No thought of possible wrong to her aunt entered Mildred’s mind as she untied the ribbon and seated herself in a low chair in front of the bookcase, with the letters loose in her lap. What secrets could there be in a girl’s letters to her elder brother which the brother’s daughter might not read, nearly forty years after they were written? What could there be in that yellow paper, in that faded ink, except the pale dim ghosts of vanished fancies, and thoughts which the thinker had long outlived?
“I wonder whether my aunt would care to read these old letters?” mused Mildred. “It would be like calling up her own ghost. She must have almost forgotten what she was like when she wrote them.”
The first letter was from Milan, full of enthusiasm about the Cathedral and the Conservatoire, full of schemes for work. She was practising six hours a day, and taking nine lessons a week—four for piano, two for singing, three for harmony. She was in high spirits, and delighted with her life.
“I should practise eight hours a day if Mrs. Holmby would let me,” she wrote, “but she won’t. She says it would be too much for my health. I believe it is only because my piano annoys her. I get up at five on these summer mornings, and practise from six to half-past eight; then coffee and rolls, and off to the Conservatoire; then a drive with Mrs. Holmby, who is too lazy to walk much; and then lunch. After lunch vespers at the Cathedral, and then two hours at the piano before dinner. An hour and a half between dinner and tea, which we take at nine. Sometimes one of Mrs. Holmby’s friends drops in to tea. You needn’t be afraid: the men are all elderly, and not particularly clean. They take snuff, and their complexions are like mahogany; but there is one old man, with bristly gray hair standing out all over his head like a brush, who plays the ’cello divinely, and who reminds me of Beethoven. I am learning the ‘Sonate Pathétique,’ and I play Bach’s preludes and fugues two hours a day. We went to La Scala the night before last; but I was disappointed to find they were playing a trumpery modern opera by a Milanese composer, who is all the rage here.”
Two or three letters followed, all in the same strain, and then came signs of discontent.
“I have no doubt Mrs. Holmby is a highly respectable person, and I am sure you acted for the best when you chose her for my chaperon, but she is a lump of prejudice. She objects to the Cathedral. ‘We are fully justified in making ourselves familiar with its architectural beauties,’ she said, in her pedantic way, ‘but to attend the services of that benighted church is to worship in the groves of Baal.’ I told her that I had found neither groves nor idols in that magnificent church, and that the music I heard there was the only pleasure which reconciled me to the utter dulness of my life at Milan—I was going to say my life with her, but thought it better to be polite, as I am quite in her power till you come to fetch me.
“Don’t think that I am tired of the Conservatoire, after teasing you so to let me come here, or even that I am home-sick. I am only tired of Mrs. Holmby; and I daresay, after all, she is no worse than any other chaperon would be. As for the Conservatoire, I adore it, and I feel that I am making rapid strides in my musical education. My master is pleased with my playing of the ‘Pathétique,’ and I am to take the ‘Eroica’ next. What a privilege it is to know Beethoven! He seems to me now like a familiar friend. I have been reading a memoir of him. What a sad life—what a glorious legacy he leaves the world which treated him so badly!
“I play Diabelli’s exercises for an hour and a half every morning, before I look at any other music.”
In the next letter Mildred started at the appearance of a familiar name.
“Your kind suggestion about the Opera House has been followed, and we have taken seats at La Scala for two nights a week. Signor Castellani’s opera is really very charming. I have heard it now three times, and liked it better each time. There is not much learning in the orchestration; but there is a great deal of melody all through the opera. The Milanese are mad about it. Signor Castellani came to see Mrs. Holmby one evening last week, introduced by our gray-haired ’cello-player. He is a clever-looking man, about five-and-thirty, with a rather melancholy air. He writes his librettos, and is something of a poet.