Miss Ayr of Virginia, & other stories

by Julia Magruder

The front view from his chambers being unpleasing to him, and the back view decidedly pleasing, he rarely drew aside the curtains of the former room, but one morning when he was rather idle, and also in a state of some uncertainty about the weather, he went to look out into the street to help him to decide whether or not to go out before lunch. It was Sunday and rather cloudy, and it seemed to him that the shabby buildings opposite looked duller and dingier than ever, when his attention was caught by the opening of the door of the house directly facing him, and the appearance on the threshold of a young girl. She, too, it seemed, was in some uncertainty about the weather, for she came out on the steps and turned her face upwards to investigate the clouds. In this way, Randall was enabled to get a full and satisfactory view of this upturned face, which was very beautiful—so beautiful, in fact, that he felt the survey all too brief, and was conscious of a sense of strong protest when the girl, with an air of decision, shook out the folds of a thick blue veil and fastened it around her hat, then taking up her umbrella and a little book, which she had laid aside in order to pin on her veil, quickly descended the steps and walked away.

Randall watched her as far as he could, and noted carefully every detail of her dress, which certainly bordered on shabbiness, and was poor and plain in material, and yet had for him a certain charm. It could only have been her figure and her movements which gave this impression, for, contrasted with some very smart young ladies who walked in front of her, she was an object dull and colorless enough. These young ladies had their faces frankly bared to observation, but Randall turned from them with distaste, to recall the pure young beauty of the face now closely screened behind that thick veil.

He wondered much about the young girl, for she was undoubtedly rarely beautiful, and there was an impression caught from her appearance which distinctly charmed him. The sight of the little book in her hand, together with the ringing of the church bells, assured him that she was on her way to church, and for the first time for a very long while, he felt like going to church, himself.

It was much too late to think of this, however, for his toilet was not begun, and so he turned back within the room, and lounging in dressing-gown and slippers, spent an hour reading the morning papers and smoking. At the end of that time, he started up suddenly and began his toilet, with an air of haste and impatience. As soon as he was dressed, he took his hat and gloves and went downstairs. Just as he opened the front door, he caught sight of the young girl mounting the steps opposite, on her return home. She was in the act of taking off her veil, and Randall thought she did so with a certain air of relief from a bondage which irked her. Once more he got a brief impression of that young and exquisite face, and then, without having looked at him at all, she opened the door with a latch-key and entered the gloomy old house, and the dingy door closed behind her.

Randall went his way, and presently found himself seated at a beautifully appointed lunch table with a party of gay and brilliant people, among whom he was made very welcome, and where he laughed and chattered for an hour, but throughout it all he could not shake off the impression that this girl had made upon him, and her pure, young face, and plain, dark garments rose before his vision, as alien to this scene as the impression of some rapt, ascetic nun.

After lunch there was a general demand that Mr. Randall should play to them, and rather more obligingly than usual he yielded to the request, and, going to the piano, he began with certain powerful chords and impressive pauses, that soon compelled the company to perfect silence and attention. He was a fine musician, and quite accustomed to having his playing treated deferentially, but he did not often take the trouble to play to people as he was playing now. His audience had expected something light and brilliant, and instead of that it was only sacred music that he played—harmonies and masses from the great masters of old, with an improvised arrangement and connection of his own.

He rose from the piano and said good-bye abruptly, hurrying away from the enthusiastic praise of his audience, and walking quickly back to his lodgings, where he spent the remainder of the day. Some men dropped in to see him, but either they were hurried, or they found him unamusing, for they presently went away, and at twilight he was left alone.

More than once, he had gone to look out on the opposite house, but the dull, gray front of that dismal structure was unsuggestive of the least hint of its radiant young inmate. When the lamps were lighted, at last, and the curtains drawn, and the servant, having attended to his comfort, had left him quite alone for the evening, he opened his piano and began to play. It must have been for hours that he sat there, with no music before him, playing on and on, thinking, thinking, thinking to those beautiful strains.

Of course, he did not fancy anything so absurd as that he was in love with this young girl, whose face and nearness so possessed him; that was out of the question. But what he did feel was that a quality in her face had roused to new being a certain ideal which had once held him, and which in recent years had been losing its hold.

Randall had an ardent and romantic nature, subdued by circumstance and rearing into conventional conformity. The passion of his life was music, and although he was a more or less earnest and successful lawyer, the hearing of good music and the cultivation of his own musical gift was the strongest interest of his life. His friends wondered that he had not married, and, to tell the truth, he wondered at that fact as much as they. If they were ignorant of his reason though, he, himself, was not. He knew well that it was because he had, so far in life, met no woman whose nature and personality made the appeal to him, and satisfied the desire of his soul, in the way that music appealed to and satisfied him, and what he wondered at was, that in all his wide acquaintance he had never seen this woman. He had grown tired of looking for her, at last, and had even deliberately considered the advisability of marrying a person who would have compelled a lowering of his ideal. A real, definite woman had been considered in this light, a woman with beauty, good breeding, position, and money, whom he thought he might win; but this woman not only was not musical herself, but she contradicted the ideal which seemed to go hand in hand with music in his soul.