BYMRS. OLIPHANT,AUTHOR OF “THE CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” ETC.COPYRIGHT EDITION.IN THREE VOLUMES.VOL. II.LEIPZIGBERNHARD TAUCHNITZ1879.The Right of Translation is reserved.
TheSignor’s house was one of those which, when general peacefulness had made the battlements round St. Michael’s unnecessary, had grown within the outer wall. It was more like a growth than a building. Windows which looked, as we have said, as if cut in the side of a precipice, gave light to the small panelled chambers which were connected by bits of quaint passages, here and there by a little flight of stairs, with tiny vestibules and landing-places, wasting the little space there was. Room after room had no doubt been added as necessity arose, and each new room had to be connected somehow with the others. The house occupied more space than a comfortable ugly modern house with tolerably sized rooms would have done, and when the Signor came into possession it had been a miracle of picturesque awkwardness, not a room in it capable of holding more than three or four people at a time, yet as many rooms as would havelodged a dozen—the least possible use for the greatest possible expenditure of space. The Signor, however, had built on the inner side a dining-room in red brick, which made existence possible, though it failed in the point of beauty. To tell the truth, the musician’s dining-room was an eyesore to all the antiquaries and all the critics. Nobody knew by what neglect of the architect, by what partiality of the Board of Works, it had been permitted to be built. It was of no style at all, neither Gothic, like the original building, nor Queen Anne, like the fashion. He had failed in his duty in every respect. It was a square box with a large window filling up one side. It was lighted with gas. It had red curtains in bold and uncompromising rep, and a large mahogany sideboard of the worst period. How he had been allowed to build this monstrosity nobody knew. It had been made the subject of a painful discussion in the Chapter itself, where Canon Skeffington (the Honble. and Revd.) complained so bitterly of the injury done to his best principles and highest feelings, that the Dean was irritated, and took up the cudgels on his side on behalf of his favourite musician. “He has a right, I suppose, to make himself comfortable like the rest of us,” the head of the community said. “No right to make my life a burden to me,” said the Honourable Canon; and, he added, almost weeping, “I cannot look out of my window without seeing the thing. You talk at your ease, youothers——” But what was to be done? The Chapter could not take so bold a step as to invade the rights of private property, tear down the Signor’s red curtains, burn his sideboard, destroy his walls. He had to be left to the enjoyment of his villainous erection. The Signor laughed in his sleeve, but in public was remorseful, bemoaning his own ignorance of art, and declaring that if he could afford it, rather than give pain to Canon Skeffington—but then he could not afford it—and what was to be done? He kept his dining-room, which was big enough to accommodate his friends, but for himself the Signor had better taste than he professed to have. His favourite sitting-room was in the same position and had the same view as that of his housekeeper, but its window was between two buttresses of the wall, which held in their gigantic arms a little square shelf of green turf, a small projection of the hill, which above and below was covered with masonry, leaving this little ledge of grass, like one of the hanging gardens of Scripture, hung high in the air above the town and the landscape. The Signor’s window opened upon this little terrace. His room within was low and dark, but in summer at least this mattered little, for its dim light and shadowy walls made a pleasant shelter, like a bower in a wood, from the lightness and brightness outside. There was a heavy beam across the roof, from which hung a little chandelier of old Venice glass, reflected in a tall old mirroramong the oak panels over the mantelpiece, and not much more bright than they were. On one side were the carved doors of a cupboard in the wall, which was full of old music, the Signor’s chief treasures, and on the other was a range of low bookshelves, also filled with music books of every size and kind. The piano stood in the corner near the window, with the keyboard close to the light. There were a few chairs about the room, and a writing-table piled with papers. This was all the furniture of the dim little chamber, and it was impossible to imagine a greater contrast than existed between it and the new building which had so shocked Canon Skeffington. And the Signor was not in this particular much unlike his house. A touch of sentiment, which some people were disposed to call high-flown, mingled in him with a curious undercurrent of cynicism, which few people suspected at all. He liked to jar upon the Canon Skeffingtons of existence and ruffle their tempers and their finest feelings. But in his heart he had feelings equally fine, and was as easilyfroisséas they. He mocked at them on the very points in which he himself was weak, affecting an insensibility which he did not feel, building the vile modern room with profound enjoyment of their delicate distress, but retiring out of it himself to the shelter of this dim romantic chamber. The combination was very like the Signor.
On this particular evening, when young Purcellwent to call for lights, the Signor was seated out on his little terrace enjoying the twilight and a cigarette together. There were two chairs on the scrap of grass, and a little table with an inkstand upon it, and the cup in which the Signor had taken his black coffee after dinner. He was leaning back in his chair puffing out the fragrant smoke from his cigarette, lazily watching it as it floated upwards, and now and then noting down a bar or two of music upon a piece of paper in his hand. Sometimes he took the cigarette from his mouth and hummed a scrap of an air, keeping time with his head and hand. There was no one who was more popular in the country as a composer of graceful drawing-room songs than Signor Rossinetti. It was something refined, something elegant that was expected from him, delicate soprano melodies, fine combinations for tenors and altos. It was very seldom that he took any trouble about the bass, but his tenor songs were justly considered exquisite. He liked to have a pretty set of verses on hand, and “set” them in the intervals of more serious business. The summer evening, when he sat out after dinner upon his scrap of terrace, was the time when he had most inspiration. His pupil andprotégé, young Purcell, thought there was no intellectual pleasure higher and more elevating, than to sit out here in the shadow of the great grey buttresses, with the cheerful distant noises of the High Street floating upward from the foot of the wall, and to watch theSignor composing his song. The young fellow would run in to the piano and “try over” every line of the symphony as it came welling out from that fount of music. He said often that, except one thing, there was no such delight in the world. To see genius working under his very eyes, what a privilege it was! To Purcell it seemed that his master read his heart, and uttered his deepest sentiments for him in those compositions. To-night his mind had been lulled out of great commotion and disturbance by the rosy vision of love and happiness that had breathed through the notes. It was glad, it was sad, it was full of suggestion, it wrung the very heart of Purcell—“’Twas in the time of roses, they plucked them as they passed.” Would that time ever come for him? He thought the Signor had read the depths of his heart, the wistful longing which was sometimes hope and sometimes despair, the pictures he made to himself of one day wandering byherside, one day gathering roses for her. He murmured over and over the tune of the refrain in a kind of ecstasy as he went to his mother’s room, his fancy excited, his head all on fire, half with the delicious sense of being friend to such a genius, and sharing, as it were, the very inspiration that produced such beautiful things—and half with the pride and delight of being so deeply in love and hanging on so exquisite an edge of anguish. The Signor himself did not know how much those pretty compositions of his went to hispupil’s heart; but he was flattered—as who would not be?—by this never-failing appreciation of his work, and youthful enthusiasm. It pleased him vaguely, just as the floating sounds from below, the voices and noises, all softened by the warm air of the summer evening, and even by the dimness of the twilight, pleased him. How harmonious they became as they soared upwards, all that was harsh taken out of them, filling the solitude with a genial sense of human fellowship! Perhaps the Signor was, like many others, not too fond of his fellow-creatures close at hand; but as they went and came, far down at his feet, talking, calling to each other, shouting their wares, singing now and then, making a sound of their steps upon the pavement, and a movement of their breathing in the air, he was transported with the hum, and felt that he loved them. This always gave him inspiration, this and the glimmer of the river and of the distant villages scattered over the plain, throwing up here and there a dim point of a spire among the trees. When Purcell left him, he put aside the bit of music-paper on which he had been jotting down his chords. He raised his eyes to the profound unfathomable blue above, and swung back upon his chair. He was half giddy with the sense of circling depths of infinity above him, though himself raised so high. The Signor was not without a feeling that he was raised very high, not only in locality, but in soul; yet there was a heaven above which madehis head giddy when he looked up—a heaven full of stars, from Palestrina to Mendelssohn, all shining over him, serene, unapproachable, not even holding out any encouragement to him, passive and splendid as the other stars which hid themselves in that still-luminous blue. Would any one ever look up at that sky and recall his name as also among the ranks of the unapproachable? The Signor turned his eyes from it with a sigh as he heard some one enter the room, and came down to earth, letting his chair drop upon its four legs, and his mind return to the present. He watched through the open window the advent of old Pickering carrying the lamp. The old man put it down on the table, and lighted some candles on the mantelpiece in front of the dim mirror, which gave them back with a blurred, enlarged reflection. His master sat outside and watched him pottering about the room, setting the chairs against the wall, and vainly attempting to make everything “straight.” It was a standing grievance to old Pick that he was not allowed to close the window and draw the curtains as it was right to do. The Signor outside sat and watched him with a gentle amusement. He liked to feel the oddness and superiority of his own tastes, thrown into evidence by the mighty anxiety of old Pick to shut the window. A smile came over his face. To ordinary mortals, in ordinary houses, it was not necessary to seek inspiration from the skies and the wide world of evening air.As Pick approached the window, with his usual look of wistful anxiety to be allowed to do what was right, and tacit disapproval of lawless habits, the Signor stepped through, smiling. “I think you will shut me out some night, Pick,” he said, “and then you will have my blood on your soul—for what could I do upon the terrace? I should fall asleep and tumble over, and be picked up in little pieces at the foot of the hill.”
“Ah! I don’t feel no fear of that, sir,” said Pickering, shaking his head; “you’ve got too good a voice for that, sir. I don’t make no doubt that you could hold an A sharp till you frighted the whole Abbey. And besides I always looks out; I’ve got the habit in this house. Even the girl, she’ll go and stand at the window, as if the view was any matter to her; it’s a thing as carries one away. But I don’t hold with leaving all open when the lights are lighted. Bless you, the top windows in the street with a spyglass, or even with good eyes like what I had when I was young, they could see in.”
“Much good it would do them,” said the Signor, sitting down before his piano. And indeed it is quite true that as he sat close to the window, relieved against the light of the lamp within, there were eyes at the top windows opposite which could catch with difficulty the outline of the Signor’s pale profile and black moustache. Some of the young ladies in the shops would climb up occasionally and show that exciting prospectto a friend. But it was an amusement which palled after the first moment, and certainly did no harm to the Signor.
“Maybe not much good, sir,” said old Pick, who always would have the last word; “but it might do harm. You never can tell what folks will say. The less they know the more they’ll talk; and that’s true all the world over; though I will say for the Abbey as it’s as bad or worse than most other places.”
“Why should it be worse, Pick?”
“I don’t know, sir—unless it’s the clergy and the chevaliers. You see, when gentlemen has little or nothing to do, they’re brought down to the level of the women, so far as that goes—and as gentlemen always does things more thorough than the women when they’re once started, the consequence nat’rally is—Leastways that’s my notion of it,” said Pick;—“the women haven’t the strength to start a real talking as does harm. They tries hard—as hard as they knows how—but bless you, in that as in most things, they wants a man to show ’em the way.”
“That is a new view, Pick. I thought if there was one thing in which the ladies had the advantage of us——”
“There ain’t one thing, sir, not one. For my part, I can tell in a minute a story as will hang together, a real crusher, one as will drive folks distracted and ruin a family. You’ll never get that out of a woman’s tongue. Nay, nay, they hasn’t the force for it; they’re poor creatures at the best; they can make a person uncomfortable, but they can’t do no more. And when I say the Abbey’s as bad or maybe worse, I mean that the gentlemen has little to do, and they has to amuse themselves the same as the women. That’s what I mean to say.”
The Signor gave a half attention to Pick’s long speech while he sat at his piano. All the time he was running over his new composition with one hand, correcting a note here and there, changing a harmony. “’Twas in the time of roses—the time of roses,” he hummed softly under his breath. But the smile on his lip was for Pick, and he gave him a negligent half attention, amused by his chatter, and by the peculiar views he held forth. He looked up at him as Pick stopped, singing with a little flourish in the accompaniment, which meant satisfaction in having at last got the phrase to his mind—“’Twas in the time of roses—the time of roses——” Old Pick was not surprised by the utterance of a sentiment so foreign to his subject. He knew his master’s ways, and he took a certain interest in his master’s productions, such as old servants often benevolently accord to the doings of their “family.” He could not tell what folks saw in them—still, as the Signor’s productions, he looked upon them with kindly toleration all the same.
“You may say, sir,” he cried, “‘the time o’ roses’—that’s just the very thing; for, I daresay, but for that rose in his button-hole, and the jaunty looks of him, a young girl wouldn’t have seen nothing in him. But I don’t know neither—women is the queerest things on the face of this whole earth. Flatter them, or make them think they’re bettering themselves, and there’s nothing they won’t do.”
“Who is it that wears flowers in his button-hole?” said the Signor. He wore them himself, and he was curious and slightly excited, wondering if any gossip could by any chance have got up about himself. The idea of such a thing kindled him into interest; his right hand dropped off from the piano, though with the other hand he kept softly sounding notes in the bass, and he turned towards his old servant with a look of animation altogether new. What interest is there like that with which one anticipates hearing something about oneself?
But at this moment Purcell’s steps were heard coming quickly along the passage, and he came in with his head erect, and his eyes gleaming, and pushed old Pick out of his way. “That will do, Pick,” he said, with a glimmer of impatience, “that will do! I will set things right for the master, myself.”
“What is the matter, boy?”
“Matter or no matter, if you think I’ll leave it to the first that comes to look after my master—” said old Pick, standing his ground. He would not yield;he was very friendly in general to Mr. John, and ready to do what he ordered, but there are limits to everything. He stood his ground steadily, arranging and re-arranging the papers on the table, while young Purcell went forward to the Signor. The young fellow put himself behind the musician, between him and the window, and stooped to whisper in his ear. His glowing eyes, his eager aspect, made a great impression on the Signor, who was very impressionable. He was possessed by some new thought. “Master,” he said, breathless, “I have a hundred things to say to you. I have heard something new. I want your advice, I want your help.” He was breathless, as if he had been running a race, though all he had really done had been to come along a few yards of passage. The Signor was easily moved by the sight of emotion, and he was fond of hisprotégé. “Go, Pick,” he said immediately, “and bring us some tea.”
“Tea, sir!” said the old man in consternation. “You never takes it. If it’s nothing but to get rid of old Pick, I’ll go. I’ll go; never fear but I’ll go.”
“I want some tea,” said the Signor authoritatively; “foolish old man, would you spoil my new song for want of a cup of tea? Go to Mrs. Purcell, and tell her, with my compliments, I want some of her special brew—the very best, as she used to make it for me when I had headaches. Quick, my head threatens to ache now. Well! what is it, boy? Has the Queen sent foryou to be the head of her orchestra, or is the Dean coming to pay us a visit? It must be something very important to judge by your face.”
“Oh, sir,” cried young Purcell, “what a heart you have! making up a headache and a whole story to save old Pick’s feelings—and me that am really no better than he is, pushing him out of the way!”
“Nobody is any better than any other,” said the Signor in his measured tones. “I have tried to teach you so all your life. But I will allow that some are worse than others,” he added, with a smile. His disciple was too much occupied, however, with the urgency of his own case to notice what he said.
“Master,” said the young man, “I have hurried back to tell you I have changed my mind; I will take the organ at Sturminster after all.”
An almost imperceptible change came over the Signor’s face—that slight stiffening of the muscles of the mouth—continuance of the easy and genial smile of real satisfaction into the forced and uncomfortable one of pretended equanimity—which is the sign above all others of disappointment and displeasure, became visible in his face. “Well——” he said slowly; “why not—if you think it will be more to your advantage? After all, that is the grand test.”
“It is not that,” said young Purcell, shrinking a little; “you can’t think that I would leave you only formy advantage. No, master, it is not that. You must hear it all before you judge.”
“Certainly,” said the Signor. He kept the same smile rigid upon his face. “And in the meantime here is old Pick with the tea,” he added, “and we must drink it for the sake of his feelings. What, Pick, is it made already? I don’t think your mother can be so careful as usual, boy, about her brew.”
“I don’t put no faith in tea that stands long to draw, sir,” said Pick. “I like it myself with all the scent in it. Water as boils hard, and not a minute lost. That’s my maxim. It’s fresh made with plenty of tea in, and I’ll warrant it good. Smell that,” he said, taking off the lid of the teapot. The Signor listened to him quietly, taking no notice of Purcell’s impatience. He smiled on the old man and let him talk. He was wounded and offended by his pupil’s sudden change after the decision of an hour ago; and though he had a great desire to hear what reason could be given for this difference of feeling, his annoyance and disgust at the change found expression in this apparent carelessness of it. He kept Pick talking with secret malice, while Purcell fretted. The young fellow did not know how to contain himself. He collected the music-books that were on the piano, and put them back on the shelves. Then he took them down again; he shifted the candles; he roamed from corner to corner, moving the chairs about, throwinginto disorder the things on the table; now and then he cast a piteous look at his master; but the Signor sat, in serene malice sounding the bass notes in his accompaniment, putting artful questions to old Pickering, and leading him on to talk. It was the old man himself at length who brought the suspense to an end by recollecting something it was necessary for him to do. “They’d have kep’ me there all night,” he said to Mrs. Purcell, with pretended impatience, as he got back to the housekeeper’s room. “Dear!” said Mrs. Purcell, astonished; she could not understand how the Signor could waste time talking to old Pick at a moment so momentous for her John.
When old Pickering was gone, the Signor still said nothing. He turned to the piano and began to play; he was like a woman offended, who will not approach the subject on which she is dying to be informed. At last Purcell, approaching humbly with wistful eyes, ventured to put one hand lightly upon his arm.
“Master,” said the young man, “let me speak to you. I cannot do anything till I have spoken to you.”
“To me, boy? Speak then, as much as you please,” said the Signor, nodding at him with an air of ingenuous wonder while he rang out the end of the melody. “’Twas in the time of roses,” he sang; then swinging himself round on his stool, “You want to speak to me? Why didn’t you say so sooner? Speak then, I am all attention,” he said.
Then Purcell began, once more breathless with agitation and excitement: “I think there seems a chance for me, sir,” he said; “my mother has just been telling me. It is such a chance as never may happen again. You know I love St. Michael’s better than anything in the world—except one thing. Master,sheis in trouble; her home is about to be made impossible to her; now or never; if I had a home to offer her, she might accept it. This is why I said I would take Sturminster. St. Ermengilde is more to my mind, a thousand times more to my mind; and to be near you, to have the benefit of your advice, that would be everything for me. But, dear master,” said the young man, “must I not think of her first? and here is a chance for me, perhaps the only chance I may have in my life.”
“Has anything happened to Miss Despard?” said the Signor in great surprise. He recognised the justice of the plea, and he listened with great interest and sympathy, and a curious feeling which was neither sympathy nor interest. Lottie was to the Signor a mysterious creature, exciting an altogether different kind of feeling from that which he felt for his pupil. He was almost sentimentally attached to his pupil, and entered into the history and prospects of his love with an enthusiasm quite unlike that with which a mature Englishman generally interests himself in anybody’s love-affairs. But along with this sentiment there existed another almost directly opposite to it, aninterest in Lottie as a being of a totally different class from Purcell, of whom it would be profoundly curious to know the history, and the means by which she might perhaps be brought to look favourably on—nay, to marry—Purcell; which seemed to the Signor quite “on the cards.” How she might be brought to this, in what way she would reconcile herself to be Purcell’s wife; how she would bow a spirit, evidently so proud, to the young musician’s origin and to his ways of talking, which, though refined enough, were still at the bottom those of a man whose mother was “in service:” all this was captivating as a matter of study to the Signor; he got, or expected to get, a great deal of amusement out of it, expecting that Lottie’s struggles in fitting herself for the position would be wonderful enough: so that his interest cannot be called entirely benevolent. But between this keen and half-malign interest and the sentimental interest he took in Purcell’s “happiness,” it may be imagined that the crisis was nearly as exciting to him as it was to Purcell himself. He listened to the story with the warmest interest, and agreed that there was nothing for it but to accept Sturminster. “But you must not lose a day,” he said; “you must secure the lady at once, there is not a moment to lose.”
“Secure?” Purcell said, growing red and growing white; “then you think there is a hope, a—likelihood——”
“Think? I think there is an almost certainty!” cried the Signor. He became quite excited himself for the sake of his pupil and for his own sake, for the keen intellectual interest he felt in this curious problem as to what Lottie would do. “You must go to-morrow,” he cried, with all the eagerness of a personal interest; “you must not lose a single day.”
Nextmorning found young Purcell in a state of excitement and nervous agitation still greater than that of the previous night. He had not slept during the natural time for sleep, and in consequence, according to the fashion of youth unaccustomed to watching, had fallen very fast and heavily asleep, out of sheer fatigue in the morning, waking only with an indescribable sense of guilt to hear the bells ringing for the morning service in the Abbey. Such a thing had never happened to him before, and his shame and sense of wrong-doing were more than reason. He jumped up in dismay, but even the most hurried toilet could not get him in time; and his mother appeared at his door as he prepared to rush out half-dressed, preventing his exit. “You wouldn’t go out without your breakfast?” she cried with horror. The virtuous and carefully regulated life of the chorister and musical student trained under the Signor’s eye and his mother’s constant care, had made a late morning and an omitted breakfast seem like something criminal. Besides, a sense of the crisis had got into the air. The Signorhad left an anxious message, begging hisprotégénot to hurry himself, to take his time, and to keep up his courage. His mother kissed him wistfully, and served him with a noble breakfast, as if he wanted strengthening in the most material way, for the important piece of work before him. Even old Pick looked at him with respectful curiosity as at a man on the edge of a very serious step indeed, a curiosity mingled with awe and a little grim humour and admiration. The boy was going to do what Pick had never had the courage to do; and though the old man thought the young one a fool, and hugged himself on his superior wisdom, yet it cannot be denied that he looked with a certain respect on the bold youth who was about to make such a venture. He put his breakfast on the table, not grudging the trouble, though the Signor’s breakfast had long been over, and he shook his head behind Mr. John’s chair. “Take a good breakfast, it will do you a deal of good,” he said, as he left the hero of the occasion. Purcell, though his mother was only the housekeeper, was the son of the house; he took his meals with the master, though it was his mother who prepared their dishes in the kitchen. It was a false position, perhaps, but he had not yet found any trouble in it. He had been a little curly-headed boy in the choir when Mrs. Purcell came first to take charge of the Signor’s house; she had been the sole servant then, and had scrubbed and brushed and cooked,diligently keeping everything in order. Old Pickering had gone through the same sort of training which had made John Purcell a gentleman. He, too, had been a chorister, and had progressed into a lay-clerk, with possibilities of rising to something better. But Pick was one of the unsuccessful ones; his voice failed him, his science never had been great, and a little after Mrs. Purcell’s advent he had come to the Signor also to be provided for. The organist had a large heart and a somewhat indolent temper; the easiest way to provide for the old singing-man was to take him into his own household, and this was what had been done. As for Pick, he had settled very easily into his new place, having been the son of the master of a little tavern; and though it cost him an effort to acknowledge the little soprano, whose surplice he had put on so often, in the light of a young master, yet the effort was made. Pick was conscientious, he did not do anything by halves; and the first time that the Signor’s pupil was permitted to play the voluntary in the Abbey, the old man made his fellow-servants jump, and gave the youth a shock of mingled alarm and pleasure, by suddenly addressing him as Mr. John. Nobody had expected such an heroic act of submission, but Pick knew his place and all that was suitable in the circumstances. “Him as the Signor puts in his own place has a right to be respected,” he said; and he never wavered in that noble self-abnegation, nor letany one suppose that it was painful to him. All this had happened long before the period of which we are writing; but what sensation, what emotion, it had caused at the time! Pick stood now, pausing behind the young musician’s chair, and lifted up his hands and shook his head. To think this boy, whom he had, so to speak, brought up, should show so much courage! Pick himself had never made such a venture, nor even the Signor, who was the master of both; and yet this boy was going to do it. The old man shook his head, not knowing what might come of it; but in his heart he felt a respect reaching to admiration, for the courage which was so much beyond anything he had ever known.
Courage, however, was the last quality in which, on this particular morning, young Purcell could be said to excel. To devote your life in secret to a beloved object; to dream of her night and day; to make impassioned resolutions, and determine to win glory and wealth for her, is not so hard for a fanciful youth; but to go into her presence, look into the face that dazzles you—confront the goddess of your distant worship, and without any preliminaries to lead up to this great step, and prepare her for it, quite off-hand and impromptu ask her to marry you! This is a very different matter. The young man sat alone and tried to eat his breakfast, trembling to think of what was before him. The circumstances were such as to addtenfold to the natural tremors of such a crisis. She was a lady, and far above him—not rich indeed, nor occupying any very exalted position in reality—but her dignity was very imposing to the young man, who had always recognised this grace of what seemed to him rank, as one of her particular charms. Purcell was painfully aware that he himself had no right to the name of gentleman. Many a less worthy claimant has borne it, with no thought that it was inappropriate, and Purcell had anxiously and painfully endeavoured to acquire all its outside appearances. He knew, as well as any, how to behave himself in society, and passed muster very well among other young men. He was a little over-anxious, perhaps, a little too fine in his language, too deferential and polite, not sufficiently at his ease, to get much enjoyment out of his social experiences; but this was a fault on the right side. Notwithstanding his modest sense of his own “merits,” Purcell could not persuade himself that he was Lottie’s equal. He knew he was not her equal. She had been as a star to him, far away and out of reach—and though in the fervour of imaginative passion the hope of winning her had seemed like heaven, yet the actual enterprise of wooing her, when brought thus close, seemed very appalling indeed—a quest more dangerous and alarming than ever knight errant set forth upon. His knees knocked together, great beads of moisture came upon his forehead—how was he todo it? how was he to present himself, to explain the hopes which, looked at thus in cold blood, appeared even to himself impossible, not to say presumptuous in the highest degree? How was he ever, he asked himself, to make her aware what he meant? She would not understand him. She would think he meant something else, anything else—rather than that he, a poor musician, the son of the Signor’s house-keeper, wanted to MARRY her, the daughter of a gentleman. It would be impossible to make her understand him. This seemed the first difficulty of all, and it was an appalling one. She would not even know what he meant. In this respect indeed Purcell was mistaken, for Lottie already knew well enough what were the hopes in his heart—resenting them highly as one of the wrongs of fate against her; but this he had no way of knowing. If he could but have got anyone to smooth the way for him, to tell what it was he wanted to say, to set him a-going, he thought he could find eloquence enough to carry him on—but how could he make thatpremier pas? Thus, while the household was all expectant, excited by what was coming, Purcell sat over his breakfast and trembled, too frightened to move or think, though with a consciousness that this desperate step must be taken. The Signor in the Abbey, rolling forth melodious thunders out of the organ, kept thinking of him with a smile, and a half sigh. Like Pick, he had a certain admiration for the valourof the boy thus pushing forward before himself into the mysteries of life; but the Signor’s thoughts were more tender and less cynical than those of his servant. He could not help wondering how it was that in his own person he had let all such chances slip. How was it? As he followed his pupil in imagination to the feet of his love, that young creature seemed very fair, very much to be desired. No doubt, to have such a one by your side, sharing your life with you, would make existence bear a very different appearance. Why was it he had never done what Purcell was going to do? This question seemed to flow into the music he was playing, and to go circling round and round the Abbey in the morning sunshine. Why? Life was endurable enough, a calm sort of routine, with now and then a pleasurable sensation in it, but nothing more; and no doubt it might have been made more of. The Signor could not answer his own question. He did not want to make himself the rival of his pupil, or to do anything similar to what young Purcell was doing. He had no wish to make any violent change in life, which was well enough as it was. But only it was odd that a simple fellow like John Purcell should thus boldly have pushed before him into a completer existence—very odd; the boy was bold. Whether he succeeded or not, his very agitation and ardour had in them a higher touch of emotion than any that had been in the life of his master. He laughed withinhimself at the boy’s temerity—but the laugh was mingled with a sigh.
And Mrs. Purcell, for her part, was in high excitement, longing for her boy to be gone on his errand, longing for him to be back again. That her John should marry a lady was the climax of grandeur and happiness. To be sure, it ought to have been a rich lady or great lady. He deserved a princess, his mother felt. Still, as things were, it was a kind of intoxication to think even of the daughter of a Chevalier. Why did he linger, as if breakfast was worth thinking of? She listened for every sound, for the door shutting, for his step in the hall, and was very cross when Maryanne made a noise, so that she could not hear what was going on upstairs. As for old Pick, he brushed Mr. John’s hat with a grim smile on his face, and hung about the hall to watch him go out.
“The young un’s off at last,” he said with a chuckle, marching into the kitchen: when just before the end of the service in the Abbey, when all the air about was ringing with the echo of the Amens, Purcell at last screwed his courage to the sticking-point, and went out, to meet his fate.
Poor young fellow, he could not have been more alarmed had he gone to face a lion instead of a lady. The lion would have been nothing. He would have called out for succour, and used whatever weapons hecould lay hold of; but nobody could help him with Lottie—no shield would cover him from the lightnings of her eyes. It was all embarrassing, all terrible; even if by any chance things should turn out in his favour, he did not know what he should do. What could he call her? Not Lottie, that was too familiar. Not Miss Despard. All these different and disjointed thoughts seemed to float about his head in the maze of excitement he was in—he was past thinking, but such questions kept floating in and out of his mind. It was the most extraordinary relief when, going to the door of Captain Despard’s house, he found that Lottie was out. If she had been there, it seemed to Purcell that he would have run away—but she was not there. He asked when she was expected back and went on, recovering his breath. He could not go home again, where presently the Signor would come from the Abbey and question him. The service, however, was not so nearly over as he thought. It was a saint’s day, and there was a sermon. The precincts were very still and deserted, for most people were at church. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, sitting at her window, saw the young musician walk across the broad silent sunshine, but he did not see her. He went up the Dean’s walk, hearing his own step echo through the silence, and past the Deanery, and out upon the slopes beyond. It was shady and sweet under the trees, which rose up close against the old wall—and all was very quietduring the time of matins, though the town went on with its usual hum down below at the foot of the hill. Purcell began to recover himself a little and take breath as he came to this shelter and refuge. Many a time had he strayed under these trees, thinking ofher, wondering if he ever might be able to approach her. It was strange to be here, however, in the morning, the hour of work and engagements, which he never had to himself, and to hear the far-off sound of the organ pealing out after the sermon was over. All the common occupations of life seemed to be suspended for Purcell. He felt as ordinary men feel on an occasional stolen Sunday, when work is suspended, and the duty of church-going put aside. All was so sweet, and serene, and still—no one to disturb his thoughts: the sound of the organ in the distance keeping him aware of the fact that he was singularly, unprecedentedly liberated from his usual occupations: and the tremor of agitation dying away into an excitement which was more bearable, which left room for all the sweeter musings, of whichshewas the centre. He sat down on the root of a tree, and let himself breathe. Then came the first notes of the voluntary, and a distant hum as of the congregation dispersing. Few people were likely to come here at this hour in the morning, but still Purcell felt that he had but a moment in which to indulge himself, and that soon he must turn back.
As he sat thus trying to collect himself, a sudden sound close by, the rustle of a dress among the bushes, the soft sound of a footstep caught his ear. He looked up—and his heart jumped into his throat. There She stood before him, a little basket in her hand. There was a by-way into the town by the slopes, and Lottie had been about her marketing. She was in her usual simple morning frock, clean print and nothing more, and though her head was sufficiently full of dreams and her mind of anxieties, she was at present lingering upon neither, but going straight from one place to another, as became the active morning hour and the consciousness of various things to do. When she saw Purcell spring to his feet suddenly in the midst of the path, for the moment Lottie was startled. She made him a little gracious but indifferent sign of recognition, as courtesy required—for ridiculous as were the notions in his head, she could not be rude to him—and was passing on, not wanting any further parley, when she was struck by the agitation in his face. He was staring at her as if she had been a ghost—his mouth was open, his breath coming quick, his colour changing. Excitement did not improve his appearance. She had almost laughed, then checked herself remorsefully, and became so much the more sympathetic for her temporary movement of mirth.
“Is there anything the matter?” she said kindly. “I am afraid you are ill. Has anything—gone wrong?” She did not know what to say, he looked at her with such solemn eyes.
“Oh, nothing—nothing has gone wrong. I am not ill. Miss Despard—I did not expect to see you here.”
“No—but I hope it is not I who have frightened you,” said Lottie. “I sometimes go to the Bridge road this way.”
“You have not frightened me,” said Purcell, who found it easier to repeat her words than to say anything original; “but I—did not know you went this way.”
It was all that Lottie could do, once more, to keep herself from laughing. She gave him a little nod, and was about to pass, saying, “What a lovely morning it is!” the stereotyped English remark; when he made a hurried step after her, and, holding up his hands, entreated her, in a piteous voice, to stay a moment. “Miss Despard—what startled me was that I was looking for you. Oh, stay a moment, and let me speak to you!” he said.
Lottie stood still, arrested in her progress, throwing a wondering look upon him. What could he want with her? Her first glance was simple surprise—her second—Was it possible he could meanthat?—could he be bold enough, rash enough? Next moment she blushed for her own folly. To be afraid of young Purcell! That was foolishness indeed. She stoodstill there, one foot put out to go on, her basket in her hand.
“Please say what it is, Mr. Purcell. I have got something to do. I ought to be at home.”
The morning is not the moment for a love tale. How much more congenial would have been the evening, the twilight, the subdued poetic hour, after the sun had disappeared, that great busybody who shows every imperfection, and is himself so perpetually moving on! Something to do was in every line of Lottie’s energetic figure. She had no time for lingering, nor wish to linger. “Please say what it is.” Only business should be treated in this summary way, not love.
“Miss Despard,” said the young musician, whose limbs were trembling under him, “I wanted to say a great deal to you; it is very important—for me. Things are going well with me,” he added, with desperation, after a momentary pause. “I have been appointed to a church—a fine church—with a good instrument. They are to give me a good salary, and they say I can have as much teaching as I like. I shall be very well off.”
“I am glad to hear you are so fortunate,” said Lottie. Her eyes were full of surprise, and for a moment there was a gleam of amusement in them. That he should waylay her to tell her this, seemed a curious piece of ostentation or folly. “I am very glad,” sherepeated; “but you must forgive me if I have to hasten home, for I have a great many things to do.”
“One moment,” he said, putting out his hand to stop her. “That was not all. The Signor thinks—you know the Signor, Miss Despard, there is not a better musician in the country—he thinks I will make progress. He thinks I may rise—as high as any one can rise in our profession. He tells me I may be a rich man yet before I die.”
“Indeed, I hope all he says will come true,” said Lottie; “but why you should take the trouble to tell me——”
Then suddenly she caught his eye, and stopped short, and blushed an angry red. She saw what was coming in a moment, which did not, however, prevent her from drawing herself up with a great deal of dignity, and adding, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Miss Despard,” he said with a gasp, “there is no comparison between me and you. But you are not so well off—not happy. They say—you know how people will talk—that there is something going to happen that will make you very uncomfortable.”
“Stop!” she said, with an involuntary cry, half of anger, half of amazement. Then she laughed. “Do you want me to acknowledge that you are much better off than I am?” she said; “but there is no need to compare you with me.”
“It could not be done, Miss Lottie. I know itcould not be done. You are a lady, and far above me. I know I am not your equal—in some things.”
Lottie began to be too angry to laugh, but yet she was provoked to ridicule, which is the keenest of weapons. She made him a little mocking curtsey. “It is very kind of you to say so, I am sure, for we are quite poor people, Mr. Purcell; not fortunate, and getting on in the world like you.”
“No, Miss Despard,” he said, simply, “that was just what I wanted to say. If you had been as well off as I could wish, I should not have ventured to say anything. I have always loved you, and thought of you above all the world. Since you first came to St. Michael’s, I have never thought of any one but you. It has been my hope that some time or other I might be able to—but it was only just yesterday that I heard something that made me settle—two things——”
She did not speak, being, indeed, too angry and annoyed for speech; but she felt a kind of contemptuous, wrathful interest in what he was saying, and curiosity to know what it was that had induced him to make this venture; and, accordingly, gave him a glance, in which there was an impatient question. Purcell was not too discriminating. He felt encouraged by being listened to, from whatsoever motive.
“Two things,” he said, with stolid steadiness. “One, to take Sturminster. I had settled before Iwould not take it, but St. Ermengilde’s. But when I heardthat, I changed my mind, though it did not please the Signor. Sturminster will make me independent; it will give me a home. And then I settled to tell you, Miss Lottie: if you are uncomfortable at home, if you don’t like things that may be going to happen: to tell you that there’s another home ready for you, if you will have it; a home that may be made very comfortable; a place of your own, to do what you like with, that will be waiting for you, whenever you please, at a moment’s notice, the sooner the better. If you would say yes, I would go directly, I would go to-morrow, and prepare; and nobody would be able to give you trouble or make you uncomfortable any longer. Only say the word, and there is nothing, nothing I would not do——”
Lottie stood and gazed at him, wondering, bitterly ashamed and humiliated, and yet not without a sense that so much simple devotion was worth more than to be crushed, or scorned, or flung from her, as she wished to fling it. She restrained herself with an effort. “What do you mean?” she said. “Is it possible that you are asking me tomarryyou, Mr. Purcell? That cannot be what you mean.”
“What else could it be?” he said, turning on her a look of genuine surprise. “You don’t suppose, Miss Despard, that I could be thinking of anything else?”
His cheeks grew crimson, and so did hers. A cry of anger and shame and confusion came from her breast. She stamped her foot impatiently on the ground. “You would never, never have ventured to ask me, never, if I had not been helpless and friendless and poor!”
“No,” he said again, with a simplicity in which she could not help feeling a certain nobleness. “I would not have ventured, for I am not what you call a gentleman; but when I heard you were in trouble, I could not keep silent. I thought to myself, Miss Lottie shall not be unhappy because of having no home to go to——”
“Oh!” said Lottie, putting out her hand to stop him. She could not bear any more. Her heart was sick with the mortification of such a suit. She could have crushed and trampled upon her humble lover, in rage and shame, and yet she could not but see the generosity and truth in his heart. If he had been less worthy, it would have been less hard upon her. “It is not a thing that can be,” she cried hastily. “Oh, don’t say another word. I know you are kind, but it is not a thing that can be.”
“Not now?” he said, looking at her wistfully; “well: but perhaps another time? perhaps when you need it more—I am not in any hurry. Perhaps I am young to marry; the Signor thinks so. But another time,Miss Lottie? Whenever you want me, you have but to say the word.”
“Oh, don’t think of it. I will never, never say the word. Forget it altogether, Mr. Purcell. I am very, very much obliged to you, but indeed it can never be.”
The young man’s countenance fell. Then he recovered himself. “I can’t think you are taking everything into consideration. We should have a nice home, plenty of everything, and I should never spare trouble to give you everything you were used to——”
“Oh, go away, go away!” she cried.
And as they stood there, some one else, his shadow slowly moving before him, came round the corner of the pathway, among the chestnut-trees; and Purcell felt that his opportunity was over. He was not sorry for it. He had done what was set before him, and if he had not succeeded, he was not discouraged. There was still hope for another time.
Itwas not only in the mind of young Purcell that Lottie’s circumstances and prospects were the subject of thought. Rollo Ridsdale had not watched and worshipped as the young musician had done. Nor had he, even on his first introduction to her, looked upon Lottie as anything but the possessor of a beautiful voice, of which use might be made, for her benefit no doubt in the long run, but primarily for his own. She was not a divinity; she was not even a woman; she was a valuable stock-in-trade, a most important implement with which to work. Rollo had gone through a very effectual training in this kind. He had run through the little money he possessed so soon, and had learned the use of his wits so early, that the most energetic of tradesmen was not more alive to all the charms of gain than he. The means, perhaps, may be of a different kind, but it does not very much matter in principle whether a man is trained to sharp bargains in bric-à-brac or in cotton bales; and it is not essentially a loftier trade to speculate in pictures and china than in shares and stocks. This young aristocrathad kept his eyes very wide open to anything that might come in his way. He was not a director of companies chiefly because his poor little Honourable was not a sufficiently valuable possession to be traded upon, though it had some small value pecuniarily. Lord Courtland himself might indeed have made a few hundreds a year out of his title, but to his second son the name was not worth so much. It secured him some advantages. It gave him theentréeto places where things were to be “picked up,” and it helped him to puff and even to dispose of the wares which he might have in hand. It kept him afloat; it ameliorated poverty; it took away all objections to the sale and barter in which, profitably or unprofitably, he spent so much of his life. Had he gone upon the Stock Exchange, society might have made comments upon the strange necessity; but when Rollo’s collection ofobjets d’artwas sold, nobody found anything to object to in the transaction, which put a comfortable sum in his pocket, and enabled him to go forth to fresh fields and pastures new; neither was there anything unbecoming his nobility in the enterprise which he had now in hand. Theatres are not generally a very flourishing branch of commerce; yet it cannot be denied that those who ruin themselves by them embark in the enterprise with as warm an inclination towards gain as any shopkeeper could boast of. Rollo had thought of Lottie’s voice as something quite distinctfrom any personality. It was a commodity he would like to buy, as he would have liked to buy a picture, or anything rare and beautiful, of which he could be sure that he would get more than his own money for it. In that, as in other things, he would have bought in the cheapest market and sold in the dearest. He would have thought it only right and natural to secure at a low rate the early services of a prima donna. A certain amount of enthusiasm no doubt mingled with the business; just as, had Rollo bought a picture and sold it again, he would have derived a considerable amount of enjoyment from it over and above the profit which went into his pocket; but still he would not have bought the picture, or sought out the future prima donna, on any less urgent and straightforward stimulus than that of gain. Probably, too, the artistic temperament—those characteristics which have to answer for so many things—influenced him more in the pursuit of the talent which was to make his fortune, than any man is ever influenced by bales of cotton or railway shares. To hear that “shirtings are firm” does not thrill the heart as it does to hear the melody of a lovely new voice, which you feel will pay you nobly by transporting the rest of the world as it does yourself. Neither could any amount of coupons fill you with delight like that small scrap of a Bellini by which you hope tofaire fortune. But, nevertheless, to make his fortune was what Rollo thought of just as much asthe man who sells dusters over his counter. If a new kind of duster could be found more efficacious than any previously known, a something that would dust by itself, that would sell by the million, no doubt the shopkeeper, too, would feel a moment’s enthusiasm; yet in this he would be quite inferior to the inventor of a new prima donna, who, added to his enjoyment of all that the public gave to hear her, would have the same enjoyment as had the public, without giving anything for it at all.
This had been the simple enthusiasm in Rollo’s mind up to his last meeting with Lottie Despard. He had pursued her closely that he might fully understand and know all the qualities of her voice—of the slave he wanted to buy: to know exactly what training it would want, and how much would have to be done to it before it could appear before the public, and begin to pay back what he had given for it. And point by point, as he pursued this quest of his, he had noted in her the qualities of beauty, the grace, the expression, the perfection of form and feature, which were so many additional advantages. The rush of colour to her cheek, of spirit or softness to her eyes, had delighted him, as proving in her the power to be an actress as well as a singer. He studied all her looks, interpreted her character to himself, and watched her movements with this end, with a frank indifference to every other, not even thinking what interpretationmight be put, what interpretation she might herself put, upon this close and anxious attention. It was not till the evening when, overcome by the feelings which music and excitement had roused in her, Lottie had fled alone to her home, avoiding his escort, that he had suddenly awoke to the consciousness that it was no mere voice, but a young and beautiful woman, with whom he was dealing. The awakening gave him a shock—yet there was pleasure in it, and a flattering consciousness that his prima donna had all along been regarding him in no abstract, but an entirely individual, way. Rollo had been brought up among artificial sentiments. He had been used to hear people talk of the effect of music upon their imagination—of the sensations it gave them, and the manner in which they were dominated by it. But he had never seen any one honestly moved like Lottie—abandoning the sphere of her social success, silent in the height of her triumph. When he saw that she could not and would not sing again after that wonderful sacred song, he was himself more vividly impressed than he had ever been by music. It took her voice from her, and her breath—transported her out of herself. How strange it was, yet how real, how natural! just (when you came to think of it) as a pure and elevated mind ought to be touched: though he had never yet seen the fumes of art get so completely into any head before. The reality of Lottie’s emotion had awakened Rollo. Hewas not touched himself by Handel, but he was touched by Lottie. He suddenly sawherthrough the mist of his own preconceived ideas, and through the cloud of conventionalities, those of art and those of society alike. Never in his life before had he so suddenly and distinctly come in contact with a genuine human creature, as God had made her—feeling, moving, living according to the dictates of nature, not as she had been trained to live and feel. This is not to say that he had met with no genuine people in his life. His father and mother were real enough, and so was his aunt, Lady Caroline—very real, each in his or her little setting of conveniences and necessities. He knew them, and was quite indifferent to knowing them. But Lottie was altogether detached from the atmosphere in which these good people lived. And he had discovered her suddenly, making acquaintance with her in a moment—finding her out as an astronomer, all alone with the crowds of heaven, finds out a new star. This was how it made so great an impression on him. He had discovered her, standing quite alone among all the women who knew how to express and to control their emotions. She was not trained either to one or the other. The emotion, the enthusiasm in her got the upper hand of her, not she of them. A man who is only used to men and women in the secondary stages of well-sustained emotion is apt to be doubly impressed by the sight of genuine and artlesspassion, of whatever kind it may be. He went to town thinking not of the prima donna he had found, but of the woman who had suddenly made heaven and earth real to him, as they were to her. He posted up to London—that is, he flew thither in the express train, according to the dictates of his first impulse; but he was so entirely carried away by this second one, that he had almost forgotten his primary purpose altogether. “Ah! that is it,” he said to himself when the prima donna idea once more flashed across his mind. He did not want to lose sight of this, or to be negligent of anything that would help to make his fortune.
Rollo was in the greatest need of having his fortune made. He had nothing except very expensive habits. He was obliged to spend a great deal of money in order to live, and he was obliged to live (or so, at least, he thought); and he had no money at all. Therefore a prima donna or something else was absolutely necessary. Accordingly he wound himself up with great energy, and tried to think no more of that other world which Lottie’s touch had plunged him into. In the meantime, in this world of theatres, drawing-rooms, and fashionable coteries, where people are compelled to live, whether they will or not, at an enormous cost in money, and where accordingly money must be hunted wherever scent of it can be found, it was necessary that some one, or something, should make Rollo Ridsdale’s fortune. He rushed to his impresario, and roused a faint enthusiasm momentarily in the mind of that man of great undertakings. An English prima donna, a native article, about whom the English would go wild! Yes! But would they go wild over an English prima donna? Would not the first step be, ere she was presented to the public at all, to fit her with an Italian name? Signorina Carlotta Desparda—that was what she would have to be called. The impresario shook his head. “And besides, these native articles never turn out what we are led to expect,” he said. He shook his head; he was sorry, very sorry, to disappoint hisconfrère, but——”
“But—I tell you, you never heard such a voice; the compass of it—the sweetness of it!simpaticabeyond what words can say—fresh as a lark’s—up to anything you can put before her—and with such power of expression. We shall be fools, utter fools, if we neglect such a chance.”
“You are very warm,” said the manager, rubbing his hands. “She is pretty, I suppose?”
“No,” said Rollo; “she is beautiful—and with the carriage of a queen.” (Poor Lottie, in her white frock; how little she knew that there was anything queenlike about her!) “Come down and see her. That is all I ask of you. Come and hear her——”
“Where may that be?” said the Manager. “I am leaving town on Monday. Can’t we have her up to your rooms, or somewhere at hand?”
“My rooms!” said Rollo, thunderstruck. He knew very little about Lottie, except that she was a poor Chevalier’s daughter; but he felt that he could have as easily invited one of the Princesses to come and sing in his rooms, that the representatives of the new opera company might judge of her gifts. His face grew so long that his colleague laughed.
“Is she a personage then, Ridsdale? Is she one of your great friends?” he said.
“She is one of my—friends; but she is not a great personage,” said Rollo, gloomily, pulling the little peaked beard which he cultivated, and thinking that it would be as difficult to get his manager invited to the Deanery as it would be to bring Lottie to Jermyn Street. These were difficulties which he had not foreseen. He went over the circumstances hurriedly, trying to think what he could do. Could he venture to go in suddenly to the Chevalier’s lodge, as he had done with Lady Caroline’s credentials in his pocket, but this time without any credentials, and without further ceremony proceed to test the powers of the girl, who he knew was not always compliant nor to be reckoned on? What if she should decline to be tried? What if she had no intention of becoming a singer at all? What if the Manager should condemn her voice as untrained (which it was), or even mistake it altogether, mixing it up with the cracked tones of theold piano, and the jingle of the Abbey bells? He had not thought of all these difficulties before. He had not taken time to ask if Lottie would be docile, if Lady Caroline would be complaisant. He pulled his beard, his face growing longer and longer. At last he said,—