Charles Auchester, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Elizabeth Sara Sheppard

CHAPTER XXX.

I can never express my satisfaction when, two or three trees from the end, I met the magic maiden herself, all hooded, and carrying an immense umbrella.

"Where is this Chevalier of ours?" she asked me, with eagerness. "You surely have not left him alone in the rain?"

"I was coming for you," I cried; for such was, in fact, the case. But she noticed not my reply, and sped fleetly beneath the now weeping trees. I stood still, the rain streaming upon my head, and the dim thunder every now and then bursting and dying mournfully, yet in the distance, when I heard them both behind me. How astonished was I! I turned and joined them. They were talking very fast,—the strange girl having her very eyes fixed on the threatening sky, at which she laughed. He was not smiling, but seemed borne along by some impulse he could not resist, and was even unconscious of; he held the umbrella above them both, and she cried to me to come also beneath the canopy. We had only one clap as we crossed the lawn,—now reeking and deserted; but a whole levee was in the refreshment pavilion waiting for the monarch,—so many professors robed, so many Cecilians with their badges, that I was ready to shrink into a nonentity, instead of feeling myself by my late privilege superior to all. Every person appeared to turn as we made our way. But for all the clamor I heard him whisper, "You have done with me what no one ever did yet; and oh! I do thank you for being so kind to the foolish child. But come with me, that I may thank you elsewhere."

"I would rather stay, sir. Here is my place, and I went out of my place to do you that little service of which it is out of the question to speak."

"You must not be proud. Is it too proud to be thanked, then?"

With the gentlest grace, he held out to her the single jasmine blossom. "See, no tear has dropped upon it. Will you take its last sigh?"

She drew it down into her hand, and, almost as airily as he moved, glided in among the crowd, which soon divided us from her.

Seraphael himself sighed so very softly that none could have heard it; but I saw it part his lips and heave his breast.

"She does not care for me, you see," he said, in a sweet, half pettish manner, as we left the pavilion.

"Oh! sir, because she does not come with you? That is the very reason, because she cares so much."

"How do you make that out?"

"I remember the day I brought you that water, sir, how I was afraid to stay, although I would have given everything to stay and look at your face; and I ran away so fast because of that."

"Oh, Carlomein, hush! or you must make me vain. I wonder very much why you do like me; but, pray, let it be so."

"Like you!" I exclaimed, as we moved along the corridor, "you are all music,—you must be; for I knew it before I had heard you play."

"They do say so. I wonder whether it is true," said he, laughing a bright, sudden laugh, as brightly sounding as his smile was bright to gaze on. "We shall all know some time, I suppose. Now, Carlomein, what am I to say to this master of yours about you? For here we are at the door, and there is he inside."

"Pray, sir, say what you like, and nothing if you like, for I don't care whether he storms or not."

"'Storms' is a very fine word; but, like our thunder, I expect it will go off very quietly. How kind it was not to thunder and lighten much, and to leave off so soon!"

"Oh! I am so glad. I hate thunder and lightning."

"Do you? and yet you ran for me. Thank you for another little lesson."

He turned and bowed to me, not mockingly, but with a sweet, grave humor. He opened the door at that moment, and I went in behind him. The very first person I saw was Aronach, sitting, as if he never intended to move again, in a great wooden chair, writing in a long book, while other attentive worthies looked over his shoulder. His eyes were down, and my companion crept round the room next the wall as noiselessly as a walking shadow. Then behind the chair, and putting up his finger to those around, he embraced with one arm the chair's stubborn back, and stretched the other forwards, spreading his slender hand out wide into the shape of some pink, clear fan-shell, so as to intercept the view Aronach had of his long book and that unknown writing.

"Der Teufel!" growled Aronach, "dost thou suppose I don't know thy hand among a thousand? But thy pranks won't disturb me any more now than they did of old. Take it off, then, and thyself too."

"Oh! I daresay; but I won't go. I want to show thee a sight, Father Aronach."

He then drew my arm forwards, and held my hand by the wrist, as by a handle, just under Aronach's nose. He looked indeed now; and so sharply, snappishly, that I thought he would have bitten my fingers, and felt very nervous. Seraphael broke into one of his laughter chimes, but still dangled my member; and when Aronach really saw my phiz, he no longer snapped nor roused up grandly, but sank back impotent in that enormous chair. He winked indeed furiously, but his eyes did not flash, so I grew still in my own mind, and thought to speak to him first. I said, somehow, and never thinking a creature was by, except that companion of mine,—

"Dear master, I would not have come without your leave. But you know very well I could not refuse this gentleman, because he is a friend of yours, and you said yourself we must all obey him."

"Whippersnapper and dandiprat! I never said such words to thee. I regard him too much to inform such as thou with obedience. Thou hast, I can see very clearly, made away with all his spirit by thy frivolities, and I especially commend thee for dragging such as he up the hill in this heat. There are no such things as coaches in the Kell Platz, I suppose, or have the horses taken a holiday too?"

"Stop, stop, Aronach! for though I am a little boy," said the other, "I am bigger than he, and I brought him, not he me; and I dragged him thither too, for I don't like your coaches. And it is I who ought to beg pardon for taking him from work he likes so much better than any play, as he told me. But I did want to walk with him, that I might ask him about my English friends, with whom he is better acquainted than I am. He does know them, oh, so well! and had so many interesting anecdotes!"

At the utterance of this small white fib I was almost in fits; but he still went on,—

"I know I have done very wrong, and I was an idle boy to tempt him; but you yourself could not help playing truant to-day. And, dearest master,"—here his sweet, sweet voice was retrieved from the airy gayety,—"do let me come back with you to-day, and have a story-telling. You have not told me a story for a sad long time."

"If you come back, Chevalier, and if we are to get back before bed-time, I would have you go along and rest, if you can, until I shall be free; for I shall never empty my hands while you are by."

Aronach did not say "thou" here, I noticed, and his voice was even courteous, though he still preserved his stateliness. Like a boy, indeed, Seraphael laid hold of my arm and pulled me from the room again. I cannot express the manly indignation of the worthies we left in there at such sportiveness. They all stood firm, and in truth they were all older, both in body and soul, than we. But no sooner were we outside than he began to laugh, and he laughed so that he had to lean against the wall. I laughed too; it was a most contagious spell.

"Now, Carl," he said, "very Carlomein! we will make a tour of discovery. I declare I don't know where I am, and am afraid to find myself in the young ladies' bedrooms. But I want to see how things are carried on here."

We turned this way and that way, he running down all the passages and trying the very doors; but these were all locked.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, vivaciously, "they are, I suppose, too fine;" and then we explored farther. One end of the corridor was screened by a large oaken door from another range of rooms, and not without difficulty we effected an entrance, for the key, although in the lock, was rusty, and no joke to turn. Here, again, were doors, right and left; here also all was hidden under lock and key that they might be supposed to contain; but we did at last discover a curious hole at the end, which we did not take for a room until we came inside,—having opened the door, which was latched, and not especially convenient. However, before we advanced I had ventured, "Sir, perhaps some one is in there, as it is not fastened up."

"I shall not kill them, I suppose," he replied, with a curious eagerness. Then with the old sweetness, "You are very right, I will knock; but I know it will be knocking to nobody."

He had then touched the panel with his delicate knuckles; no voice had answered, and with a mirthful look he lifted the latch and we both entered. It was a sight that surprised me; for a most desolate prison-cell could not have been darker. The window ought not to be so named; for it let in no light, only shade, through its lack-lustrous green glass. There was no furniture at all, except a very narrow bed,—looking harder than Lenhart Davy's, but wearing none of that air of his. There was a closet, as I managed to discover in a niche, but no chest, no stove; in fact, there was nothing suggestive at all, except one solitary picture, and that hung above the bed and looked down into it, as it were, to protect and bless. I felt I know not how when I saw it then and there; for it was—what picture do you think? A copy of the very musical cherub I had met with upon Aronach's wreath-hung walls. It was fresher, newer, in this instance, but it had no gold or carven frame; it was bound at its edge with fair blue ribbon only, beautifully stitched, and suspended by it too. Above the graceful tie was twisted one long branch of lately-gathered linden blossom, which looked itself sufficient to give an air of heaven to the close little cell; it was even as flowers upon a tomb,—those sighs and smiles of immortality where the mortal has passed forever!

"Oh, sir!" I said, and I turned to him,—for I knew his eyes were attracted thither,—"oh, sir! do you know whose portrait that is? For my master has it, and I never dared to ask him; and the others do not know."

"It is a picture of the little boy who played truant and tempted another little boy to play truant too."

And then, as he replied, I wondered I had not thought of such a possibility; for looking from one to the other, I could not now but trace a certain definite resemblance between those floating baby ringlets and the profuse dark curls wherein the elder's strength almost seemed to hide,—so small and infinitely spiritual was he in his incomparable organization.

"Now, sir, do come and rest a little while before we go."

He was standing abstractedly by that narrow bed, and looked as sad, as troubled, as in the impending thunder-cloud; but he rallied just as suddenly.

"Yes, yes; we had better go, or she might come."

I could not reply, for this singular prescience daunted me,—how could he tell it was her very room? But when we came into the corridor, I beheld, by the noonday brightness, which was not banished thence, that there was a kind of moist light in his eyes, not tears, but as the tearful glimmer of some blue distance when rain is falling upon those hills.

We threaded our way downstairs again,—for he seemed quite unwilling to explore farther,—and I wondered where he would lead me next, when we met Milans-André in the hall. The Chevalier blushed even as an angry virgin on beholding him, but still met him cordially as before.

"Where are you staying, Chevalier? At the Fürstin Haus?"

"I am not staying here at all. I am going back to Lorbeerstadt to sleep, and to-morrow to Altenweg, and then to many places for many days."

"Oh! I thought you would have supped with me, and I could have a little initiated you. But if you are really returning to Lorbeerstadt, pray use my carriage, which is waiting in the yard."

"You are only too amiable, my dear André. We shall use it with the greatest pleasure."

Oh! how black did André look when Seraphael laid that small, delicate stress upon the "we;" for I knew the invitation intended his colleague, and included no one else. But the other evidently took it all for granted; and again thanking him with exquisite gayety, ran out into the court-yard, and cried to me to come and see the carriage.

"I have a little coach myself," he said to me and also to André, who was lounging behind along with us; "but it is a toy compared with yours, and I wonder I did not put it into my pocket, it is so small,—only large enough for thee and me, Carlomein."

"Why, Seraphael, you are dreaming. There are no such equipages in all Vienna as your father's and mother's."

"They are not mine, you see; and if I drove such, I should look like a sparrow in a hencoop. Oh, Carlomein, what quantities of sparrows there are in London! Do they live upon the smuts?"

At this instant the carriage, whose driver André had beckoned to draw up, approached; and then we both ran to fetch Aronach, who came out very grumbling, for the entry in the long book was scarcely dry; and he saluted nobody, but marched after us like a person suddenly wound up, putting himself heavily into the carriage, which he did not notice in the least. It was an open carriage, Paris-built (as I now know), and so luxuriously lined as not to be very fit for an expedition in any but halcyon weather. As for Seraphael, he flung himself upon the seat as a cowslip ball upon the grass, and scarcely shook the light springs; and as I followed him, he made a profound bow to the owner of the equipage, who, disconsolately enough, still stood within the porch.

"Now, I do enjoy this, Carlomein! I cannot help loving to be saucy to André,—good, excellent, and wonderful as he is."

I looked to find whether he was in earnest. But I could not tell, for his eyes were grave, and the lips at rest. But Aronach gave a growl, though mildly,—as the lion might growl in the day when a little child shall lead him.

"You have not conquered that weakness yet, and, I prophesy, never will."

"What weakness, master?" But he faltered, even as a little child.

"To excuse fools and fondle slaves."

"Oh, my master, do not scold me!" and he covered his eyes with his little blue-veined hands. "It is so sad to be a fool or a slave that we should do all for such we can do, especially if we are not so ourselves. I think myself right there."

His pleading tone here modulated into the still authority I had noticed once or twice, and Aronach gave a smile in reply, which was the motion of the raptured look I had noticed during the improvisation.

"Thou teachest yet, then, out of thy vocation. But thou art no more than thou ever hast been,—too much for thy old master. And as wrens fly faster and creep stealthier than owls, so art thou already whole heavens beyond me."

But with tender scornfulness, Seraphael put out his hand in deprecation, and throwing back his hair, buried his head in the cushion of the carriage and shut his eyes. Nor did he again open them until we entered our little town.

I need scarcely say I watched him; and often, as in a glassy mirror, I see that face again upturned to the light,—too beautiful to require any shadow, or to seek it,—see again the dazzling day draw forth its lustrous symmetry, while ever the soft wind tried to lift those deep locks from the lucid temples, but tried in vain; what I am unable to picture to myself in so recalling being the ever restless smile that played and fainted over the lips, while the closed eyes were feeding upon the splendors of the Secret. I shall never forget either, though, how they opened; and he came, as it were, to his childlike self again as the light carriage—light indeed for Germany—dashed round the Kell Platz, where its ponderous contemporaneous contradictions were ranged, and took the fountain square in an unwonted sweep. Then he sat forward and watched with the greatest eagerness, and he sprang out almost before we stopped.

"I think Carl and I could save you these stairs, master mine," he exclaimed. "Let us carry you up between us!"

But what do you think was the reply? Seraphael had spoken in his gleeful voice. But Aronach wore his gravest frown as he turned and pounced suddenly upon the other,—whipping him up in his arms, and hoisting him to his shoulder, then speeding up the staircase with his guest as if the weight were no greater than a flower or a bird! I could not stir some moments from astonishment and alarm, for I had instantaneous impressions of Seraphael flying over the balusters; but presently, when his laugh came ringing down,—and I realized it to be the laugh of one almost beside himself with fun,—I flew after them, and found them on the dark landing at the foot of our own flight. Seraphael was now upon his feet, and I quite appreciated the delicate policy of the old head here. He said in a moment, when his breath was steady,—

"Now, if they offer to chair thee again at the Quartzmayne Festival, and thou turnest giddy-pate, send for me!"

"I certainly will, if they offer such an honor; but once is quite enough, and they will not do it again."

"Why not?"

"Because I fell into the river, and was picked up by a fisherman; and desiring to know my character after I was dead, I made him cover me with his nets and row me down to Carstein, quite three miles. There I supped with him, and slept too, and the next morning heard that I was drowned."

"Oh! one knows that history, which found its way into a certain paper among the lies, and was published in illustration of the eccentricities of genius."

Aronach said this very cross,—I wondered whether it was with the Press, or his pupil; but if it were with the latter, he only enjoyed it the more.

Then Aronach bade me conduct his guest into the organ-room, while he himself put a period to those howlings of the immured ones which yet conscientiously asserted themselves. We waited a few moments upstairs, and then Aronach carried off the Chevalier to his own room,—a sacred region I had never approached, and which I could only suppose to exist. I then rushed to mine, and was so long in collecting my senses that Starwood came to bid me to supper. I did not detain him then, though I had so much to say; but I observed that he had his Sunday coat on,—a little blue frock, braided; and I remembered that I ought to have assumed my own. Still, my wardrobe was in such perfect order (thanks to Clo) that my own week coat was more respectable than many other boys' Sunday ones; and though I have the instinct of personal cleanliness very strong, I cannot say I like to look smart.

When I reached our parlor, I was quite dazzled. There was a sumptuous banquet, as I took it, arranged upon a cloth, the fineness and whiteness of which so far transcended our daily style that I immediately apprehended it had proceeded from the secret hoards in that wonderful closet of Aronach's. The tall glasses were interspersed with silver flagons, and the usual garnishings varied by all kinds of fruits and flowers, which appeared to have sprung from a magic touch or two of that novel magic presence. For the rest, there were delicious milk porridge on our accounts, and honey and butter, and I noticed those long-necked bottles, one like which Santonio had emptied, and which I had never seen upon that table since; for Aronach was very frugal, and taught us to be so. I was so from taste and by habit, but Iskar would have liked to gorge himself with dainties, I used to think. When I saw this last seated at the table I was highly indignant, for he had set his stool by Seraphael's chair. He had fished from his marine store of clothes a crumpled white-silk waistcoat, over which he had invested himself with a tarnished silver watch-chain. But I would not, if I could, recall his audacious manner of gazing over everything upon the table and everybody in the room, with those legs of his stretched out for any one to stumble over, or rather on purpose to make me stumble. I knew this very well, and avoided him by placing my stool on the opposite edge of the board, where I could still look into the eyes I loved if I raised my own.

This insignificant episode will prove that Iskar had not grown in my good graces, nor had I acquainted myself better with him than on the first night of my arrival. I knew him not, but I knew of him, for every voice in the house was against him; and he gave promise of no small power upon his instrument, together with small promise of musical or mental excellence, as all he did was correct to caricature and inimitably mechanical. Vain as he was of his playing, his vanity had small scope on that score under that quiet roof shadow, so it spent itself upon his person, which was certainly elegant, if vulgar. I am not clear but that one of these personal attractions always infers the other. But why I mention Iskar is that I may be permitted to recall the expressions with which our master's guest regarded him. It was a grieved, yet curious glance, with that child-like scrutiny of what is not true all abashing to the false, unless the false has lost all child-likeness. Iskar must, I suppose, have lost it, for he was not the least abashed, and was really going to begin upon his porridge before we had all sat down, if Aronach had not awfully, but serenely, rebuked him. Little Starwood, by my side, looked as fair and as pretty as ever, rather more shy than usual. Seraphael, now seated, looked round with that exquisitely sweet politeness I have never met with but in him, and asked us each whether we would eat some honey, for he had the honey-pot before him. I had some, of course, for the pleasure of being helped by him, and he dropped it into my milk in a gold flowing stream, smiling as he did so. It was so we always ate honey at Aronach's, and it is so I eat it to this day. Little Star put out his bowl too. Oh! those great heavy wooden bowls! it was just too much for him, and he let it slip. Aronach was rousing to thunder upon him, and I felt as if the ceiling were coming down (for I knew he was angry on account of that guest of his), when we heard that voice in its clear authority,—"Dear Aronach, do nothing! the milk is not spoiled." And turning all of us together, we saw that he had caught the bowl on his outstretched hands, and that not a drop had fallen. I mention it as illustrative of that miraculous organization in which intent and action were simultaneous, the motions of whose will it seemed impossible to retard or anticipate. Even Iskar looked astonished at this feat; but he had not long to wonder, for Aronach sternly commended us to great haste in the disposal of our supper.

I needed not urging, for it was natural to feel that the master and his master must wish to be alone,—indeed, I should have been thankful to escape eating, though I was very hungry, that I might not be in the way; but directly I took pains to do away with what I had before me, I was forbidden by Aronach to "bolt."

I lay awake many hours in a vague excitement of imaginary organ sounds welling up to heaven from heaven's under-springs. I languished in a romantic vision of that face, surrounded with cloud-angels, itself their out-shining light. I waited to hear his footsteps upon the stairs when he should at length depart; but so soft was that departing motion that even I, listening with my whole existence, heard it not, nor heard anything to remind my heart-silence that he had come and gone.