Miss Van Patten stepped into the next room and returned with her ’cello. He reached to take it from her but she smiled a refusal and bore it up the stairs by her side as lightly as though it had no weight. It was as though she would trust it in no other hands but her own. This promised well.
“Come over here near me, Joe,” the father requested as soon as they entered the room, “You haven’t heard her since she was a little girl. She plays wonderfully.”
So Barnes sat by the bedside while the daughter took a position near the open window. It was now quite dark. The twilight noises were hushed. One could imagine oneself anywhere and Barnes chose to go back to that still Spring night in Hyde Park when he had looked up at the stars and heard, for the first time, their music partly expressed.
There was no preliminary tuning to mar the first perfect note she drew from the instrument. There was scarcely a motion of the bow. It came deep-chested as though summoned by the mere caressing of the hand. She played first a serenade as graceful and as full of color as the doves darting about St. Marks; then a lighter Spanish air, and then Rath’s “Leonore,” and then swung off into a group of negro melodies which she herself had arranged. But neither to the older man nor to the younger man did the theme itself much matter—it served only to wing their thoughts. The underlying baritone voice of the ’cello lent to Barnes’ imaginings eagle wings. He rode the winds with a sure power that lifted him above the heads of the huddled group of Welshmen—above the greater huddled group called London, even to that brighter upper region where men and cities and nations count in the prospect not so much as the unpeopled mountains. There he beat the ether with his strong new-fledged wings and soared into some vague halcyon future. So he rose and fell and rose again among the clouds with the gentle undulations of the ’cello notes which swayed as rhythmically as heavy-leaved tree limbs to a breeze. But never did he rise so high that he was not conscious of the girl’s figure in the dark. Always she was there; always she was the inspiration. He realized that it was from some such height as this that he must paint her. It seemed as though he could do it here now—in the dark. How would he do it? He smiled at his conceit. He would paint a canvas with such wizardry that to all those whose hearts were not in tune with it, it should appear to be only a rich purple background without figures. But to those who soared in the upper ether it should, as they looked, take form. First as their warm eyes rested upon it a shadow should emerge and gently materialize into the likeness of her. Then out of this her radiant face should appear. Then her white arm holding the bow, and then the scarcely perceptible outline of the ’cello and finally her black hair with gold in it. And if one were big enough of heart, one would know that she was playing a barcarole and that another was listening.
If only he had his paints—if only he had his paints! One had only to hold one’s breath and—
As he straightened, the father stirred uneasily. The girl had stopped and without speaking rested her cheek against the strings. He had lost his moment. His hand was unsteady when the old man found it.
“You are moved,” murmured the father. “No wonder.”
“No,” answered Barnes below his breath, “it’s no wonder.”
But now she took her bow again. She began a Southern lullaby—a lullaby with more of plaintive mother love in it than even the masters have ever caught. This time she added her voice—just breathing the words so that it was scarcely possible to tell whether it was she who was singing or the untongued instrument itself.
“H’m—H’m,” she crooned, “H’m—H’m.