CHAPTER XXXVI.
Never, perhaps, was there a merrier Christmas party than that which was now laughing and chattering as they seated themselves before that noble hickory fire which lit up the Hall with its ruddy glow. The pleasantest thing of all was to see the happy change that had come over the Don. He was a different man. That air of self-restraint and conscious reserve, which had never left him before, had entirely vanished. It was evident that, whatever his motives for concealing his musical talents, it was an immense relief to him to have abandoned the singular rôle he had been playing; and his long-imprisoned feelings had bounded up like a released spring. We hardly knew him. He was not only unconstrained and cheerful, he was even jolly. “I say, old boy,” said he, slapping Jones on the shoulder, “you must not suppose that it was I who laid that trap for you yesterday evening. My playing was purely unintentional,—even involuntary. But who could have resisted Uncle Tom?” This was the first time he had ever called my grandfather by that name.
“No apologies, no apologies,” replied Billy. “Mr. Charles Frobisher set that snare for my unwary feet.”
“Not at all,” rejoined Charley. “I kept my wary feet out of it, that was all.”
“But wasn’t it capital!” cried Jones; and showing all his massive white teeth, he made the hall resound with a laugh that echoed contagiously from group to group.
But there was one person in the room who did not share in the general joyousness,—our friend Mary. She had taken her stand apart, by a window that commanded the western horizon; and turning with a half-startled air, at the sound of the laughter, responded to it with a faint and preoccupied smile. In truth, the poor child was ill at ease; though what it was that troubled that young heart none of my readers, I feel assured, would ever guess. Yet, while to most of them the cause of her annoyance will appear whimsical in the extreme, as it was characteristic of her to suffer from such a cause, I must state it, and towards this end a few prefatory words will be necessary.
Neither the Virginians nor the American people, nor any branch of the great race from which they spring, are lovers of music. Our boys, it is true, will troop up and down the streets of village or city, following the band-wagon of a circus. We manufacture an enormous number of the very best pianos in the world, and thousands of our girls labor for years learning to play a few tunes on them. Mothers without number pinch themselves that their daughters may have the desired instruction. It is the correct thing. Yet, her graduating concert over, her piano soon ceases to constitute any more considerable element of a girl’s happiness, or that of her family, than her copy of Euclid.
Yet, although English of the purest breed, there are Virginians who really love music; just as you shall find Spaniards with red hair, bashful Irishmen, women with beards, hens that crow, bullies with courage, mules without guile, and short sermons and true happiness. I do not allude to our charming girls who flock to the occasional opera that visits Richmond,—for in Richmond, as elsewhere, there are dozens of reasons for flocking to the opera.
No; I had in my mind the far-famed Virginia fidddler—mock him not, ye profane—who, though frowned upon by the moralist, viewed askance from the pulpit, without honor as without profit in his own country, still scrapes away as merrily as he can under the load of obloquy that weighs him down. But his devotion, if heroic, wins him no glory; for the people of Virginia, forgetting, with the usual ingratitude of republics, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, regard the worthlessness of the whole fiddling tribe as axiomatic. Nay, worse, there is a vague feeling that the thing is vulgar.
Now, in that word lies the key to Mary Rolfe’s distress of mind. Born and bred in the midst of that singularly pure, and simple, and refined society of Richmond in the ante-bellum days, inheriting from her father a love of all that was most beautiful in English prose and verse, as well as led by his hand to the nooks where were to be culled its choicest flowers; her manners formed and her instincts moulded by her mother upon the classic types of Virginia patrician life of the olden time, she was more than a representative of her class. The refined delicacy of her nature amounted, if not to a fault, at least to a misfortune. In the society of those like herself she was easy, affable, winning; but the slightest deviation from high breeding chilled her into silence and unconquerable reserve. The most trivial social solecism shocked, vulgarity stunned her.
And fiddling!
According to her high-wrought soul the thing was unworthy of a gentleman. Nor is this so much to be wondered at, for, although distinguished violinists had visited Richmond, it so happened that she had never heard one. Her knowledge of violin music was confined to fiddling pure and simple,—the compositions, jigs and reels; the performers, as a rule, negroes.
If, then, I have in any measure succeeded in depicting Mary as she really was,—an exquisitely refined, oversensitive girl just out of school, her head full of poetry and romance, her heart beginning to flutter with a sweet pain in presence of an Ideal Hero, so suddenly, so strangely encountered,—my reader (being a woman) will appreciate the shock she felt on that Christmas morning. It will be remembered that it was Aunt Phœbe who had been the first to describe the Don’s performance to the young ladies.
“Play de fiddle? Can he play de fiddle? I b’lieve you, honey! Why, Lor’ bless me, I do p’int’ly b’lieve into my soul dat Mr. Smith is de top fiddler of de Nunited States!”
A fiddler! And a top fiddler! Shades of Byron and of Bulwer! Mary felt an icy numbness at her heart.
Half an hour afterwards, when the two girls were nearly ready for breakfast, she was standing behind Alice, pinning on her collar.
“Oh, Alice,” cried the little hypocrite, suddenly, as though the thought had but just occurred to her, “what charming music we shall have now!”
“Oo-ee,” cried Alice, shrinking.
“Ah, did I prick your neck?”
“Yes; but no matter. Oh, yes, I am just dying to hear him play,—and play he shall, or my name is not Alice Carter. There you go again! Bear in mind, please, that the collar is to be pinned to my dress, not to my lovely person. What could have induced him to hide such an accomplishment!” added she, stamping her little foot.
“There! That sets very nicely! I don’t know what made me so awkward. So you think it is—wait a moment,—ah, that’s just right,—an accomplishment?”
One man in a thousand may acquire somewhat of the art, but every woman is born a perfect actress. True, you shall not see this perfection on the stage. There the ambition of women is to be actresses, rather than actresses women.
It was perfect! But Alice was not thrown off the scent.
Men can deceive men; men may hoodwink women, and be hoodwinked in turn; but it has not been given to one woman to throw dust into the eyes of another. The silliest girl can see through the most astute as though she were of glass.
“An accomplishment? What? To pin people’s collars to their necks?”
“Of course not, goosey! An accomplishment for gentlemen to play on the fid—violin?”
“Oh!” said Alice, dryly. “Why, of course it is. Any art which gives pleasure is an accomplishment.”
“Yes, I know; but—”
“Go on.”
“I don’t think it is—exactly—oh, I don’t know what I think about it.”
“But I do,” replied Alice, quickly, turning and facing her friend.
“And what do you know that I think, that I do not know myself?” said Mary, putting her hands on Alice’s shoulders, drawing her close, and smiling affectionately into her eyes.
“Don’t you remember my laughing, once, at school, over the story about Alcibiades’ refusing to learn to play on the flute, because he deemed the necessary puckering of the mouth undignified, and that you thought he was right? Heroes, my dear, according to your romantic notions, must always be heroic.”
“Heroes!” exclaimed Mary, with wide-eyed innocence. “Who, pray, mentioned heroes!” But a heightened color tinged her cheeks.
Alice, without making reply, placed her hand over Mary’s heart, and stood as though counting its beats. “’Tis a dear little heart,” mused she, “but—”
“But what?”
“But very susceptible, I fear.” And lifting her right hand, she shook her forefinger at her friend. “Take care!” said she, with a voice and look half serious, half jocular.
“Oh, don’t be uneasy about me!” And with a bright smile on her flushed face Mary frisked away to join some of the other girls who were descending to the breakfast-room.
Falling in love is like getting drunk,—we blush when we betray symptoms of the malady, yet rejoice in its progress!