CHAPTER X.
DIE EDLE MUSICA.
Bell Merryweather was sitting alone in the parlour at Braeside. She was waiting for Hildegarde to finish some piece of work up-stairs before going for a twilight walk. So waiting, she naturally drifted to the piano, and, opening it, began to play.
DIE EDLE MUSICA.
Bell might love her Greek and her botany, might delight, too, in rowing and riding, and in all the out-door life that kept her strong, young body in such perfect condition; but, after all, these things filled the second and third place only in her life; her music was first, once and always. All through school and college she had kept it up steadily, seeking always the best instruction, loving always the best music; till now, at eighteen, she was at once mistress and faithful servant of her beloved art. Hildegarde played with taste and feeling, but she never cared to touch the piano when she might listen to Bell instead; there was all the difference in the world, and she knew it far better than modest Bell herself. So when Hildegarde now, up-stairs, heard the firm, light touch on the keys below, she nodded to herself, well pleased, and went on with her work. "Such a treat for Mammina!" she said. "And I do want to finish this, and the dear girl will not know whether she plays five minutes or an hour."
Hildegarde was right. Bell played on and on, one lovely thing after another; and forgot her friend up-stairs, and her walk, and everything else in the world, save herself and die edle Musica.
Now, it happened about this time,—or it may have been half an hour after,—that some one else stood and listened to the music that filled the early December twilight with warmth and beauty and sweetness. A young man had come running lightly up the steps of the veranda, with a tread that spoke familiarity, and eagerness, too; had hastened towards the door, but paused there, at the sound of the piano. A young man, not more than twenty at the most, very tall, with a loose-jointed spring to his gait, that might have been awkwardness a year or two ago, but sat not ungracefully on him now. He had curly brown hair, and bright blue eyes, set rather far apart under a broad, white forehead; not a handsome face, but one so honest and so kindly that people liked to look at it, and felt more cheerful for doing so.
The blue eyes wore a look of surprise just now; surprise which rapidly deepened into amazement.
"Oh, I say!" he murmured. "That can't be,—and yet it must, of course. How on earth has she learned to play like this?" He listened again. The notes of Schumann's "Faschingsschwank" sounded full and clear. The bright scene of the Vienna carnival rose as in a magic vision; the flower-hung balconies, the gardens and fountains, the bands of dancers, like long garlands, swinging hand in hand through the white streets. The young man saw it all, almost as clearly as his bodily eyes had seen it a year before. And the playing! so sure and clear and brilliant, so full of fire and tenderness—
"But she cannot have learned all this in two years!" said Jack Ferrers. "It's incredible! She must have worked at nothing else; and she has never said a word— Ah! but, my dear girl, you must have the violin for that!"
The player had struck the opening chords of the great Mendelssohn Concerto for piano and violin.
The youth lifted something that he had laid down on the veranda seat,—an oblong black box; lifted it as tenderly as a mother lifts her sleeping child. Then he stepped quietly into the twilight hall.
So it came to pass that Bell, who was very near the gate of heaven already, heard suddenly, as it seemed to her, the music of angels; a tone mingling with her own, pure, thrilling, ecstatic; lifting her on wings of lofty harmony, up, up,—far from earth and its uncertain voices, nearer and ever nearer to where love and light and music were blended in one calm blessedness. It never occurred to her to stop; hardly even to wonder what it meant, or who was doing her this service of heavenly comradeship. She played on and on, as she had never played before; only dreading the end, when the spirit would leave her, and she must sink to earth again, alone.
When the end did come, there was silence in the room. It was nearly dark. Any form that she should see on turning round would needs be vague and shadowy, yet she dreaded to turn; and she found herself saying aloud, unconsciously:
"Oh! I thought I was in heaven!"
"I knew I was!" said Jack Ferrers. "Oh, Hilda, how have you done it? How was it possible for you to do it? My dear—"
He was stepping forward eagerly; but two voices cried out suddenly, one in terror, it seemed, the other,—was it joy or pain? The girl at the piano turned round; even in the dark, Jack knew instantly that it was not his cousin. He looked helplessly towards the door, and there stood another shadowy figure; what did it all mean? But now, after that pause of an instant, this second figure came forward with outstretched arms.
"My dear, dearest old Jack! I have been listening; I could not speak at first. Oh, welcome, dear old fellow! Welcome home a hundred thousand times!"
Ah! now Jack knew where he was. This was the welcome he had thought of, dreamed of, all the way home across the ocean. This was the surprise that he had planned, and carried out so perfectly. This was Hilda herself, in flesh and blood; his best friend, better than any sister could be. These were her kind, tender eyes, this was her sweet, cordial voice, in which you felt the heart beating true and steady,—all was just as he had pictured it in many a lonely hour during the past two years. Only,—only, who was it he had gone to heaven with just now? A stranger!
Before his bewildered mind could grasp anything more, Hildegarde had put out her hand, and caught the silent shape that was flitting past her through the doorway.
"No!" she cried. "You shall not go! It is absurd for you two to pretend to be strangers, after you have been playing together like that; absurd, and you both know it. Bell, of course you know this is my cousin Jack, whom I have so wanted you to meet. Jack, I have written you of my friend Isabel Merryweather. Oh, oh, my dears! It was so beautiful! So beautiful! And I am so happy,—I really think I am going to cry!"
"Oh, don't!" cried Bell and Jack together; and the sheer terror in their voices made Hildegarde laugh instead.
"And you thought it was I!" she cried, still a little hysterical. "Jack, how could you? I thought better of you!"
"I—I didn't see how it could be," said honest Jack. "I didn't see how you could possibly have done it in two years, or,—or in a lifetime, for that matter; but how could I suppose,—how could I know—"
"You couldn't, of course. Oh, and to think of all the delight you are going to give us, the two of you! Jack, your playing is—I can't tell you what it is. My dear, I am afraid to light the lamp. Shall I see a totally different Jack from the old one? You have learned such an infinity, haven't you?"
"I should be a most hopeless muff if I hadn't learned something!" said her cousin. "But you needn't be afraid to light the lamp, Hilda. You will see the ostrich, or the giraffe, or the kangaroo, whichever you prefer. But first I must thank Miss Merryweather for playing so delightfully. You have played with the violin before, of course? I felt that instantly."
There was no reply; for Bell, feeling simply, desperately, that she must get away, must relieve the two cousins of her presence, since it could not by any possibility be welcome, had seen her moment, and slipped quietly out while Hildegarde was busy with the lamp.
The light sprang up, and both looked eagerly round.
"Why, she is gone!" cried Jack. "I say! And I never thanked her. What an idiot she must think me!"
"She thought nothing of the sort," said Hildegarde. "She is the most modest, unselfish creature in the world, and she thought we would rather be without her. I know her!"
"Well, I suppose she was right," yet Hildegarde fancied a shade of regret in his hearty tone; "anyhow, she is a brick, isn't she?"
"How would you define a brick?" asked Hildegarde, demurely.
"A musician," said Jack, emphatically; "and a—a good fel—Oh, well, you know what I mean, Hilda! And isn't it pretty hard, now, when a fellow has been away two years, that he should come back and have the girl of his heart begin to tease him within five minutes? Oh, I say, Hilda, how well you're looking! You have grown prettier; I didn't suppose you could grow prettier. Would you mind shaking hands again?"
Hildegarde held out her hand gladly, and laughed and blushed when her cousin raised it to his lips in the graceful European fashion.
"You have learned something besides violin-playing, Jack," she said. "If any one had proposed your kissing hands two years ago, what would you have done?"
"Taken to the woods," replied Jack, promptly. "But—well, they all do it there, of course; and I saw the gnadige Frau—Frau J.—expected it when I went to dine there, so—so I learned. But all the time, Hilda, I thought I was only learning so that I could kiss your mother's hand,—and yours!"
"Dear lad!" said Hilda. "Mamma will be pleased; she always wishes people would be 'more graceful in their greetings.' Can't you hear her say it? But why do we stand here, when she is waiting for us in her room? She has rheumatism to-day, so I would not let her come down, poor darling; and here I am keeping you all to myself, like the highwayman I am."
"Yes, I always thought you were cut out for a highwayman," said Jack. "Come along, then! I have a thousand things to tell you both."
Hand in hand, like happy children, the two ran up-stairs. Mrs. Grahame was waiting with open arms. Indeed, she had been the first to hear the notes of the violin; and her cry—"Hilda! Jack is come! our boy is come!"—had brought Hildegarde flying from the recesses of the linen-closet. Her eyes were full of happy tears; and when Jack bent to kiss her hand, she folded him warmly in her arms, and pressed more than one kiss on his broad forehead.
"My boy!" she said. "My boy has come back to me! Hilda, it is your brother; do you understand? It is as if my little son, who went away so long ago, had been sent back to me."
"Yes, Mother," said Hildegarde, softly. "I know; we both know, Jack and I. Dear Mother, blessed one! let the tears come a little; it will do you good."
They were silent for a little. The two young people pressed close to the elder woman, who felt the years surge up around her like a flood; but there was no bitterness in the waters, only sweet and sacred depths of love and memory. The boy and girl, filled with a passionate longing to cheer and comfort her whom they loved so dearly, felt perhaps more pain than she did, for they were too young to have seen the smile on the face of sorrow.
But now Mrs. Grahame was smiling again.
"Dears!" she said. "Dear children! They are such happy tears, you must not mind them. And now they are all gone, and that is enough about me, and too much. Jack, sit down on that stool; draw it close, so that I can see you in the firelight. So! And you are there, Hilda?"
"On the other stool!" said Hildegarde. "Here we are, love, close beside you."
"That is good! And now, Odysseus, let us hear! Mr. Ferrers has the floor."
"He certainly has a good deal of it!" said Jack, looking rather ruefully at his long legs, which did extend a prodigious distance along the hearth-rug.
"What do you think of my having grown two whole inches since I went away? I call it a shame! Uncle Tom measured me with his stick before I had been in the house five minutes; six feet four! It is disgraceful, you know!"
"Dear Colonel Ferrers!" cried Hildegarde. "Isn't he coming soon, to tell us how happy he is? Why, Jack, do you know, he was so funny about you last night! I asked when you were coming, and he quite growled, the dear, and called you irresponsible, and wouldn't tell us a thing."
"Of course he wouldn't! Spoil my surprise, that I had planned so carefully? It is well he did not! But he told me about it, too,—about last night, I mean. He said you would persist in asking questions, and looking straight at him as you asked them, so that his only refuge was in gruffness. Yes, Hilda, he is coming over after tea,—I may stay to tea, mayn't I? He—I thought they wouldn't mind being alone for a bit,—Oh, wait! I haven't come to that yet. Where shall I begin? Come back to Leipsic with me, will you?"
Both ladies signified their willingness to take the voyage at once.
"I have spread the magic carpet!" cried Jack. "Be seated, if you please! Whisk! Presto! Behold us in Leipsic. Mesdames, let me have the honour of presenting you to Herr J,——the greatest living violinist. Herr Professor, these are the people I love best in the world, except two. Well, you see it is very simple, after all. The Maestro was going on a tour in Russia; was invited to play before the Czar, and all kinds of things. He will be gone all winter; so he said, why should I not come home and see my father and uncle, and talk over plans with them? He—the Maestro—wants me to work for the Royal Medal. It's only given out once in three years, and it's a pretty big thing, but he thinks I would better try for it. I—did I write you about the scholarship I got? No? Well, I think I did, but it must have been in my last letter, and Uncle Tom thinks my last letters did not get posted, or something. Well, yes; I got a pretty good scholarship, enough to pay my expenses both ways, and leave me a hundred dollars besides."
"Oh, Jack! how splendid!" cried Hildegarde, in delight. "That is pretty glorious, I do think. Wasn't Colonel Ferrers enchanted? Oh! and when can you see your father? Is he still in Virginia? Of course you want to fly to him."
"Not in the least!" replied Jack. "I am coming to that presently. I think that hundred dollars rather went to my head. The first thing I did when I got it was to cable to my father that I was coming on the Urania. Then I shut myself up in my room and played a bit, and then I turned somersaults till my head was like—like an apple dumpling; and then I went shopping."
"Shopping, Jack? I can hardly fancy you shopping."
"Well, I did! I got a pipe for my father,—oh, a beauty!—meerschaum, of course, carved with a head of Schumann, the most perfect likeness! Hilda, when the smoke comes out of it, you expect to hear it sing the 'Davidsbündler,' one after another. Of course anybody except Schumann would have been ridiculous, but it seems to suit him. Then for Uncle Tom—a pipe is horror to him, of course—I got a walking-stick, ebony, with no end of a Turk's head on it. He hates the Turks so, you know. I knew he would enjoy squeezing it, and rapping it up against things, and he does like it, I think. And then—" the boy began to fumble in his pockets, blushing with eagerness—"Mrs. Grahame, I—I saw this in a shop, and—it made me think of you. Will you put it somewhere, please, where you will see it now and then, and—and think of me?"
The tiny parcel he held out was wrapped in folds of soft, foreign-looking paper. Mrs. Grahame, opening it, found an exquisite little copy of the Nuremburg Madonna, the sweetest and tenderest figure of motherhood and gracious womanliness.
"My dear boy!" she said, much moved. "What a beautiful, beautiful thing! Is it really mine? How can I thank you enough?"
"So glad you like it! Is it right, Hilda?"
"Quite right," said Hilda; and they nodded and smiled at each other, while the mother bent over her treasure, absorbed in its beauty.
"And you, Hilda!" said Jack, searching his pockets again. "Do you suppose I have anything for you? Do you really suppose I had time to stop and think about you?"
The boy was in such a glow of happiness, the joy so rippled and shone from him, that Hildegarde could not take her eyes from his face.
"Dear fellow!" she said. "As if I needed anything but just the sight of you, and the sound of your—fiddle! And yet,—oh, Jack! Jack! How could you? How could you let yourself do it?"
Jack had put something into her hands, and was now leaning back in perfect content, watching her face in turn, and delighted with every light that danced over it. The something was a bracelet; a little, shining garland of stars, each star a cluster of "aquamarine" stones, clear as crystal, with the faintest, most delicate shade of green, hardly seen in the full light. Not a jewel of great value, but as pretty a thing as ever a girl saw.
"Jack!" sighed Hilda again. "How could you? There never was anything so beautiful in the world; that is confessed."
"And the clasp is the moon, you see!" Jack explained, eagerly. "I thought it looked like the Moonlight Sonata, Hilda, and you used to like me to play it, you know; and so I thought—you do like it? Now I am quite happy! Fate has nothing better for me than this. Except one thing!" he added, turning with boyish shyness from Hilda's warm, almost reproachful thanks,—she was hardly reconciled to his spending his hard-earned money on trinkets for her, yet she was genuinely delighted with the exquisite gift, as any right-minded girl would have been.
"There is one thing more!" said Jack. "And I think I am going to have that now. Hark! Is not that a step on the veranda? May he—may they come up here, dear Mrs. Grahame?"
Mrs. Grahame hesitated a moment, glancing at her dainty tea-gown, and then around at the perfection of the pleasant sitting-room.
"Certainly!" she said, heartily. "If you do not think Colonel Ferrers will mind,—such an old friend, and he knows I am not well to-day."
Jack and Hilda flew down-stairs as fast as they had flown up; indeed, Hilda was nearly overthrown by her cousin's impetuous rush.
"I haven't told you yet!" he cried. "Hilda, you guess, don't you? You know what the best of all is to be? He is here! He—here he is!"
He threw open the door. Colonel Ferrers's stalwart form loomed against the pale evening sky, and behind it was a tall, slender figure, stooping somewhat, with a shrinking air like a shy boy.
"Hilda, it is my father!" cried Jack, now at the top of his heaven, and "Hilda, my dear, my brother Raymond!" cried the Colonel, not a whit less pleased. Hilda found her hand taken between two slender, white hands, that trembled a little, as they drew her towards the light.
"My boy's best friend!" said Mr. Ferrers; and Hilda thought that the gentle blue eyes were even kinder than those fierce gray ones of the Colonel's, now twinkling with tears, which he brushed away with furious impatience.
"My boy's kind sister and helper! God bless you, my dear! I owe you a great debt, which only love can repay. And now take me to your mother. I have not seen her for many a long year."
Hildegarde hardly knew how they all got up-stairs, she was so flurried, so joyfully shaken and melted and confused. But it was only a moment before the tall man was bending over her mother's chair, taking her hands in turn, and gazing at her wistfully, tenderly.
"Mildred Bond!" said Raymond Ferrers. "Am I fifty years old, or fifteen, Mildred? Where are the years gone, my child? You are utterly unchanged."
But this was more than the Colonel could bear.
"Raymond, you are as great an ass as ever!" he cried, bringing down his hand with formidable violence on the slender, stooping shoulder. "Jack, what did I tell you? I said he was a mixture of angel and idiot. Look at him! Hear him! and contradict me if you dare." And then, as his brother turned and laid an arm round his shoulder, the Colonel fairly broke down, and was heard to mutter behind his handkerchief that the world consisted principally of a parcel of fools, and that he was the biggest of them.