CHAPTER XXI.
Meanwhile, Mr. Whacker has not been idle. He has been giving his wondering and interested guest an account of what I have just narrated to the reader; omitting, naturally, many things that I have said; saying many things that I have omitted; telling his story, that is, in his own way. Let us drop in upon them and see where they are.
“This was in 1855,—five years ago. How have you managed to supply M. Villemain’s place during all this time? Have you succeeded in developing the local talent?”
“Local talent? Bless you, no. I labored faithfully with my grandson, but had to give him up,—no taste that way. Then there was a young fellow, the son of a neighbor,—young William Jones,—who is now at the University. I had great hopes of him when he began to take lessons; but the scamp was too lazy to practise his exercises, and pretended he couldn’t see any tune in classical music. Perfectly absurd! However,” quickly added Mr. Whacker, observing that his guest was silent, “the majority are of his way of thinking. Bill is a capital fiddler, however, and is invaluable at our dancing parties. He will be down Christmas, and you will hear him.”
“I should like very much to do so,” replied the Don, rather stiffly.
“His ‘Arkansas Traveller’ is an acknowledged m-m-m-masterpiece,” chimed in Charley, “and his ‘B-B-B-Billy in the Low Grounds’ the despair of every other fiddler in the county.”
“I should like very much indeed to hear him,” said the stranger, laughing heartily at Charley’s neatly turned phrase, over which his stammering threw a quaint halo of added humor. “And so you had to give him up also, Mr. Whacker?”
“Yes, I had to give them all up, except Charley here.” And he gave that young man’s knee a vigorous slap, accompanied with an admiring glance. “You could hardly guess how I manage. You see Mr. Waldteufel visits Baltimore twice a year to lay in a stock of music and other articles needed by his pupils, and he has instructions to look about him and pick up, if possible, some violinist newly landed in the country, or one temporarily out of employment; or perhaps he may find an artist desiring a vacation, to whom a few weeks in the country would be a tempting bait. All such he is at liberty to invite to Elmington,—provided, of course,” added Mr. Whacker, with a wave of his hand, “provided they be proper persons.”
“Or the reverse,” soliloquized Charley, prying narrowly, as he spoke, into the bowl of his pipe.
“Or the what?”
“I addressed an observation to my p-p-p-pipe.”
“Well, suppose they are sometimes rather—in fact—rather—what difference, pray, does it make to us two bachelors? You will no doubt think, Mr. Smith, that this is a quartet under difficulties,—and so it is, but it is a quartet after all. If not, in dissenting phrase, a ‘stated,’ it is, at least, an ‘occasional service of song.’”
“Goot for de Barrone!” quoted Charley.
“Then again, I not infrequently invite the leader of some watering-place band to drop in on us, for a week or so, on the closing of the season at the Springs. They are generally excellent musicians, and glad enough, after a summer of waltzes and polkas, to refresh themselves with a little real music. So you see that, after all, where there is a will there is a way. Provide yourself with a cage, and some one will be sure to give you a bird; build a house, and—”
“The r-r-r-rats will soon come.”
“I was going to say a wife—”
“Oh, then, instead of r-r-r-rats, it’s br-br-br-brats!”
“You see,” continued my grandfather, laughing, “I have the Hall there for a cage.”
“Yes, but where is your bird, your fourth player?”
“Very true, the bird is lacking just at present. The truth is, we have had poor luck of late. We have not had any quartet music for a year,—not even our quartets where the piano takes the place of one of the violins, owing to the absence of our young-lady artiste. By the way, I forgot to tell you, in speaking of our local talent, that one of our girls is an excellent pianist, and that through her we have been enabled (until the past year) to keep up our quartet evenings, in the absence of a first violin; the main trouble being that I am hardly equal to my part—that of the first violin—in these compositions,—Lucy Poythress. You know her?” asked Mr. Whacker, on observing the sudden interest in the Don’s face.
“Why, Uncle Tom, Mr. Smith saved her life! Don’t you remember?”
“Of course! of course! you must pardon an old man’s tricks of memory!”
“Miss Poythress is a good musician?”
“Oh, wonderful, we think. She was the only one of Mr. Waldteufel’s pupils who had the least fancy for classical music. She seemed to feel its meaning from the very first, and I hardly know what we should have done without her. For several years—ever since she was fourteen, in fact—she has been playing with us; in quartet when we needed her, a solo between our Haydn and Mozart when we happened to have a first violin. You should know her,—know her well, I mean. So much character, and yet so gentle! Such depth of soul! In fact, she is an incomparable girl! I must confess, I never cease to wonder how Charley, here—”
“There you go again, Uncle Tom!”
“This good-for-nothing fellow, Mr. Smith, has, for several years, been crossing the river, Friday afternoons, to fetch her and her mother to our quartet parties,—taking them back, and spending the night under the same roof with this noble girl,—breakfasting with her next morning,—and yet—Where would you find another sister, eh?”
Charley rose, and, after walking about the room and glancing at the books in an aimless sort of way, without other reply than a smile, descended the steps and stood on the lawn with his fingers interlaced behind his back.
“That’s what he would have said,” added Mr. Whacker in an undertone, “had you not been present; or else, that if Mrs. Poythress were his mother-in-law, what should he do for a mother? He is a singular fellow,—a ‘regular character,’ as the saying is. He has the greatest aversion to giving expression to his feelings, and fancies that he hides them,—though he succeeds about as well as the fabled ostrich. The truth is, he has the warmest attachment for Lucy (I wish it were only a little warmer), but a still greater affection for her mother. There are, in fact,” added Mr. Whacker, lowering his voice into a mysterious whisper, “peculiar reasons for his devotion to her and hers to him,—but it is a sad story which I will not go into; but, for ten or fifteen years—ever, at least, since a cruel bereavement she experienced—he has made it a rule to spend, if at all possible, one night of every week under her roof. This weekly visit is a pleasure to Charley, but it seems to be a necessity with poor Mrs. Poythress. No weather can keep him back. Fair or foul, go he will; and, on one occasion, he spent a night in the water, clinging to his capsized boat. ‘I can’t help it, Uncle Tom,’ he will say; ‘she misses my visit so.’”
“My God!” cried the stranger, in a voice of piercing anguish; and, leaping from his seat, he stood with his temples pressed between his hands and his powerful frame convulsed with emotion.
Had my grandfather been a man of more tact, he could not have failed to remark in the dancing eyes, twitching mouth, and pallid features of his guest the symptoms of a coming storm. As it was, it burst upon him like a bolt from a cloudless sky. He stood aghast; and to the eager inquiring glances of Charley, who had sprung into the room on hearing the cry and the noise of the falling chair, he could only return, for answer, a look of utter bewilderment. The stranger had turned, on Charley’s entrance upon the scene, and was supporting his head upon his hand, against the sash of the rear window.
“I cannot imagine!” silently declaimed and disclaimed my grandfather.
“I hope—” began Charley, advancing.
The Guest, as though afraid to trust his voice, with a turn of his head flashed a kindly smile upon Charley, accompanied by a deprecatory motion of the hand, and again averted his face as though not yet master of his features; but, a moment after, he straightened himself, suddenly, and turning, advanced towards his host.
“Mr. Whacker,” he began, with a grave smile, “I beg you a thousand pardons. There are certain parallelisms in life—I mean that you inadvertently touched a chord that quite overmastered me for the moment. Forgive me.” And, taking my grandfather’s hand, he bowed over it with deep humility. Turning then to Charley, who, the reader will bear in mind, had not heard the words of Mr. Whacker that had wrought the explosion, the Guest, to Charley’s great astonishment, grasped both his hands with a fervid grip, but averted look; then abruptly dropping his hands, he seized his hat and strode out of the door; leaving our two friends in blank amazement. They stood staring at each other with wide eyes. At last, Charley raised his hand and tapped his forehead with his forefinger, then went to the door and looked out.
“By Jove,” cried he, “he is making straight for the river!” And, hatless as he was, he sprang to the ground and started after him, at a run—for the Guest was swinging along with giant strides. Charley’s heart beat quick, when the stranger, reaching the shore, stopped suddenly, stretching out both his arms toward the opposite bank with wild, passionate gestures. The pursuer was about to cry out, when the pursued, turning sharply to the left, moved on again, as rapidly as before. It was then that, either hearing Charley’s hurrying steps, or by chance turning his head, he saw that he was followed. He stopped instantly; and, coming forward to meet Charley:
“I must ask pardon again,” said he, with extended hand. “I should have told you that I was going out for a good long walk. I shall be back before dinner.”
“All right!”
The Guest doffed his hat and began to move on again; but Charley, seized with a sudden remnant of suspicion, stopped him with a motion of his hand. “Remember,” said he, going close up to him, and speaking in a low but earnest tone,—“remember, you have two good friends yonder.” And, with a toss of his upturned thumb, he pointed, over his shoulder, towards the house, which lay behind them; and young Frobisher, feeling that he had said much, cast his eyes upon the ground, bashful as a girl.
“I believe you,” said the guest; “and,” he added with earnestness, “the belief is much to me—much,—see you at dinner.”
Charley, returning, found Mr. Whacker standing on the lawn, awaiting, with some anxiety, his report.
“It’s all right, I think. Look at him! See how he is booming along the bank! But, Uncle Tom, how on earth did you and Mr. Smith manage to get up those theatricals?!”
“Hang me if I know! We were talking, as quietly as possible, about some trivial matter or other,—entirely trivial, I assure you,—and, all of a sudden, up he leaped in the air as though he had been shot. Let me see, what were we talking about?” And Mr. Whacker rested his forehead upon his hand. “Let—me—see. No, I can’t for the life of me remember. The ‘theatricals,’ as you call them, must have driven everything out of my head; but they were nothings that we were saying, I assure you.”
“You remember that, when I left the room, you were teasing me about not falling in love with Lucy Poythress?”
“Yes, yes, yes; now I have it! Well, after you went out, I told him what friends you and Mrs. Poythress were, and how you paid her a weekly visit, rain or shine,—ah, yes, and how once you were upset, when you would cross the river in spite of my remonstrances, and so on and so on.”
“That was all?”
“Every word. Why, you were not out of the room two minutes!”
“H’m!” And Charley slowly filled his pipe, and, lighting it, went out upon the lawn, where he walked haltingly up and down for some time. Quickly raising his eyes at last, and fixing them inquiringly upon the Poythress mansion, nestling across the river, in its clump of trees, he gazed at it with a look, now intent, now abstracted. “Can it be?” he muttered; and he stood long, chin upon breast, buried in thought; but what these thoughts were he breathed to no man.