"I do believe he is my wizard of Rothseneld."
"You are very credulous if you can so believe."
And they said much more. But what shocked me, had been the denuding treatment of my all-glorious festival,—my romance of perfectibility, my ideal world. How they talked—for I cannot remember the phrases they strung into cold chains, at much greater length than I record—of what had been for me as heaven outspread above in mystery and beauty, and as a heaven-imaging deep beneath, beyond my fathom, yet whereon I had exulted as on the infinite unknown! they making it instead a reality not itself all lovely,—a revelation not itself complete. I had not been mixed in the musical world; for there is such a world as is not heaven, but earth, in the realm of tone, and tone-artists must pass, as it were, through it. How few receive not from it some touch, some taint of its clinging presence! How few, indeed, infuse into it—while in it they are necessitated to linger—the spirit of their heavenly home! Dimly, of a truth, had the life of music been then opened to my ken; but it seemed at that moment again enclosed, and I fell back into the first darkness. It was so sad to me to feel thus, that I could not for an instant recover my faith in myself. I fancied myself too insignificantly affected, and would, if I could, have joined in the anti-spiritual prate of Miss Lawrence and Santonio. Let me do them no injustice; they were both musicians, but I was not old enough to appreciate their actual enthusiasm, as it were by mutual consent a sealed subject between them.
I am almost tempted, after all, to say that it is best not to tamper with our finest feelings,—best to keep silence; but let me beware,—it is while we muse, the fire kindles, and we are then to speak with our tongues. Let them be touched too, though, with the inward fire, or we have no right to speak.
CHAPTER XXI.
Oh, shame upon me, thus to ramble, when I should be restoring merely!
After the shock I mentioned, the best thing happened to me possible,—we had to sing again; and Clara's voice arising, like the souls of flowers, to the sun, became actually to me as the sun unto those flowery souls. I revived and recovered my warmth; but now the reaction had come, and I sang through tears. I don't know how my voice sounded, but I felt it return upon me, and Davy grew rather nervous, I knew, from his manner of accompanying. And I did not say that while Miss Lawrence had stood and chatted with Santonio, a noiseless rentrée of footmen had taken place,—they bearing salvers loaded with ices and what are called "creams" at evening parties.
A sort of interlude this formed, of which the guests availed themselves to come and stare in upon us; and as they looked in we peeped out, though nobody ventured on our side beyond the doorway. So our duet had happened afterwards, and the music was to be resumed until twelve o'clock, the supper-hour. And after our duet there was performed this coda, that Miss Redfern requested Miss Lawrence to play with her, and that Miss Lawrence refused, but consented, at Santonio's suggestion, to play alone. As soon as she was seen past our folding-door, the whole male squadron advanced to escort her to the piano; but as she was removing her gloves leisurely, she waved them off, and they became of no account whatever in an instant. She sat down very still and played a brilliant prelude, a more than brilliant fugue, short and sharp, then a popular air, with variations, few, but finely fingered; and at last, after a few modulations, startling from the hand of a female, something altogether new, something fresh and mystical, that affected me painfully even at its opening notes. It was a movement of such intense meaning that it was but one sigh of unblended and unfaltering melody, isolated as the fragrance of a single flower; and only the perfumes of Nature exhale a bliss as sweet, how far more unexpressed! This short movement, that in its oneness was complete, grew, as it were, by fragmentary harmonies intricate, but most gradual, into another,—a prestissimo, so delicately fitted, that it was like moonlight dancing upon crested ripples; or for a better similitude, like quivering sprays in a summer wind. And in less than fifty bars of regularly broken time—how ravishingly sweet I say not—the first subject in refrain flowed through the second, and they interwoven even as creepers and flowers densely tangled, closed together simultaneously. The perfect command Miss Lawrence possessed over the instrument did not in the least occur to me; I was possessed but by one idea. Yet too nervous to venture into that large room, I eagerly watched her, and endeavored to arrest her eye, that I might beckon her among us again; so resolute was I to ask her the name of the author. Santonio, as if really excited, had made a sort of rush to her, and was now addressing her, but I heard not what they said, though Davy did, for he had followed Santonio. To my surprise, I saw that Miss Benette had taken herself into a corner, and when I gazed upon her she was wiping her eyes. I was reminded then that my own were running over.
Scarcely was I fit to look up again, having retreated to another corner, when I beheld Miss Lawrence, in her blue brocade, come in and look about her. She absolutely advanced to me.