Miss Ayr of Virginia, & other stories

by Julia Magruder

She struggled a little in his constraining embrace, and he loosed his clasp of her and took her more naturally on his arm and walked with her to an open window. It was summer-time, and a bird was singing in a tree outside. He saw her face lighten as she heard the sound, and again his heart throbbed faster.

At that moment the negro nurse came into the room, and looked with astonishment at the picture that met her. The excitement through which the poor fellow had gone made him feel weak and tremulous, and he submitted quietly to have the child taken from him and carried away. His longing was to be alone, to utter in some way his thanks to the Father who had done this. In a few moments, almost unconscious of what he was doing, he found himself in his own little private place, the dairy. Here he shut himself in, and fell upon his knees. His prayer of thanksgiving was confused, incoherent, utterly insufficient. He rose in the midst of the mumbled words, took his violin, and began to play. It seemed to ease the stress of his soul, and as he played on, the tears overflowed his eyes. When he laid by the violin he went over to the piano and played great sounding chords. A strain of grand melody came into his mind, and he found himself composing a Te Deum—fitting the words to the sound as they came to him, and feeling himself wrapped in with ecstacy.

That was the beginning of the new life to Eastin. After that, he walked about the common, familiar scenes, and saw them clothed with an unfamiliar beauty; he felt the world, no matter where he came into contact with it, sweet and harmonious and full of delight. He was absolutely, absorbingly and sufficingly happy. The common life about him seemed suddenly glorified, and his heart expanded with an overflow of loving good-will to all the world, that made him see in his wife and other children attractions and good points which he had never seen before, or it may be, caused him to imagine those which had no existence at all, except in his new-made will to see only goodness and sweetness everywhere. He made timid efforts to interest and to be of service to his wife and children, and he was not perceptibly discouraged by the fact that his overtures were regarded with surprise, rather than appreciation, for he had in one little creature a refuge from every trouble, and a balm for every wound.

As time went on, Rose-Jewel showed every day new indications of a deep and extraordinary feeling for music, and occasionally, even in her babyhood, would pass from her high, clear laughter into a little carol of song, as spontaneous and incoherent as a bird’s, and as thrillingly lovely. One moment, he felt himself weakened almost to helplessness by the sudden ebb of blood from his heart; the next, as it rushed back, he felt himself strengthened with such might that nothing seemed too great for him to do or to be. He soon became aware of a necessity for vigilance, in keeping his precious secret. His devotion to the baby, of course, was observed, and he was horribly afraid of having its cause understood. He felt that trouble for them both would come of it. He knew how the mother would feel, and he had a deadly fear of being separated from his idol. He was relieved to find that his peculiar fancy for this baby was looked upon as a fad, for which his general oddness was enough to account. It was a matter of practical convenience to have so much of the care of the baby taken off the hands of the mother and the nurse, and so it was less commented on.

Perhaps it enhanced the delights of this companionship, that they were so often stolen. There was a delicious sense of mystery, in taking Rose-Jewel tenderly in his arms and walking off down the garden-path when nobody was looking, going into the little room, closing the door, drawing the curtain, and then, quite cut off from all the rest of the world, enjoying this most delightful of tête-à-têtes, where he played with absolute freedom and unreserve, to an audience that responded to his touch, whether light or hard, grave or gay, more sensitively than the most perfect instrument could have done.

To look into Rose-Jewel’s great delighted eyes, across his violin, and to see them gleam and glow with an emotion that corresponded absolutely to his, was, he thought, as keen a pleasure as he, or mortal man beside had ever known.

In time it became a positive, thrilling, marvelous certainty that Rose-Jewel had a voice—a clear, true, strong little voice that gave magnificent promise. Then came the other delight, when she was older, of teaching her to strike little melodies on the piano, and even to put her baby fingers on certain simple chords, as an accompaniment to her father’s violin. The very first time he made this effort, she caught at it with a quickness and delight which made his breath come almost suffocatingly. It became, after that, a part of their daily routine, to practice together. She was old enough to talk coherently now, and he often feared that she might betray their secret, but she seemed to have some wonderful intuition of the truth, and never even sang, except when alone with him.

What hours of stolen rapture the two culprits had together! Sometimes they wandered off and sat on the banks by the river-side, and sometimes he lifted her into the little boat, and, while she held the dear violin safely and reverently, he would row off into the stream, and there play to her while they drifted gently about. In this freedom of isolation he could play as it was impossible to play near the house, with an abandon of pleasure which set the child nearly wild with delight. Here, too, he would test and exercise her voice, with the greatest care not to strain it, and here, unseen by any eyes but those of the birds and the squirrels, they would put their arms around each other’s neck and give way to a passion of tenderness of which both the child as well as the man, would have been incapable in the presence of others. They were completely happy hours—happy enough to atone for every pain and deprivation which the past had held for him, or the future might have in store.

He did not complain of the past, any more than he feared the future for himself. His one thought was the child. When he speculated on her life to come, a timorous dread would, in spite of him, mix with the enthusiastic expectations of her dazzling success in the musical world. He would feast his imagination for hours, on the thought of this. It was not the splendor of music halls, nor the applause of audiences that he coveted for his darling. It was the power to touch the hearts of men and women, and to incite them to deeds of nobleness and strength, that should re-echo through the world.

Always, however, those dreams of bliss were poisoned by that haunting fear of what the counteracting influence of the child’s mother might be. It made him shiver with terror, when he thought of that bird of music which lived in Rose-Jewel’s breast, with its wings cut, and its song stifled by the cold chill of disapproval, and even a more active form of objection. He imagined the harshness and contempt which would fall upon that angelic child, if it should be discovered that she had inherited her father’s misfortune, and had been encouraged in its development by him. He thought of how broken and purposeless his life had been made by the cold and uncomprehending judgment of those about him, and he felt weak with cowardice at the thought of Rose-Jewel having the same ordeal before her. He was ashamed to feel himself powerless to help her in it. He knew that nothing short of stealing the child and keeping her hid would suffice, and that he could not do. All the world would consider him a monster, and he would feel like one. Besides this, his poverty would hinder. How could he take his little song-bird out to be a pauper with him? How could he even expect to keep such a voice as he foresaw in her, a secret? No,—God help the poor baby!—she must stay and bear the blow when it should come, and he, for his part, must do what he could to help her—feeble as his help would be!