“No,” said he, “it shall not come out through me. I’m afraid, though, there’s no mistake this time, Johnny. A half doubt of it has crossed my mind at odd moments.”
Neither would I talk of it, even to Tod. After all, it was not proof positive. I had never, never thought of Oliver.
The Letsoms had a fine old garden, as all the gardens at Crabb were, and we strolled out in the twilight. The sun had set, but the sky was bright in the west. Valentine Chandler, for he had come in, kept of course by Jane Preen’s side. Anyone might see that it was, as Tod called it, a gone case with them. It was no end of a pity, Val being just as unsteady and uncertain as the wind.
People do bolder things in the gloaming than in the garish daylight; and we fell to singing in the grotto—a semi-circular, half-open space with seats in it, surrounded at the back by the artificial rocks. Fanny began: she brought out an old guitar and twanged at it and sang for us, “The Baron of Mowbray;” where the false knight rides away laughing from the Baron’s door and the Baron’s daughter: that far-famed song of sixty years ago, which was said to have made a fortune for its composer.
The next to take up the singing was Valentine Chandler: and in listening to him you forgot all his short-comings. Never man had sweeter voice than he; and in his singing there was a singular charm impossible to be described. In his voice also—I mean when he spoke—there was always melody, and in his speech, when he chose to put it forth, a persuasive eloquence. This might have been instrumental in winning Jane Preen’s heart; we are told that a man’s heart is lost through his eye, a woman’s through her ear. Poor Valentine! he might have been so nice a fellow—and he was going to the bad as fast as he could go.
The song he chose was a ridiculous old ditty all about love; it went to the tune of “Di tanti palpiti.” Val chose it for Miss Jane and sung it to her; to her alone, mind you; the rest of us went for nothing.
“Here we meet, too soon to part,
Here to part will raise a smart,
Here I’d press thee to my heart,
Where none are set above thee.
Here I’d vow to love thee well;
Could but words unseal the spell,
Had but language power to tell,
I’d tell thee how I’ve loved thee.
Here’s the rose that decks the door,
Here’s the thorn that spreads the moor,
Here’s the willow of the bower,
And the birds that rest above thee.
Had they power of life to see,
Sense of souls, like thee—and me,
Then would each a witness be
How dotingly I love thee.