be meaningless elsewhere. For the power of music, as of eloquence, lies in the heart of the hearer,—a heart prepared beforehand by the surroundings.
On the present occasion everything was in the artist’s favor,—the dying day, the spectral glare and shadow wrought by the glowing coals, the reaction after a week of frolic gladness.
The bow descended upon the G string, softly as a snow-flake, but clinging as a mother’s arm.
Ernst has obeyed Horace’s maxim, and plunged at once into the middle of his story. With the very first tone of the violin there seems to break from the overwrought heart a low moan, which, rising and swelling, leaps, in the second note, into a cry of rebellious anguish,—anguish too bitter to be borne; despair were more endurable; and in the fourth bar the voice of the crushed spirit sinks into a weird, muttered whisper of resignation unresigned. The whole story is there,—there in those four bars, but the poet begins anew and sings his sorrow in detail; pouring forth a lament so passionate in its frenzy that it almost passes, at times, the bounds of true music (for can you not hear the sobs, see the wringing of the hands?), and rising, at last, to a climax that is almost insupportable, the voice of wailing then sinks—for all is over—into a low plaint, and dies into silence.
TheMarcia Funebreof the Eroica symphony is the lament of a nation of Titans; in Ernst’s Elegie one poor human heart is breaking—breaking all alone. I have heard the piece since in crowded halls and beneath the blaze of chandeliers, and performed by artists morefinished, no doubt, than was the Don; but the effect he wrought I have never seen approached. All eyes were riveted upon him while he played, and when he ceased—when the last despairing sigh died upon the air—no one moved, not a note of applause was given, and the only sound heard was that of long-drawn breaths of relief.
It was an intense moment. My grandfather was the first to break the spell. Approaching the Don with a tender look in his eyes, he tried, I think, to speak a few words, but could only press his hand. Then there arose a subdued murmur of whispered enthusiasm, each one to his neighbor. At last—
“Billy,” said the middle-aged-fat-gentleman, “I give it up,—he can beat you.” And a ripple of laughter relieved the tension.
And Mary?
She and the Don happened to be among the last to leave the hall, and he offered her his arm. Neither spoke for a few moments.
“How silly you must have thought me!”
“I assure you—”
“Oh, but you must. But I had never heard anything but fiddling before. Do you know,” she added gravely, “I doubt if any of the company understood all that you meant, save myself?”
“And are you quite sure thatyouunderstood all that I felt?”
Mary looked up and their eyes met. Releasing his arm as she passed into the house, she colored deeply.
“Is not this Thursday?” suddenly asked my grandfather, at breakfast, a week or so after the events just described. “It is? Then this is the day for the Poythress’s return. Ah, now we shall have music.”
A man talking with another may look him in theface for an hour without knowing one of his thoughts; a woman will flash a careless glance across your face,—across it—no more,—and read you to the heart.
Alice and Mary beamed upon each other and ejaculated, “Lucy!” But Mary’s eyes had had time to sweep the features of the Don. “Won’t it be charming to have Lucy with us!” said she; but she hardly knew what she said. Her face, turned towards Alice, wore a mechanical smile; but she saw only the Don and the startled, almost dazed look that came over his face on hearing Mr. Whacker’s words. How brave a little woman can be! She turned to the Don and said,—a seraphic smile upon her face,—“You have never heard Lucy play. You have a great treat in store.”
“No,” replied he, dropping his napkin. “No,” repeated he, his eye fixed upon vacancy. He had heard with his ears and answered with his lips. That was all. Suddenly recollecting himself, he turned to her with a bow and a courteous smile: “Yes, it will be a great treat,—very great;” but his thoughts, mightier than his will, swept the smile from his features and left them pale and rigid as before.
How many thoughts crowded upon Mary’s heart in that instant! “What a silly school-girl I have been! A word here and a word there, during these last ten days, have made me forget the intense interest he obviously took in Lucy at first sight. After all, what has he said to me? Nothing, absolutely nothing! And yet I was so weak as to imagine—and now he has learned of a new bond of sympathy—music—between Lucy and himself. Why did I learn nothing but waltzes and variations and such trash? If only—too late! And he has seen so little of her! That dream, too,—that strange, terrible dream,—should have warned me. And now Lucy is coming. Lucy! is she, then, so superior to me? She is as good as an angel, I know; but I thought that I—wretched vanity again”—and she stamped her foot—“yet Alice has thought so too—else why—surely, he cannot have been trifling with me? Never! Of that, at least, he is incapable! Such a noblecountenance as his could not—” And for a second she lifted her eyes to his—
“Yes, Zip, I’ll take one.”
“Girls,” said Alice, “just look at Mary; an untasted waffle on her plate and taking another!”
Mary gave one of those ringing laughs that so infest the pages of female novelists.
“Is there to be a famine?” asked one.
“Or is the child falling in love?” chimed in Alice; but without raising her eyes from her empty coffee-cup, in the bottom of which she was writing and re-writing her initials with the spoon.
To all the rest of the company these words seemed as light and careless as the wind. Not so to Mary. Her heart leaped; but, by some subtle process known only to women, she forbade the blood to mount into her cheek.
“I warn you to beware,” said Mr. Whacker. “Full many a heart has been lost in this house!”
“Allhearts, I must believe,” rejoined Mary, with a bow and half-coquettish smile.
My grandfather placed his hand upon his heart and bent low over the table, amid the approving plaudits of the company. Charley did the same. “There are two of us,” he explained; “Uncle T-T-Tom and myself.”
“He is laughing now; how he seems to admire Mr. Frobisher! But why did he turn pale, just now, at the mention of Lucy’s name? I have never read anywhere of love’s producing that effect, certainly. Perhaps—perhaps, after all, he did not change color. My imagination, doubtless. No, I am not mistaken! Why, his brow is actually beaded with perspiration! incomprehensible enigma! would to heaven I had never met him! and yet—”
If any of my young readers shall be so indiscreet as to fall in love with enigmas, let them not lay the folly to my charge. I most solemnly warn them against it.
Poor little Mary watched the Don all that day with that scrutiny so piercing, and yet so unobtrusive, of which a woman’s eye alone is capable,—hopefully fearingto discover the truth of what she fearfully hoped was not true; but it was not before the sun had sunk low in the west, and she had begun to convince herself of the illusory character of her observations at the breakfast-table, that she got such reward as that of the woman who, after twenty years’ searching, at last found a burglar under her bed.
As the time approached at which the Poythress family should arrive (at their home across the river), my grandfather would go out upon the piazza every few minutes, and after looking across the broad river return and report that there were no signs of the carriage.
“It is not yet time by half an hour,” said Charley, looking at his watch.
“At any rate I’ll get the telescope and have it ready,” replied he, as he passed into the dining-room; returning, bearing in his hand one of those long marine glasses so much used at that time. “This is a remarkably fine glass,” said he to the Don.
The Don was seated behind Alice’s chair, helping her to play her hand at whist, if that name be applicable to a rattling combination of cards, conversation, and bursts of laughter.
“Last summer,” continued Mr. Whacker, “I counted with it a hen and seven small chickens on the Poythress’s lawn—”
“Mr. Frobisher!” cried Alice. “There you are trumping my ace!”
“Charley!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker, with reproachful surprise.
“And, Uncle Tom, would you believe it,—he has made three revokes already? What ought to be done to such a partner?”
Jones, who ought to have been back at the University long since, was, on the contrary, seated at a neighboring card-table. He remembered the scrape that Charley had gotten him into on Christmas Eve.
“I don’t think,” said he, soliloquizing, as he slowly dealt out the cards, “that I could love a partner who revoked.”
A smile ran around the tables. Charley bit his lip.
“What, Charley!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker. “The ace of trumps second in hand, and you had another!”
“I wanted to take that particular trick,” said Charley, doggedly.
Charley and Jones were sitting back to back, their chairs almost touching. Jones turned around, and, with his lips within an inch of the back of Charley’s head, spoke in measured tones, “He—is—after—a—particular—trick, Uncle Tom; hence his peculiar play.”
Every one laughed, even Charley. Alice’s cheeks rivalled the tints of the conch-shell; and Mary, charmed to see her for once on the defensive, clapped her hands till half her cards were on the floor.
I should not have said that everybody laughed, for my grandfather did not even smile. No suspicion of the state of things to which Jones had maliciously alluded had ever crossed his mind. He was totally absorbed in contemplation of the enormity of playing out one’s ace of trumps second in hand. And that Charley—Charley, whom he had trained from a boy to the rigor of the game according to Hoyle—thatheshould seem to defend such—so—so horrible a solecism! It was too much. He was a picture to look at, as he stood erect, the nostrils of his patrician nose dilated with a noble indignation, his snowy hair contrasting with his dark and glowing eyes, that swept from group to group of mirthful faces, and back again, sternly wondering at their untimely merriment.
“But, Uncle Tom,” put in Jones—
“No, no!” interrupted Mr. Whacker, with an impatient wave of his hand. “Nothing can justify such play.”
“But, Uncle Tom, suppose—”
“Very well,” replied Mr. Whacker, in a gentler tone, mollified by the anticipation of easy and certain victory, “very well; make your supposition.” And he assumed a judicial brow.
“Now, suppose that there is a particular hand—”
Billy paused.
“Well, go on.”
“Averyparticular hand.”
My grandfather’s eyes began to flash. The vast host of those who believe in playing “according to their hands” rose before his mind.
“Go on,” added he, controlling himself with an effort.
“Suppose there is a certain hand that a fellow—a hand that a certain fellow—for example—wants—wants—to get possession of.”
Charley winced, and Alice’s color rose in spite of her utmost efforts to look unconcerned.
“A hand that he wants to get possession of!” cried Mr. Whacker, with unspeakable amazement. “What gibberish is this? I was supposing all along that hehadthe hand!”
“No; but he wants it aw-ful-ly,” said Jones, with sepulchral solemnity.
Peal after peal of laughter arose, while Charley shuffled his cards with the vigor of desperation. Poor fellow, he had never been in love before, and—keen humorist that he was—he knew full well that no man could be in love without being at the same time ridiculous. My grandfather looked on, mystified but smiling. “This is one of your jokes,” said he, taking Billy by both ears.
“On the contrary, it is a case—ouch!—of the very deadest earnest that I have ever—smi-ling-ly beheld. But, honestly, Uncle Tom, suppose there was a suit—a suit, mind you—”
“C-c-c-cut the cards,” yelled Charley.
“A suit,” continued the implacable Billy, “that you were prosecuting—”
“Wished to establish, you mean.”
“Yes, a suit—”
“Uncle Tom,” cried Charley, almost upsetting the table, “I give it up. ’Twas an idiotic play I made.”
Billy threw back his head so that it rested on Charley’s shoulder. “When,” asked he, under cover of the general laughter,—“when are you going to cut your finger again?”
Just then Mr. Whacker appeared at the window andgave three brisk raps, and the girls went scampering out on the piazza, followed by the gentlemen, the Don bringing up the rear. There was a general waving of handkerchiefs, and the telescope passed from hand to hand.
“There they all are,” cried Alice, cheerily, peering through the glass with one eye and smiling brightly with the other: “Lucy and Mrs. Poythress on the back seat, her young brother and Mr. Poythress in front. They see us now,—there go the handkerchiefs! Ah, just look at little Laura, sitting in Lucy’s lap and waving for dear life! Here, Mary, take a look. How distinctly you see them!”
“Yes,” said Mary; but with the eye which seemed to be gazing through the telescope she saw nothing, while with the other she took in every motion of the Don. He was striding with irregular steps up and down the piazza, now mechanically waving his handkerchief, now thrusting it back into his pocket; at one time, as he stopped, his eyes fixed upon the floor; at another rolling with a kind of glare as he started suddenly forward. He strode past her, and his arm grazed her shoulder. She shivered. Had her companions observed it? She gave a quick glance, and was reassured. They were all waving in frantic, girlish glee, in response to the vigorous demonstrations across the River. The rainbow knew not of the neighboring thunder-cloud.
“What a terrible love,” she mused. “But, oh, to have inspired it!” He had not yet had the glass in his hand; she would offer it to him. Woman alone is capable of such self-sacrifice. She turned towards him as he was passing again, and, though a glance at his dark face almost unnerved her, she stood in his path and offered him the glass. A surprise was in store for her. Brought to himself, he looked startled at first, as though suddenly realizing who stood before him; and then, sudden as a flash of light, there came into his eyes a look so gentle and tender as to set her heart violently beating. Such a look, she felt, would have been a declaration of love in any other man,—but in an enigma?
“Take a look through the telescope,” said she, in a voice scarcely audible.
He raised the glass to his eye.
“Lucy is on this side,” said she, “with Laura in her lap.”
Her eyes were riveted upon his face now. What a change had come over it!
“Her mother sits next her; can’t you make out her white hair?”
The strong man’s lips quivered.
“She is dressed in black; can’t you see?”
His grasp tightened on the glass.
“She dresses always in black.”
The telescope began to tremble.
Just then Charley brushed quickly past her and stood beside the Don.
“That’s not the way to use one of these long Toms,” interposed he, with quiet decision. “They need a rest. Here, take this pillar.”
With a bow of acknowledgment the Don obeyed.
Mary’s eyes followed Charley with a searching look, as he carelessly sauntered off to the other end of the piazza, muttering half a dozen notes of a popular song; but his serene face gave no sign.
Friday came, and the Poythresses, having missed the Leicester Christmas festivities, were to dine with us that day. In the evening there was to be (no wonder my grandfather was out on the porch a dozen times, looking for the first oar-splash on the other side)—in the evening there was to be a quintet; and Mr. Whacker, who was as proud of Lucy as though she were his own daughter, wag eager to exhibit her prowess to the stranger. It must not be supposed, from my silence on this point, that we had had no music since Mr. Whacker’s discovery what a treasure he had in theDon. During this period we had had quartets, duets, solos innumerable. Christmas times, in fact, as understood at Elmington, had irresistible charms for Herr Waldteufel; and he had hardly left us for an hour.
And now the company at Elmington stood on the piazza watching the boat that, with measured stroke, approached the foot of the lawn.
“How charming to sail forth in a boat to dine!” said Alice.
“And then the moonlight row home,” added Mary; “it suggests Venice.”
As the boat neared the landing, there was a general movement from the piazza to meet the coming guests, my grandfather leading the way. He had not made many steps before he looked about him, and seeing the Don bringing up the rear, he slackened his pace. The Don came up biting his nails vigorously, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, but from time to time glancing nervously in the direction of the boat.
“We have invited the whole family, old and young,” began Mr. Whacker.
Mary, just in front, was drinking in with upturned face the soft nothings of some young man; but she chanced to turn her head sufficiently to catch the start with which the Don aroused himself from his revery at these words of his host.
“I thought you would like to see little Laura, too.”
“Ah, yes, little Laura; it was very thoughtful of you.”
“Have you ever heard the little thing sing? Upon my word, she promises to rival Lucy’s talent for music. They get it from their mother. But here they are.” And the old gentleman advanced with all the briskness of hospitality, if not of youth. Charley leaned forward, lifted Laura from the boat, and, kissing her, placed her upon the ground.
“Where is he?” cried she; “I don’t see him.” And she looked from face to face with shining eagerness.
“Yonder he is,” and away she skipped. “Here he is,” she shouted, twining her arms around his knees; “here is Don Miff, sister Lucy.”
There was a general smile, and he stooped and kissed her several times.
“And here is Mr. Fat-Whacker, sister Lucy,” cried she, running up and taking my hand.
“Sister Lucy,” her right hand held by one gentleman, her left by another, stood at this moment one foot on a seat, the other on the gunwale of the boat, balancing herself for a spring. It is certain that the color rose in her cheeks; but that may have been due to the rocking of the boat. Sister Lucy steadied herself for the leap.
“Mr. Fat-Whacker,” began our merry tattler, addressing herself to the Don, “is the one—”
Lucy, remembering Richmond and Laura’s side-walk confidences to the Don, on the occasion of her first interview with him, gave Mr. Fat-Whacker, as she sprang from the boat, a quick, appalled glance. He was equal to the occasion. “Yes,” cried he, seizing the explanatory cherub and tossing her high in the air, “here’s Mr. Fat-Whacker; and here,” he added, with another toss, “is Mr. Uncle Whacker; and here,” he continued, raising her at arm’s length above his head and holding her there while he made at her some of those faces that were her delight, “here iseverybody!”
Lucy gave Mr. F.-W. a glance, as she hurried past him to shake hands with the Don, that he thought was grateful; and he was stooping slightly to pat his little benefactress on the head, when he was sent whirling by a blow against the shoulder like that of a battering-ram.
It appears that Mrs. Poythress, during the merry confusion wrought by her little daughter, whether in her eagerness to shake hands with the man who, as she felt, had saved Lucy’s life, or else thinking that she needed no assistance, had attempted to alight from the boat unaided; but tripping, in some way, she was falling at full length upon the frozen ground. The Don saw her danger. He was almost six feet away from the boat, my shoulder was in the way, and Lucy’s fair hand was extended,—had touched his in fact,—when he sprang forward. ’Twas the spring of a leopard,—asswift and as unerring. Crouching, he alighted beneath her before she reached the ground, caught her as though she had been a ball, and springing to one side lightly as a cat, placed her feet, without a jar, upon the ground.
“Are you much hurt?” asked he, with a singular mixture of respectful deference and eager interest.
Women, whether old or young, generally form their opinion of a man during the first five minutes of their acquaintance. Mrs. Poythress, at least, was won by those few words, that one look of the stranger, and believed in him from that hour.
“Our introduction has been informal,” said she, extending her hand with a smile; “but you made my Lucy’s acquaintance in a manner equally unconventional. I have long desired to greet you and thank you.” And she raised her eyes to his. “I—” Mrs. Poythress paused. The Don stood holding her hand, bending over it, listening, but with eyes averted and cast upon the ground, reverence in every curve of his stalwart frame.
“You owe me no thanks,” said he, in a low murmur, and without raising his eyes. “Far from it.”
A mysterious feeling crept over Mrs. Poythress. Was it his eyes? Was it his voice? Or his manner? Was it something? Was it nothing? “I do feel rather weak. Perhaps I was a little jarred,” said she; “may I lean on your strong arm?” Bending low, he offered her his arm as a courtier would to a queen, but without the courtier’s smile; and they moved slowly towards the house.
“He is a gentleman of the old school,” thought Mr. Whacker.
“One would think,” mused Mary, “that he was already an accepted son-in-law.”
“A case of nubbin,” chirped Alice (a phrase I leave as a kind of sample bone of contention to the philologists of your day, my boy). She was leaning on Charley’s arm, and raised her eyes inquiringly. “Somehow, though,” added she, interpreting his silence as dissent, “somehow, I don’t altogether believe so.”
No reply.
She looked up again, and detected a faintly rippling smile struggling with the lines of his well-schooled features. He had heard her, then,—and half amused, half indignant, she gave his arm so sudden and vigorous a pull as visibly to disturb his balance.
“Why don’t you answer people?” said she, a little testily.
“You would not have a man hasty? Is it not best to treat people’s remarks as a hunter does wild ducks? Save your ammunition. Don’t fire at the first that comes; wait till you can bring down three or four at a shot. Besides, it is rude.”
“Rude?”
“Yes, to interrupt the current of people’s observations.”
“Well, you must interrupt the current of mine when I speak to you.”
“The tr-tr-tr-ouble is I’d rather hear you talk than talk myself.”
Three persons, walking behind this couple, had overheard these words,—to wit, Jones, Jones’s girl, and myself. By Jones’s girl I would be understood as referring to one of our Christmas party, through whose influence Jones had been led to infer that the lectures at the University immediately after Christmas were of comparatively minor importance. We were all struck by the absence of banter in Charley’s last remark. Jones looked at me, and opening wide his eyes, and dropping his chin, formed his mouth into a perfect circle.
“The old fox is caught,” whispered he; and taking another look, “sure pop!” he added,—an inelegant expression which I record with regret, and only in the interests of historic accuracy. Jones’s girl, while we smiled at Charley, had her woman’s eyes on Alice, and with raised brows and a nod directed our attention to her. Alice had obviously noticed the peculiar tone of Charley’s voice, and coyly dropped her eyes. “Mr. Frobisher,” she began, “I must beg your pardon.”
“For what, pray?”
“For my rudeness in pulling your arm, just now!”
“Oh, don’t speak of it,” and then a merry twinkle coming into his eyes, “it didn’t hurt a bit. I rather liked it. D-d-d-d-o it again.”
Just then Jones turned quickly, and, with the delighted look of a discoverer, snapped his head, first at his girl and then at me.
“You saw it?”
His girl nodded assent. Jones looked at me inquiringly.
“What was it?” I whispered.
“He squeezed her hand with his arm,—most positively—didn’t he?”
Jones’s girl looked assent.
“Hard?”
She nodded again,—laughter-tears bedimming her young eyes.
“The villain!” breathed Billy; and throwing back his head, he showed two rows of magnificent teeth, while his mouth, though emitting no sound, went through all the movements of Homeric laughter.
“Will,” said she, turning towards him,—“Will,” said she, softly, as she raised her eyes admiringly to his frank and manly face, “you are the greatest goose in the world.”
“And you the dearest duck on earth.”
So, at least, they seemed to me to say; but perhaps—for I admit that they spoke in whispers—perhaps I say this less as a hearer than as a Seer.
“Where is Mr. Smith?” asked Mrs. Carter, as she helped the company to soup.
“Yes, where is he?” repeated Mr. Whacker, looking up in surprise. “Perhaps he does not know that we are at dinner.”
“After conducting me to the parlor,” explained Mrs.Poythress, “he excused himself and went to his room. I fancied he was not very well.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Whacker. “Zip, you go—”
Charley made a motion to Moses,—Zip for short,—and rising from the table and bowing his excuses, he left the room.
“I am a little afraid,” continued Mrs. Poythress, turning to me, who chanced to be her nearest neighbor at table, “that your friend over-strained himself in that tremendous leap he made to save me from falling. I am sure I felt his arm tremble as we walked towards the house. Then he was so very silent. Is he always so?”
“Generally; though I do not think it is altogether natural to him. He seems to constrain himself to silence from some motive or other; but every now and then he loses control of himself, it would seem, and breaks forth into a real torrent of brilliant talk,—no, brilliant is not the word—though torrent is. When he bursts forth in this impassioned way, he carries everything before him. By the way, his leaping is of the same character. Do you know I had to change my shoes? For when he sprang to catch you, he actually knocked me into the water.”
“What eyes he has! Such a concentrated look! And no one,” she added after a pause, “has any idea who he is?”
“Not the slightest.”
“Is it possible? What a number of strange people your dear old grandfather has contrived to bring to Elmington from time to time! Where he has found them all, or how they have found him, has always been a mystery to me.”
“Yes, but the Don is not one of grandfather’s captures. Charley must have the credit of bringing him in.”
“Then he is a good man,” replied she, with decision. “Charley never makes any mistakes. But here comes Master Charles.”
Every one looked up on Charley’s entrance. As for that young man, he looked neither to the right nor tothe left. “Mr. Smith will be down presently,” said he to Mrs. Carter. As he strode around the room to take his chair, his firm-set lips wore a rather dogged expression, as though he would warn us all that, so far as he was concerned, the conversation was ended; and, hastily taking his seat, he began a vigorous attack on his soup, as if to overtake the rest of the company. Somehow every one was silent, and the isolated and rather rapid click of Charley’s spoon was distinctly audible. Alice smiled, and conversation beginning to spring up around the table, “I fear your soup is cold,” she began.
“The soup was cold?” asked he, looking up. “I am very sorry.”
“I didn’t say that,” replied she, quickly. “I remarked that I was afraid yours was cold.”
“Mine?” asked he, looking puzzled. “Why?”
“You were detained so long up-stairs.”
“Oh!” said he, renewing the assault upon the soup. “You are right,” he added; “it is ratherish cool.”
Alice was foiled. “I believe Mrs. Poythress called you.”
Charley leaned forward.
“Nothing serious, I hope?” asked Mrs. Poythress.
All eyes were fixed on Charley, every ear intent to hear his answer to this question, which Mrs. Poythress alone had ventured to ask. For a moment this master of fence and parry stood confounded; but only for a moment. “Nothing to speak of,” replied he, with careless simplicity, and, leaning back in his chair, he glanced at Uncle Dick. Richard, briskly, though with averted face, came to remove the soup-plate, and then hurried out of the room to have a quiet chuckle.
“Tain’t no use, Polly; dey jess as well let Marse Charles alone. He is a keener, he is, umgh—umgh! Dey ain’t gwine to git nothin’ out o’ him, ef you b’lieve Dick, dey ain’t, mun.” And the old worthy’s sides shook with laughter. “Dey has been tetchin’ her up pretty lively dis mornin’, dat’s a fac’, and dey wet Dick’s whistle for him, dey did, ef you b’lieve me, and more’n once, too. Well,