Canau’s room was bare and cheerless; a table, a few chairs, a couple of roughly-made music-stands, and a pile of torn, stained, yellow-leaved, printed, and manuscript music, were the principal objects that met the gaze; but Patty—whose presence lent a brightness to the blank place—seemed to have no eye for aught but the swarthy, deformed girl, whom she kissed affectionately.
Perhaps no greater contrast could have been seen than the sweet happy face of Patty, with her bright brown hair and peachy complexion—peachy with its soft down, and contrasts of creamy white and delicate pink; and that of Janet—she was known by no other name—the dark, deformed girl, who had been brought up by Monsieur Canau, the little French musician, now taking his morning promenade and indulging in his only extravagance—his second cigarette—a pinch of the commonest tobacco, rolled in one of the gummed squares of tissue-paper prepared for him by the girl who shared his poverty and had been taught his art.
The vital spark of life was bright and vivid, shooting keenly now from two dark eyes; but as for the fleshly case that held this vital spark, the wonder was that it should possess any shape at all, so fearful a moulding must it have received in its early plastic days, and not that the poor girl’s head should be close down between her shoulders, and that in form she should be diminutive and shrunken.
“I was tired of waiting, and had been listening ever so long,” said Patty, drawing a little white finger across the violin-strings. “I wish I were clever, too, and could play.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the other, harshly. “I’m ashamed of it sometimes. It isn’t a woman’s instrument; but it pleases him for me to play, and I get to like it now; one seems almost able to make it speak and tell one’s feelings—sending them floating away into the air,” she continued, dreamily gazing before her. “It makes one think and think, and seem to be living another kind of life; and I am far away from here, Patty, sometimes when I am playing,—perhaps along with you and the little innocent children, and your father and mother,—perhaps far away in the country, amongst the flowers, where there’s no noise in the streets, no shouting, shrieks, oaths, nor misery, nor dirt. There!” she said, suddenly, as if she had been brought back to the present, “I know what you are thinking.”
“Indeed!” laughed Patty.
“Yes; you think I’m odd and strange in my way. Ah! I wish I were like you.”
“And sometimes,” rejoined Patty softly, turning very serious, and stooping to pass one arm round the deformed girl, and bending so that her cheek touched the other’s dark sallow face,—“sometimes, Jenny, I wish that I were like you—oh! yes—so much—so much; for I’m not happy, Jenny—not happy!”
She repeated these words in a quiet thoughtful way, sinking at last upon her knees by the other’s side, when, laying her hand, long and bony of finger, upon the bonny little head, Janet pressed it closely to her misshapen breast, from which burst sigh after sigh, till, waking as it were from her dreamy thoughts, Patty forced a smile, and springing up, kissed Janet again and again.
“There! what nonsense!” she cried, lightly. “I’m crying too, and pray what about? Let’s see how these goldfish are. Why, quite lively,” she exclaimed, drawing her friend to the window, where, half-screened by a faded curtain, the gorgeous little pets sailed round and round in their crystal prison.