And they had the A-flat prelude again, that sealed Pam's eyes with the great round tears of remembrance. And the Black Study they had; and some of Bach's Englische Suiten; and bits of Beethoven, the Waldstein; and the III; and part of the "Emperor"; and snatches of Brahms—all just as they came into the Spawer's head, with little illuminative discourses to accompany them—a sort of running verbal analytic programme, as it were. And Father Mostyn gave them reminiscences of Mario and Grisi and Braham and the great Lablache, and sang "I am no better than my Fathers," from Elijah.
Not a bit better, really—if indeed as good.
And the Spawer furnished humorous illustrations of all the great players. De Pachmann, with the high, uplifted finger and exquisite smile; and the statuesque Paderewski, sitting stonily at the piano; and the oblivious Rubinstein; and the imperious Liszt; and the pedagogic Von Bülow; all of them as funny as could be, with real musicianly insight at the back of them; most felicitous examples of instructive comparative criticism.
And Pam had her first lesson this night, and was quite ready to begin the second when that was over; and there seemed not more happiness in Heaven.
CHAPTER XII
It was midnight when Pam breathed guarded good-by over her shoulder to Father Mostyn and the Spawer in the roadway, and let herself noiselessly out of their sight through the post-house door.
Up above, in the bedroom that lay over the passage, a rhythmic sonorous sound gave token that the postmaster, at least, was enjoying the abundant fruits of blessed repose. In darkness Pam tiptoed to the little clean kitchen, and cautiously lighting the candle that her own hands had left ready for her on the corner of the dresser, held it gently about her on all sides in final inspection, for the observance of any little neglected duties that might be the better for doing before she took her way to bed. To one side of the fireplace there was the little clothes-horse standing—more, by right, a pony—gaily caparisoned with clocked hose and plain; long stockings and short; grey woollens; unstarched collars; and sundry inspiriting pink and white frilled trappings, that should have given mettle to the sorriest nag alive. Through the internal brightness of remembered music Pam's practical mind went out instinctively to the stockings. She set down her candle, and ran them one by one like gloves over her left hand as far as the foot, working her fingers within the hidden-most recesses of toe and heel for any signs of the wanting stitch. Out of some dozen pairs it wanted in three that forthwith did not return to the little clothes-pony, but went over her left arm in token of unsoundness. With these dangling at her skirt she made quick, noiseless tracks over the kitchen floor to acquire the necessary paraphernalia of repair—for nobody ever recognised the superiority of time present over time past or future better than Pam, or, recognising it, put the recognition to more practical account—and slipping a purposeful finger through the ringed handle of the candlestick, prepared to fetch worsted from the kitchen parlor.
She took the knob in her hand and entered naturally enough, opening the door gently first of all, against any grease-sputtering displacement of air, and keeping watch on the candle's behavior as she brought it round from the shelter of her bosom and passed it in front of her across the threshold. Quite two steps forward she had taken with her eyes on the little yellow flame, before something strange about the feel of the room plucked peremptorily at her attention as though with live fingers, and brought her up on her heel, gazing in front of her, to an involuntary quick-drawn breath of surprise. On the wool mat, in the centre of the square table where they gathered at meals, stood the lamp, still burning dimly, and in the obscurity beyond the lamp, the blur as of a second globe, where a human head lay bowed in the supporting hollow of two pallid hands.
Head and hands of the schoolmaster, beyond a doubt. How well Pam knew them; the long nervous fingers, that always flew to his throat when he addressed her, as though to throttle back the lurking dog of his dislike; the high, bulging forehead, with the compressed temples and the pulse in their veins; the whiteness and brightness of the scalp where the hair should have been. Oh, how Pam had studied them times out of number, like some strange, unlearnable lesson, trying to get them into her head and realise what they meant, and why—but never, perhaps, with her soft eyelashes fringing a greater perplexity than when she looked over them to-night. Never before had Pam found him—or any other of the household—awaiting her arrival when she returned from a late sitting with Father Mostyn. Was he troubled? Was he ill?
It was but a momentary glimpse of him that she caught, with head and hands together; but in that one moment he seemed all these things. The next, while Pam was revolving in her mind whether she should speak his name or cough, or rattle her matches, or depart more softly than she had come—the attitude dissolved. The long spectral fingers slid downwards (so quickly that he might have been merely drawing them across his cheeks when Pam entered) and his body rose from the chair to a standing posture. He gave no look at Pam, though his averted head showed recognition of her presence.