When this singular specimen of the fine arts was first displayed to the partial eyes of Melicent's parents, it met with no small admiration from them. A showy frame was bought, in which it was hung up over the chimney-piece of their usual sitting-room, and the fond mother gazed at it from morning till night. When Colonel Desmond returned from abroad, this was the first object, that, after showing her nine healthy, handsome children, she directed his attention to. He did not then express all the horror he felt at the contrast it afforded; but in about six months' negociation with considerable difficulty accomplished its being safely deposited in his port-folio.
CHAPTER VI.
Qu'Adélaïde
Met d'ame et de gout dans son chant!
Aux accens de sa voix timide
Chacun dit rien n'est si touchant,
Qu'Adélaïde[5]!
Marmontel.
As soon as the gentlemen returned to the drawing room, and tea was over, the mistress of the house proposed music.
The Desmonds, in general, were considerable proficients in this delightful art; and a trio for the violin, flute, and piano forte, was charmingly played by Melicent, and her father, and uncle. Though the former failed so lamentably in drawing, she had a fine genius for music, which was made the most of by constant practice; it was the only thing her father had ever studied, and in it he had acquired considerable knowledge, whilst her uncle had gained, in Germany, a fine style of playing on the violin; and to their instructions she was more indebted for her excellence, than to those of Mr. Ingham, who taught her the mere mechanical part of the science, and even that very imperfectly. As soon as, according to the rules of etiquette, the young lady of the house had made a commencement, her guests were in turn requested to display their talents. Colonel Desmond had whispered about that Adelaide sung enchantingly; and there was a general impatience expressed to hear her, which she, in her usual unaffected manner, consented to gratify.
The tones of her voice were exquisitely touching, and they took the shortest road to the heart, without stopping on the way to tickle the ear by the tricks of mere execution; each ornament seemed to rise in its own proper place, by a sort of "happy necessity," and, like the temple of taste, her singing "always charmed, never surprised." Her vocal excellences were most called forth in the highest style of Italian music. In the detached scenes of an opera she was inimitable: her divine voice painted, as it were, every shade of feeling; and the composer might have rejoiced to hear the Proserpine or Elfrida, not of his music, but of his imagination. Still more enchanting than her voice when she sang was her countenance, which the soul seemed to irradiate with that immortal light only seen on earth in "the human face divine;" and there were expressed all those indescribable charms, the offspring of genius and feeling, which the most melodious sounds are insufficient to convey to the sense. As she was however too rational, to be sublime out of place, she did not attempt to introduce the "grand opera" at Bogberry Hall, but apologizing for her deficiency in English music, which she feared to disfigure by her peculiar accent, sang a playful foreign ballad, which perhaps displayed the fascinating graces of her flexible voice, and polished manner, almost as delightfully as a finer composition would have done. She was rapturously encored, and was detained singing, till, quite distressed at the idea of excluding every other lady from the piano forte, she pleaded fatigue, as her excuse for retiring from the instrument. As the company crowded round her to bestow their praises, the winning expression with which her soft eyes met the general gaze, as they seemed imploringly to ask the forgiveness of her unsought superiority, and which her graceful gestures no less eloquently entreated, drew from the heart touched by her sweetness and modesty that exclamation of "charming! charming!" which the lips had opened to apply to her captivating talents.
During the time Adelaide was singing, Melicent stood beside her uncle in almost breathless delight, her hand resting on his arm, which she pressed with earnestness as any note of peculiar beauty met her ear. He was so completely lost in a reverie, (a most unusual circumstance with him,) that even after the melody had ceased, he stood in the same spot, and in the same attitude, as before. Melicent roused him from his reflections, as she looked up in his face, and said, "How enchanting! her voice is 'pleasant as the gale of spring, that sighs on the hunter's ear when he wakens from dreams of joy, and has heard the music of the spirits of the Hill.'" "I perceive," replied he, almost starting at her first address, "that you read Ossian as incessantly as ever, Melicent: I have just been thinking how superior Miss Wildenheim is to her own acquirements." "I don't exactly understand you, uncle." "If you had ever mixed in the world, my love, you would without difficulty; you would there meet with many of both sexes, in whom the painter, or the poet, or the musician, stand forth so prominently, that the individual character is lost in the background, indeed, sometimes, with advantage. I'm sure, when Miss Wildenheim occurs to your mind to-morrow morning, you won't think first of her singing, though you do admire it so much." "Oh, no!" replied Melicent, "I shall think of her charming smiles, as she is endeavouring to persuade Miss Cecilia Webberly to sing the air she thinks she most excels in.—They are looking for the music; I must go and assist them." Cecilia now did her utmost to eclipse Adelaide, by displaying twice the power of voice in songs of greater execution, which every body confessed she sang well, though no one felt she sang charmingly. After two or three solos, it was proposed, that Mr. Ingham should join her in a duet. She purposely chose one, which should be a trial of skill between the performers. It was that style of music, which Colonel Desmond called the "florid Gothick," from its profuse ornament and defective taste; it had triplets, volatas, and trills without end. Poor Mr. Ingham, in more than one sense of the word, shook for his fame; the merciless Cecilia forgot, that on it depended his bread; she did not read in his countenance, "He who filches from me my good name, takes that which not enricheth him, and makes me poor indeed!" But when they came to the final cadence, impelled by the "glorious fault of angels and of gods," she aspired higher than fate permitted her to attain with honour; and in a precipitate fall from D sharp in alt was hurled on the flat seventh, instead of the perfect third of the key, which made an unfortunate discord with the note intended to harmonize with said perfect third in a simultaneous trill; and on this unlucky seventh she continued to shake without pity or remorse, till the poor man, in emulation, was nearly black in the face, and was obliged to take breath twice, in a most audible manner, before she would have done. But at last she ceased, and the mortified musician's good-natured patron, seeing his vexation, and being himself shocked at the discord, clapped him on the back, saying, "Well done, Ingham; both parts famously sung:" and, with a significant wink, added, "By Heavens! she shook the cat out of the bag that time; she did you up there, man alive!" Lanty, who had thought the shake wondrous queer, he did not know why, understanding the drift of his father's observation, burst into a loud fit of laughter, which was followed by a peremptory order from his mother to quit the room. In the mean time the rest of the company were variously occupied: Mrs. O'Sullivan and Miss Fitzcarril, with the physician and curate, formed a party at short whist, which the former, to assist her claims to fashion, played at a rate that was much higher than accorded with her frugal propensities, and which the pride of her companions prevented from confessing was much beyond what suited their finances. The physician, who was losing, internally grumbled at this new method of playing the good old game of whist, by which twice as much may be lost in the same space of time; and muttered, as he sorted his cards, a barbarous parody of Shakspeare, "There comes the last scene of all:—short sight, short gowns, short whist, short every thing!" Leaning over "John of Gaunt's" chair, (the agnomen Mr. Desmond had been pleased to bestow on the stupendous Theresa,) stood Captain Cormac, to rejoice in the goodly row of kings, queens, and aces, which the hand of his liege sometimes contained, and which was graciously pointed out to him with an accompanying smile; or to pick up the glove, card, or handkerchief that fell to the ground, not always undesignedly. Mrs. Desmond kept herself disengaged to be kind and civil to every body, sometimes condoling with the losers at whist, sometimes laughing with the young people, as they played at "consequences," "what's my thought like?" or "dressing the poor soldier." Miss Webberly was in earnest conversation with Mr. Donolan, of which Mrs. Desmond's ear, unwilling, caught one or two sentences. In answer to an observation from Amelia, he said "A very good match for him," with a sort of conceited emphasis on the word him, which insinuated "it would be a very bad match for me." "Scarcely even for him," retorted Miss Webberly, "German gentry are but sma." This quotation was followed by a laugh of affected vehemence from both; and when Cecilia, exulting in her triumph over Mr. Ingham, came up to them, the witticism was repeated; and they then, in a playhouse whisper, extended their strictures to all the company in turn, only interrupted by fits of laughter. Mrs. Desmond turned away in disgust, and, looking for Melicent, proudly thought, "My little mountain girl may want polish, as Edward says, but, with all her wildness, she is still the lady." The object of her thoughts was, at that moment, in conversation with her uncle and Adelaide, whom they had joined, when Cecilia Webberly sat down to the piano forte. When she had finished her duet, in the manner before mentioned, Miss Desmond said, "What a pity it is, Miss Wildenheim, that people, in the attempt to astonish, will insist upon showing what they cannot do." "My dear Melicent," interrupted her uncle, "you may take it as a pretty general rule, that when a lady attempts or even succeeds in astonishing, all is not exactly as it ought to be; am I not right?" continued he, turning to Adelaide, "Oh, perfectly," replied she; "but, indeed, Miss Webberly executed her songs extremely well, with the exception of that unfortunate shake." "I have heard my uncle say," rejoined Melicent, "that an execution is sometimes a murder; in that sense, I allow she has executed them well; but, surely, music that is not pleasing, can never be good." As Melicent never spoke sotto voce, her uncle was afraid her observations would be heard, and therefore, to divert her mind from Miss Webberly's singing, took up a book of poems, which was lying on the table they were standing near, and addressing Adelaide, said, "I condemned these verses this morning, as being unnatural: Melicent, to all my objections, only answered, 'Oh! dear uncle, I delight in them.' Do be our umpire, and show her, that something more is necessary to prove her admiration to be well founded, than the bare assertion that she does admire; when she dislikes, she has reasons enough at command, but when she approves, it is with an extravagance of enthusiasm, that admits of no analysis." Adelaide read as follows:—