Mitchelhurst Place: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Margaret Veley

Reynold, consulting his uncle's letter, found with some surprise that he had pushed silence to its utmost limit, and that another day's delay would have overstepped the boundary which Mr. Harding had so imperiously set. The discovery was a shock; it took away his breath for a moment, and then sent the blood coursing through his veins with a tingling exhilaration, the sense of a peril narrowly escaped. He was glad—glad in a defiant, unreasonable fashion—that he had not yielded till the last day, though at the same time he was uneasy till his answer should be despatched. He went up to his room immediately after breakfast, and sat down to his task at the writing-table which faced the great window.

After one or two unsatisfactory beginnings he ended with the simplest possible note of acceptance, to which he added a postscript, informing his uncle that he should remain two or three days longer at Mitchelhurst Place, and hoped to receive his instructions there. He wrote a few lines to end the question of the tutorship for which he had been waiting, addressed the two envelopes, and leaned back in his chair to read his letters over before folding them.

As he did so he looked out over the far-spreading landscape. The sunshine broke through the veil of misty cloud and widened slowly over the land, catching here the sails of a windmill, idle in the autumn calm, there a church spire, or a bit of white road, or a group of poplars, or the red wall of an old farmhouse. The silver grey gave place to vaporous gold, and a pale brightness illumined the paper in his hand on which those fateful lines were written. One would have said Mitchelhurst was smiling broadly at his resolution. Reynold stretched himself and returned the smile as if the landscape were an old friend who greeted him, and tilting his chair backward he thrust his letter into the directed cover.

"When I come back," he said to himself, "I will take this room for mine."

Writing his acceptance of his uncle's offer had not been pleasant, yet now that it was done he contemplated the superscription,

"R. Harding, Esq.,"

with grave satisfaction. Finally, he took up the pen once more, hesitated, balanced it between his fingers, and then let it fall. "Why should I write to her?" said he, while a sullen shadow crossed his face. "She will hear it soon enough. Since she is to have her own way about my career for the rest of my life, she may well wait a day or two to know it. Besides, I can't explain in a letter why I have given in. No, I won't write to-day." He shut up his blotting-case with an impatient gesture, and there was nothing for Mrs. Sidney Harding by that afternoon's post.

He went down the great stone stairs with his letters, and laid them on the hall table, as Barbara had told him to do. Then, pausing for a moment to study the weather-glass, a note or two, uncertainly struck, attracted his attention. The door of the yellow drawing-room was partly open, and Mr. Hayes was presumably out, for Barbara was at the old piano. When Harding turned his head he could see her from where he stood. The light from the south window fell on the simple folds of her soft woollen dress, and brightened them to a brownish gold. She sat with her head slightly bent, touching the keys questioningly and tentatively, till she found a little snatch of melody, which she played more than once as if she were eagerly listening to it. The piano was worn out, of that there could be no doubt, yet Reynold found enchantment in the shallow tinkling sounds. He could not have uttered his feelings in any words at his command, but that mattered the less since Mr. Adrian Scarlett had enjoyed his feelings in the summer time, and, touching them up a little, had arranged them in verse. It was surely honour enough for that poor little tune that its record was destined to appear one day in the young fellow's volume of poems.

AT HER PIANO.
It chanced I loitered through a room,
Dusk with a shaded, sultry gloom,
And full of memories of old, times—
I lingered, shaping into rhymes
My visions of those earlier days
'Mid their neglected waifs and strays
A yellowing keyboard caught my gaze,
And straight I fancied, as I stood
Resting my hand on polished wood,
Letting my eyes, contented, trace
The daintiness of inlaid grace,
That Music's ghost, outworn and spent,
Dreamed, near her antique instrument.
But when I broke its silence, fain
To call an echo back again
Of some old-fashioned, tender strain,
Played once by player long since dead—
I found my dream of music fled!
The chords I wakened could but speak
In jangled utterance, thin and weak,
In shallow discords, as when age
Reaches its last decrepit stage,
In feeble notes that seemed to chide—
This was the end! I stepped aside,
In my impatient weariness,
Into the window's draped recess.
Without, was all the joy of June;
Within, a piano out of tune!
But while, half hidden, thus I stayed,
There came in one who lightly laid
White hands upon the yellow keys
To seek their lingering harmonies.
I think she sighed—I know she smiled—
And straightway Music was beguiled,
And all the faded bygone years,
With all their bygone hopes and fears,
Their long-forgotten smiles and tears,
Their empty dreams that meant so much,
Began to sing beneath her touch.
The notes that time had taught to fret,
Racked with a querulous regret,
Forsook their burden of complaint,
For melodies more sweetly faint
Than lovers ever dreamed in sleep—
Than rippling murmurs of the deep—
Than whispered hope of endless peace—
Ah, let her play or let her cease,
For still that sound is in the air,
And still I see her seated there!
Yet, even as her fingers ranged,
I knew those jangled notes unchanged,
My soul had heard, in ear's despite,
And Love had made the music right.

So had Master Adrian written, after a good deal of work with note-book and pencil, during a long summer afternoon, and then had carried his rhymes away to polish them at his leisure. Reynold Harding merely stood listening in the hall, as motionless as if he were the ghost of some tall young Rothwell, called back and held entranced by the sound of the familiar instrument. Barbara knew no more of his silent presence than she did of Adrian's verses. When she paused he stepped lightly away without disturbing her. He was very ignorant of music; he had no idea what it was that she had played; to him it was just Barbara's tune, and he felt that, when he left Mitchelhurst, he should carry it in his heart, to sing softly to him on his way.