CHAPTER XXIV.
The next morning my mother redeemed her promise. It was directly after breakfast when she had placed herself in the chair at the parlor window. She made no allusion to the evening before until she completed this arrangement of hers, and then she looked so serious, as I stood before her, that I fully expected something I should not like.
"Charles," she said, "you are very dear to me, and perhaps you have given me more care than all my children, though you are the youngest. I have often wondered what you would be or become as a member of society, and it was the last of all my thoughts for you that you must leave me to be educated. But if you are to be a musician, you must be taken from me soon, or you will never grow into what we should both of us desire,—a first-rate artist. I could not wish you to be anything less than first rate, and now you are very backward."
"Am I to go to London then, mother?" I shook in every limb.
"I believe a first-rate musical education for you in London would be beyond my means. It is upon this subject your friend Mr. Davy is to be so good as to write to Santonio, who can tell us all about Germany, where higher advantages can be obtained more easily than anywhere in England. But, Charles, you will have to give up a great deal if you go, and learn to do everything for yourself. If you are ill, you will have to do without nursing and petting as you would have here; and if you are unhappy, you must not complain away from home. Also you must work hard, or you will lose your free self-approval, and be miserable at the end. I should be afraid to let you go if I did not know you are musical enough to do your duty by music, and loving enough to do your duty by your mother; also, that you are a true boy, and will not take to false persons. But it is hard to part with you, my child; and indeed, we need not think of that just yet."
I did though, I am ashamed to say; and I wanted to set off on the next day. I knew this to be impossible, and the fact that consoled me was the very one of my unstrung ignorance; for I had a vague impression that Davy would tune me up before I left home. I could not see him that morning. My excitement was intense; I could not even cut a caper, for I had to do my lessons, and Clo always behaved about my lessons as if they were to go on forever, and I was by no means to grow any older. She was especially stationary on this morning, and I had nothing for it but to apply very hard indeed. My copy was more crabbed than ever; but while she commented so gravely thereupon, I thought of what Santonio had said about my arm and hand. I was not vain,—I have not a tincture of vanity all through me,—but I was very proud, and also most demurely humble.
At dinner Millicent talked to me of my prospects; but I pretended not to admit them in all their magnificence: the prophetic longing was so painful to me that I dared not irritate it. So she rallied me in vain, and I ate a great deal of rice pudding to simulate occupation. Dinner over, they all retired to their rooms,—I to my violin in a corner of the parlor. I hung over it as it lay in its case, I fed upon it in spirit; but I did not take it out, I was afraid of any one coming in. At last I spread my pocket-handkerchief upon the case, and sitting down upon it, went to sleep in scarcely conscious possession. I did not dream anything particular, though I suppose I ought to have done so, and it had been better for these unilluminated pages; but when I awoke it was late,—that is, late for my engagement with Miss Benette.
I ran all the way; and as I reached my resting-place, it occurred to me that I should have to tell her I was going to Germany. How glad she would be, and yet a little sorry; for I had an idea she liked me, or I should never have gone near her. Vaulting into the passage, I heard strange sounds—singing, but not only singing. More and more wonders, I thought, and I dashed upstairs. The sounds ceased when I knocked at the door, which Clara came to open. I gazed in first, before I even noticed her, and beheld in the centre of the room a small polished pianoforte. I flew in and up to it, and breathlessly surveyed it.
"Miss Benette, where did that come from? I thought you were not to have a pianoforte for ever so long."
She came to me, and replied with her steady, sweet voice a little agitated,—
"Oh! Master Auchester, I wish you could tell me who it came from, that I might give that person my heart quite full of thanks. I can only believe it comes from some one who loves music more than all things,—some one rich, whom music has made richer than could all money. It is such a sweet, darling, beautiful thing to come to me! Such a precious glory to make my heart so bright!"
The tears filled her eyes, and looking at her, I perceived that she had lately wept; the veins of harebell-blue seemed to quiver round the lids.
"Oh, Miss Benette! I had a violin sent to me too, and I thought it was from Mr. Davy; but now I feel quite sure it was from that lady."
Clara could scarcely speak,—I had never seen her so overcome; but she presently answered,—
"I believe it was the young lady. I hope so, because I should like her to be made happy by remembering we have both got through her what we wanted more than anything in the world. She would not like to be thanked, though; so we ought not to grieve that we cannot express our gratitude."
"I should like to know really, though, because it seems so strange she should recollect me."
"Oh, Master Auchester, no! Any one can see the music in your face who has the music in his heart. Besides, she saw you at the festival, and how anxious you were to serve the great gentleman."
"Now, Miss Benette, I am to tell you something."
"How good! Do go on."
I laid my arm on the piano, but scarcely knew how to begin.
"What is it to do, then?" asked Clara, winningly.
"I am going really to be a musician, Miss Benette; I am going to Germany."
She did not reply at first; but when I looked up, it was as though she had not wept, so bright she beamed.
"That's all right, I knew you would. Oh! if she knew how much good she had done, how happy she would be! How happy she will be when she goes to a concert some day, in some year to come, and sees you stand up, and hears you praise music in the voice it loves best!"
"Do you think so? Do you think it is the best voice of music?"
"Because it is like the voice of a single soul, I do. But Mr. Davy says we cannot know the power of an orchestra of souls."
"I can."
"Oh! I beg your pardon! I forgot."
"But I don't think that I remember well; for whenever I try to think of it, I seem only to see his face, and hear his voice speaking to me, saying, 'Above all, the little ones!'"
"How pretty it was! You will be sure to see him in Germany, and then you can ask him whether he wrote the 'Tone-Wreath.'"
Oh, how I laughed again!
"What sort of place shall I go to, should you think?"
"I don't know any place really, Master Auchester. I can't tell what places they have to learn at, upon the Continent. I know no places besides this house, and Mr. Davy's, and the class, and church, and Miss Lenhart's house in London."
"Are you not very dull?"
Alas for the excitable nature of my own temperament! I was sure I should be dull in her place, though I had never felt it until my violin came upon me, stealthy and stirring as first love. She looked at me with serene wonder.
"I don't know what 'dull' means. I do not want anything I have not got, because I shall have everything I want,—some day, I mean; and I would rather not have all at once."
I did not think anything could be wanting to her, indeed, in loveliness or aspiration, for my religious belief was in both for her; still I fancied it impossible she should not sometimes feel impatient, and especially as those blue shadows I have mentioned had softened the sweetness of her eyes, and the sensation of tears stole over me as I gazed upon her.
"We shall not practise much, I am afraid, Master Auchester, for I want to talk, and I am so silly that when I sing, I begin to cry."
"For pleasure, I suppose. I always do."
"Not all for pleasure. I am vexed, and I do not love myself for being vexed. Laura is going to Paris, Master Auchester, to study under a certain master there. Her papa is going too, and that woman I do not like. She is unhappy to leave me, but they have filled her head with pictures, and she is wild for the big theatres. She came to see me this morning, and I talked to her a long time. It was that made me cry."
"Why, particularly?"
"Because I told her so many things about the sort of people she will see, and how to know what is beautiful in people who are not wise. She promised to come and live with me when I have been to Italy, and become a singer; but till then, I shall, perhaps, never meet her, for our ways are not the same. She looked with her clear eyes right through me, to see if I was grave; and if she only finds her art is fair, I shall not be afraid for her."
"But is she not ill? I never saw anybody look so strange."
"That is because her hair is shorter. You do not like her, Master Auchester?"
I shook my shoulders. "No; not a great deal."
"You will try, please. She will be an artist."
"But don't you consider,—of course I don't know,—but don't you consider dancing the lowest art?"
"Oh, Master Auchester! all the arts help each other, and are all in themselves so pure that we cannot say one is purer than the other. Besides, was it not in the dream of that Jew, in the Bible, that the angels descended as well as ascended?"
"You are like Martin Luther."
"Why so?"
"Clo—that is my clever sister—told me what he said about the arts and religion."
"Oh, Mr. Davy tells that story."
"Miss Benette, you are very naughty! You seem to know everything that everybody says."
"No; it is because I see so few people that I remember all they say."
"Are you not at all fonder of music than of dancing? Oh, Miss Benette!"
She laughed heartily, showing one or two of her twinkling teeth.
"I am fonder of music than of anything that lives or is, or rather I am not fond of it at all; but it is my life, though I am only a young child in that life at present. But I am rather fond of dancing, I must confess."
"I think it is charming; and I can dance very well, particularly on the top of a wall. But I do not care about it, you know."
"You mean, it is not enough for you to make you either glad or sorry. But be thankful that it is enough for some people."
"All things make me glad, and sorry too, I think, going away now. When I come back—"
"I shall be gone," said Clara.
"I shall be a man—"
"For shame, Miss Benette! you will never grow old, I believe."
"Oh, yes, I shall; but I do not mind, it will be like a summer to grow old."
"I am sure it will!" I cried, with an enthusiasm that seemed to surprise her, so unconscious was she ever of any effect she had.
"But I shall grow old too; and there is not so very much difference between us. So then I shall seem your age; and, Miss Benette, when I do grow up, will you be my friend?"
"Always, Master Auchester, if you still wish it. And in my heart I do believe that friends are friends forever."
The sweet smile she gave me, the sweeter words she spoke, were sufficient to assure me I should not be forgotten; and it was all I wished, for then my heart was fixed upon my future.
"But you will not be going to-morrow, I suppose?"
"No, I wish I were."
"So do I."
"Thank you," said I, rather disconcerted; "I shall go very soon, I suppose."
"It will not be long, I daresay," she answered, with another sweetest smile; and I felt it to be her kind wish for me, and was consoled. And when I left her she was standing quietly by her piano; nor did she raise her eyes to follow me to the door.
By one of those curious chances that befall some people more than others, I had a cold the next class-night. I was in an extremity of passion to be kept at home,—that is to say, I rolled in my stifling bed with the sulks pressing heavily on my heart, and the headache upon my forehead. Millicent sat by me, and laughingly assured me I should soon be quite well again; I solemnly averred I should never be well, should never get up, should never see Davy any more, never go to Germany. But I went to sleep after all; for Davy, with his usual philanthropy, came all the way up to the house to inquire for me after the class, and his voice aroused and soothed me together. I may say that such a cold was a godsend just then, as it prevented my having to do any lessons. The next day, being idle, I heard nothing of Davy; neither the next. I thought it very odd; but on the third morning I was permitted to go out, as it was very clear and bright. The smoke looked beautiful, almost like another kind of flame, as it swelled skywards, and I met Davy quite glowing with exercise.
"What a day for December!" said he, and cheerily held up a letter.
"Oh, Mr. Davy!" I cried; but he would not suffer me even to read the superscription.
"First for your mother. Will you turn back and walk home with me?"
"I must not, sir; I am to walk to the turnpike and back."
"Away, then! and I am very glad to hear it."
To do myself justice, I did not even run. I could, indeed, for all my impatient hope, scarcely help feeling there is no such blessing as pure fresh air that fans a brow whose fever has lately faded. I came at length to the toll-gate, and returned, braced for any adventure, to the door of my own home. I flew into the parlor; my mother and Davy were alone. My mother was wiping off a tear or two, and he seemed smiling on purpose.
"Oh, mother!" I exclaimed, running up to her, "please don't cry."
"My dear Charles, you are a silly little boy. After all, what will you do in Germany?"
She lifted me upon her lap. Davy walked up to the book-case.
"I find, Charles, that you must go immediately,—and, indeed, it will be best if you travel with Mr. Santonio. And how could I send you alone, with such an opportunity to be taken care of! Mr. Davy, will you have the kindness to read that letter to my little boy?"
Davy, thus admonished, gathered up the letter now lying open upon the table, and began to read it quite in his class voice, as if we two had been an imposing audience.
Dear Madam,—Although I have not had the pleasure of an introduction to you, I think the certificate of my cognizance by my friend Davy will be sufficient to induce you to allow me to take charge of your son at the end of this week, if he can then be ready, as I must leave England then, and return to Paris by the middle of February. Between this journey and that time I shall be in Germany to attend the examinations of the Cecilia School at Lorbeerstadt.[12] The Cecilia School now is exactly the place for your son, though he is six months too young to be admitted. At the same time, if he is to be admitted at all, he should at once be placed under direct training, and there are out-professors who undertake precisely this responsibility. My own experience proves that anything is better than beginning too late, or beginning too soon to work alone. I have made every inquiry which could be a proviso with you.
"Then here follows what would scarcely interest you," said Davy, breaking off.
"Your friend is quite right, Charles. Now can you say you are sure I may put faith in you?"
"What do you mean, mother? If you mean that I am to practise, indeed I will; I never want to do anything else, and I won't have any money to spend."
Davy came up to us and smiled: "I really think he is safe. You will let him come to me one evening, dear madam?"
"Perhaps you can come to us. I really do not think we can spare him; we have so much to do in the way of preparation."
It was an admirable providence that my whole time was, from morning to night, taken up with my family. My sisters, assisted by Margareth, made me a dozen shirts, and hemmed for me three dozen handkerchiefs. I was being measured or fitted all day, and all the evening was running up and down stairs with the completed items. Oh! if you had seen my boxes you would have said that I ought to be very good to be so cared for, and very beautiful besides; yet I was neither, and was sorely longing to be away,—such kindness pained me more than it pleased. I had a little jointed bed, which you would not have believed was a bed until it was set up. My mother admonished me if I found my bed comfortable to keep that in my box; but she had some experience of German beds, and English ones too, under certain circumstances. I had a gridiron, and a coffee-pot, a spirit-lamp, and a case containing one knife and fork, one plate, one spoon. I had everything I could possibly want, and felt dreadfully bewildered. Clo was marking my stockings one morning when Davy came in; he gave me one of his little brown boxes, and in the box was a single cup and saucer of that glowing, delicate china. When he pulled it out of his pocket I little knew what it was, and when I found out, how I cried!
"I have, indeed, brought you a small remembrance, Charles; but I am a small man, and you are a small boy, and I understand you are to have a very small establishment."
He said this cheerily, but I could not laugh; he put his kind arm round me, and I only wept the more. Clo was all the time quite seriously, as I have said, tracing ineffaceably my initials in German text, with crimson cotton,—none of your delible inks,—and Davy pretended to be very much interested in them.
"What! all those stockings, Charles?"
"Yes, sir: you see we have provided for summer and winter," responded Clo, as seriously as I have mentioned. "He will not want any till we see him again, for he is to pay us a visit, if God spares him, next Christmas."
Davy sighed, and kissed my forehead; I clung to him. "Shall I see you again, Mr. Davy?"
"I have come to ask your mother whether I may take you to London; it is precisely what I came for, and I have a little plan."
Davy had actually an engagement in London, or feigned to have one,—I have never been able to discover whether it was a fact or a fiction; and he proposed to my mother that I should sleep with him at his aunt's house one night before I was deposited at the hotel where Santonio rested, and to which he had advised I should be brought.
I was in fits of delight at the idea of Davy's company; yet, after all, I did not have much of that, for he travelled to London on the top of the coach, and I was an inside passenger at my mother's request.
Then comes a sleep of memory, not unaccompanied by dreams,—a dream of being hurled into a corner by a lady, and of jamming myself so that I could not stir hand or foot between her and the window; a dream of desperate efforts to extricate myself; a dream of sudden respite, cold air, and high stars beyond and above the houses, a cracked horn, a flashing lantern; a dream of dark in a hackney-coach, and of stopping in a stilly street before a many-windowed mansion, as it seemed to me. Then I am aware to this hour of a dense headache, and bones almost knotted together, till there arrives the worst nightmare reality can breed,—the smell of toast, muffins, and tea; the feeling of a knife and fork you cannot manage for sleepfulness; and the utter depression of your quicksilver.
I could not even look at Miss Lenhart; but I heard that her voice was going on all the time, and felt that she looked at me now and then. I was conveyed into bed by Davy without any exercise on my own part, and I slumbered in that sleep which absorbs all time, till very bright day. Then I awoke and found myself alone, though Davy had left a neat impression in the great soft bed. Presently I heard his steps, and his fingers on the lock. He brought my breakfast in his own hand, and while I forced myself to partake of it, he told me he should carry me to Santonio at two o'clock, the steamboat leaving London Bridge at six the same evening. And at two o'clock we arrived at the hotel. In a lofty apartment sat Santonio near a table laid for dinner.
I beheld my boxes in one corner, and my violin-case strapped to the largest; but all Santonio's luggage consisted of that case of his which had been wrapped up warm in baize, and one portmanteau. He arose and welcomed us with a smile most amiable; and having shaken hands with Davy, took hold of both mine and held them, while still rallying in a few words about our punctuality. Then he rang for dinner, and I made stupendous efforts not to be a baby, which I should not have been sorry to find myself at that instant. The two masters talked together without noticing me, and presently I recovered; but only to be put upon the sofa, which was soft as a powder-puff, and told to go to sleep. I made magnificent determinations to keep awake, but in vain; and it was just as well I could not, though I did not think so when I awoke. For just then starting and sitting up, I beheld a lamp upon the table, and heard Santonio's voice in the entry, haranguing a waiter about a coach. But looking round and round into every corner I saw no Davy, and I cannot describe how I felt when I found he had kissed me asleep, and gone away altogether. As Santonio re-entered, the sweet cordiality with which he tempered his address to me was more painful than the roughest demeanor would have been just then, thrilling as I was with the sympathy I had never drawn except from Davy's heart, and which I had never lost since I had known him. It was as if my soul were suddenly unclad, and left to writhe naked in a sunless atmosphere; still I am glad to say I was grateful to Santonio. It was about five o'clock when we entered a hackney-coach, and were conveyed to the city from the wide West End. The great river lay as a leaden dream while we ran across the bridge; but how dreamily, drowsily, I can never describe, was conveyed to me that arched darkness spanning the lesser gloom as we turned down dank sweeping steps, and alighted amidst the heavy splash of that rolling tide. There was a confusion and hurry here that mazed my faculties; and most dreadfully alarmed I became at the thought of passing into that vessel set so deep into the water, and looking so large and helpless. I was on board, however, before I could calculate the possibilities of running away, and so getting home again. Santonio put his arm around me as I crossed to the deck, and I could not but feel how careful the great violin was of the little human instrument committed to his care. Fairly on deck, the whirling and booming, the crowd not too great, but so busy and anxious, the head-hung lamp, and the cheery peeps into cabins lighter still through glittering wires, all gave motion to my spirit. I was soon more excited than ever, and glorified myself so much that I very nearly fell over the side of the vessel into the Thames, while I was watching the wheel that every now and then gave a sleepy start from the oily, dark water. Santonio was looking after our effects for a while, but it was he who rescued me in this instance, by pulling my great-coat (exactly like Fred's) that had been made expressly, for me in the festival-town, and which, feeling very new, made me think about it a great deal more than it was worth. Then laughing heartily, but still not speaking, he led me downstairs. How magnificent I found all there! I was quite overpowered, never having been in any kind of vessel; but what most charmed me was a glimpse of a second wonderful region within the long dining-room,—the feminine retreat, whose door was a little bit ajar.
The smothered noise of gathering steam came from above, and most strange was it to hear the many footed tramp overhead, as we sat upon the sofa, and spread beneath the oval windows all around. And presently I realized the long tables, and all that there was upon them, and was especially delighted to perceive some flowers mounted upon the epergnes.
I was cravingly hungry by this time, for the first time since I had left my home, and everything here reminded me of eating. Santonio, I suppose, anticipated this fact, for he asked me immediately what I should like. I said I should like some tea and a slice of cold meat. He seemed amused at my choice, and while he drank a glass of some wine or other and ate a crust, I had all to myself a little round tray, with a short, stout tea-pot and enormous breakfast cup set before me; with butter as white as milk, and cream as thick as butter, the butter being developed in a tiny pat, with the semblance of the steamship we were then in stamped upon the top; also a plate covered with meat all over, upon beginning to clear which, I discovered another cartoon in blue of the same subject. After getting to the bottom of the cup, and a quarter uncovering the plate, I could do no more in that line, and Santonio asked me what I should like to do about sleeping. I was startled, for I had not thought about the coming night at all. He led me on the instant to a certain other door, and bade me peep in; I could only think of a picture I had seen of some catacombs,—in fact, I think a catacomb preferable in every respect to a sleeping cabin. The odors that rushed out, of brandy and lamp-oil, were but visionary terrors compared with the aspect of those supernaturally constructed enclosed berths, in not a few of which the victims of that entombment had already deposited themselves.
"I can't sleep in there!" I said shudderingly as I withdrew, and withdrawing, was inexpressibly revived by the air blowing down the staircase. "Oh, let us sit up all night! on the sea too!"
Santonio replied, with great cordiality, that he should prefer such an arrangement to any other, and would see what could be contrived for me.
And so he did; and I can never surpass my own sensations of mere satisfaction as I lay upon a seat on deck by ten o'clock, with a boat-cloak for my pillow and a tarpaulin over my feet, Santonio by my side, with a cloak all over him like a skin, his feet on his fiddle-case, and an exquisitely fragrant regalia in his mouth.
My feelings soon became those of careering ecstasy,—careering among stars all clear in the darkness over us; of passionate delight, rocked to a dream by the undulation I began to perceive in our seaward motion. I fell asleep about midnight, and woke again at dawn; but I experienced just enough then of existing circumstances in our position to retreat again beneath the handkerchief I had spread upon my face, and again I slept and dreamed.