The reception had been so simple and homely, that, once having secured
his coat and donned it, the doctor's volunteer assistant felt more at
his ease. His disposition to retreat passed off, and, in despite of all
refusal, he was almost compelled to enter the house, Mrs Luttrell
taking possession of him to chat rather volubly about King's Castor and
the old vicar, while from time to time a few words passed with
Millicent, at whom the visitor gazed almost in wonder.
She was so different from the provincial young lady he had set up in his
own mind as a type. Calm, almost grave in its aspect, her face was
remarkable for its sweet, self-contained look of intelligence, and the
new curate had not been many minutes in her society before he was aware
that he was conversing with a woman as highly cultivated as she was
beautiful.
Her sweet, rich voice absolutely thrilled, while her quiet
self-possession sent a pang through him, as he felt how young, how
awkward, and wanting in confidence he must seem in her eyes, which met
his with a frank, friendly look that was endorsed during conversation,
as she easily and pleasantly helped him out of two or three verbal bogs
into which he had floundered.
After a walk through the garden, they had entered the house, where Mrs
Luttrell had turned suddenly upon her visitor, to confuse him again by
her sudden appeal.
"Did you ever see such a straw hat as that, Mr Bayle?"
"Oh, it's an old favourite of papa's, Mr Bayle," interrupted Millicent,
turning to smile at the elderly gentleman taking the dilapidated straw
from his head to hang it upon one particular peg. "He would not enjoy
the gardening so much without that."
The tall handsome man left at the end of a few minutes. Business was
his excuse. He had met the ladies, and just walked down with them, he
told the doctor.
"But you'll come in to-night, Mr Hallam? We shall expect you," said
Mrs Luttrell warmly.
"Oh, of course!" said Millicent, as Mr Hallam, from the bank,
involuntarily turned to her; and her manner was warm but not conscious.
"I shall be here," he said quietly; and after a quiet friendly
leave-taking, Christie Bayle felt relieved, and as if he could be a
little more at his ease.
It was not a success though, and when he in turn rose to go, thinking
dolefully about his dirty boots as compared with the speckless
Wellingtons of the other visitor, and after feeling something like a
throb of pleasure at being warmly pressed to step in without ceremony
that evening, he walked to his apartments in the main street, irritated
and wroth with himself, and more dissatisfied than he had ever before
felt in his life.
"I wish I had not come," he said to himself. "I'm too young, and what's
worse, I _feel_ so horribly young. That supercilious Mr Hallam was
laughing at me; the old lady treated me as if I were a boy; and Miss
Luttrell--"
He stopped thinking, for her tall graceful presence seemed before him,
and he felt again the touch of her cool, soft, white hand.
"Yes; she talked to me as if I were a boy, whom she wanted to cure of
being shy. I am a boy, and it's my own fault for not mixing more with
men."
"Bah! What an idiot I was! I might have known it was not the gardener.
He did not talk like a servant, but I blundered into the idea, and went
on blindfold in my belief. What a ridiculous _debut_ I made there, to
be sure, where I wanted to make a good impression! How can I profess to
teach people like that when they treat me as if I were a boy? I can
never show my face there again."
He felt in despair, and his self-abasement grew more bitter as the day
went on. It would be folly, he thought, to go to the doctor's that
evening; but, as the time drew near, he altered his mind, and at last,
taking a small case from where it rested upon a bookshelf, he thrust it
into his pocket and started, his teeth set, his nerves strung, and his
whole being bent upon the determination to show these people that he was
not the mere bashful boy they thought him.
It was a deliciously soft, warm evening, and as he left the town behind
with its few dim oil lamps, the lights that twinkled through the trees
from the doctor's drawing-room were like so many invitations to him to
hurry his feet, and so full was his mind of one of the dwellers beneath
the roof that, as he neared the gate, he was not surprised to hear
Millicent's voice, sweet, clear, and ringing. It hastened his steps.
He did not know why, but it was as if attracting--positively magnetic.
The next moment there was the low, deep-toned rich utterance of a man's
voice--a voice that he recognised at once as that of Mr Hallam, from
the bank; and if this was magnetic, it was from the negative pole, for
Christie Bayle stopped.
He went on again, angry, he knew not why, and the next minute was being
introduced on the lawn to a thin, careworn, middle-aged man, and a tall,
bony, aquiline lady, as Mr and Mrs Trampleasure, Mrs Luttrell's
pleasant, sociable voice being drowned almost the next moment by that of
the bony dame, who in tones resembling those emitted by a brazen
instrument, said very slowly:
"How do you do? I saw you last Sunday. Don't you think it is getting
too late to stop out on the grass?"
"Yes, yes," said Mrs Luttrell hastily, "the grass is growing damp.
Milly, dear, take Mr Hallam into the drawing-room."
The pleasant flower-decked room, with its candles and old-fashioned oil
lamp, seemed truly delightful to Christie Bayle, for the next hour. He
was very young, and he was the new arrival in King's Castor, and
consequently felt flattered by the many attentions he received. The
doctor was friendly, and disposed to be jocose with allusions to
gardening. Mr Trampleasure, thin and languid, made his advances, but
his questions were puzzling, as they related to rates of exchange and
other monetary matters, regarding which the curate's mind was a blank.
"Not a well-informed young man, my dear," said Mr Trampleasure to his
wife; whereupon that lady looked at him, and Mr Trampleasure seemed to
wither away, or rather to shrink into a corner, where Millicent, who
looked slightly flushed, but very quiet and self-possessed, was turning
over some music, every piece of which had a strip of ribbon sewn with
many stitches all up its back.
"Not a well-informed young man, this new curate, Millicent," said Mr
Trampleasure, trying to sow his discordant seed on more genial soil.
"Not well-informed, uncle?" said the daughter of the house, looking up
wide-eyed and amused, "why, I thought him most interesting."
"Oh! dear me, no, my dear. Quite ignorant of the most everyday matters.
I just asked him--"
"Are you going to give us some music, Miss Luttrell?" said a deep, rich
voice behind them, and Millicent turned round smiling.
"I was looking out two of your songs, Mr Hallam. You will sing
something?"
"If you wish it," he said quietly, and there was nothing impressive in
his manner.
"Oh, we should all be glad. Mamma is so fond of your songs."
"I must make the regular stipulation," said Mr Hallam smiling.
"Banking people are very exacting: they do nothing without being paid."
"You mean that I must sing as well," said Millicent.
"Oh, certainly. And," she added eagerly, "Mr Bayle is musical. I will
ask him to sing."
"Yes, do," said Hallam, with a shade of eagerness in his voice. "He
cannot refuse you."
She did not know why, but as Millicent Luttrell heard these words,
something like regret at her proposal crossed her mind, and she glanced
at where Bayle was seated, listening to Mrs Trampleasure, who was
talking to him loudly--so loudly that her voice reached their ears.
"I should be very glad indeed, Mr Bayle, if, when you call upon us, you
would look through Edgar and Edmund's Latin exercises. I'm quite sure
that the head master at the grammar school does not pay the attention to
the boys that he should."
To wait until Mrs Trampleasure came to the end of a conversational
chapter, would have been to give up the singing, so Millicent sat down
to the little old-fashioned square piano, running her hands skilfully
over the keys, and bringing forth harmonious sounds. But they were the
_aigue_ wiry tones of the modern zither, and Christie Bayle bent forward
as if attracted by the sweet face thrown up by the candles, and turned
slightly towards Hallam, dark, handsome, and self-possessed, standing
with one hand resting on the instrument.
"I don't like music!" said Mrs Trampleasure, in a very slightly subdued
voice.
"Indeed!" said Bayle starting, for his thoughts were wandering, and an
unpleasant, indefinable feeling was stealing over him.
"I think it a great waste of time," continued Mrs Trampleasure. "Do
you like it, Mr Bayle?"
"Well, I must confess I am very fond of it," he replied.
"But you don't play anything," said the lady with quite a look of
horror.
"I--I play the flute--a little," faltered the curate.
"Well," said Mrs Trampleasure austerely, "we learn a great many habits
when we are young, Mr Bayle, that we leave off when we grow older. You
are youngs Mr Bayle."
He looked up in her face as if she had wounded him, her words went so
deeply home, and he replied softly:
"Yes, I'm afraid I am very young."
Just then the doctor came and laid his hand upon Mrs Trampleasure's
lips.
"Silence! One tablespoonful to be taken directly. Hush, softly, not a
word;" and he stood over his sister--with a warning index finger held
up, while in a deep, thrilling baritone voice Mr Hallam from the bank
sang "Treasures of the Deep."
A dead silence was preserved, and the sweet rich notes seemed to fill
the room and float out where the dewy flowers were exhaling their odours
on the soft night air. The words were poetical, the pianoforte
accompaniment was skilfully played, and, though perhaps but slightly
cultivated, the voice of the singer was modulated by that dramatic
feeling which is given but to few, so that the expression was natural,
and, without troubling the composer's marks, the song appealed to the
feelings of the listeners, though in different ways.
"Bravo! bravo!" cried Mr Trampleasure, crossing to the singer.
"He has a very fine voice," said Dr Luttrell in a quiet, subdued way;
and his handsome face wrinkled a little as he glanced towards the piano.
"Yes, yes, it's very beautiful," said Mrs Luttrell, fingering a
bracelet round and round, "but I wish he wouldn't, dear; I declare it
always makes me feel as if I wanted to cry. Ah! here's Sir Gordon."
Pleasant, sweet-faced Mrs Luttrell crossed the room to welcome a new
arrival in the person of a remarkably well-preserved elderly gentleman,
dressed with a care that told of his personal appearance being one of
the important questions of his life. There was a suspicion of the
curling tongs about his hair, which was of a glossy black that was not
more natural in hue than that of his carefully-arranged full whiskers.
There was a little black patch, too, beneath the nether lip that matched
his eyebrows, which seemed more regular and dark than those of gentlemen
as a rule at his time of life. The lines in his face were not deep, but
they were many, and, in short, he looked, from the curl on the top of
his head, down past his high black satin stock, well-padded coat,
pinched waist, and carefully strapped down trousers over his painfully
small patent leather boots, like one who had taken up the challenge of
Time, and meant to fight him to the death.
"Good evening, Mrs Luttrell. Ah! how do, doctor? My dear Miss
Luttrell, I've been seeing your fingers in the dark as I waited
outside."
"Seeing my fingers, Sir Gordon?"
"Yes; an idea--a fancy of mine," said the newcomer, bending over the
hand he took with courtly old-fashioned grace. "I heard the music, and
the sounds brought the producers before my eyes. Hallam, my dear sir,
you have a remarkably fine voice. I've known men, sir, at the London
Concerts, draw large incomes on worse voices than that!"
"You flatter me, Sir Gordon."
"Not at all, sir," said the newcomer shortly. "_I_ never stoop to
flatter any one, not even a lady. Miss Luttrell, do I?"
"You never flattered me," said Millicent, smiling.
"Never. It is a form of insincerity I detest. My dear Mrs Luttrell,
you should make your unworthy husband take that to heart."
"Why, I never flatter," said the doctor warmly.
"How dare you say so, sir, when you are always flattering your patients,
and preaching peace when there is no peace? Ah, yes, I've heard of
him," he said in an undertone. "Introduce me."
The formal introduction took place, and the last comer seated himself
beside the new curate.
"I'm very glad to meet you, Mr Bayle. Glad to see you here, too, sir.
Charming family this; doctor and his wife people to make friends. Eh!
singing again? Hah! Miss Luttrell. Have you heard her sing?"
"No, she has not sung since I have been here."
"Then prepare yourself for a treat, sir. I flatter myself I know what
singing is. It is the singing of one of our _prima donnas_ without the
artificiality."
"I think I heard Sir Gordon say he did not flatter," said Bayle quietly.
"Thank you," said the old beau, looking round sharply; "but I shall not
take the rebuke. You have not heard her sing. Oh, I see," he
continued, raising his gold-rimmed eye-glass, "a duet."
There was again silence, as after the prelude Millicent's voice rose
clear and thrilling in the opening of one of the simple old duets of the
day; and as she sang with the effortless ease of one to whom song was a
gift, Sir Gordon bent forward, swaying himself slightly to the music,
but only to stop short and watch with gathering uneasiness in his
expression, the rapt earnestness of Christie Bayle as he seemed to drink
in like some intoxicating draught the notes that vibrated through the
room. He drew a deep breath, and sat up rather stiffly as she ended,
and Mr Hallam from the bank took up the second verse. If anything, his
voice sounded richer and more full; and again the harmony was perfect
when the two voices, soprano and baritone, blended, and rose and fell in
impassioned strains, and then gradually died off in a soft, sweet, final
chord, that the subdued notes of the piano, wiry though they were,
failed to spoil.
"You are not fond of music?" said Sir Gordon, making Bayle, who had been
still sitting back rather stiffly, and with his eyes closed, start, as
he replied:
"Who? I? Oh, yes, I love it!" he replied hastily.
"Young! young!" said Sir Gordon to himself as he rose and crossed the
room to congratulate Millicent on her performance--Hallam giving way as
he approached--saying to himself: "I'm beginning to wish we had not
engaged him, good a man as he is."
"Yes, I'm very fond of that duet," said Millicent. "Excuse me, Sir
Gordon, here's Miss Heathery."
She crossed to the door to welcome a lady in a very tight evening dress
of cream satin--tight, that is, in the body--and pinched in by a broad
sash at the waist, but the sleeves were like two cream-coloured spheres,
whose open mouths hung down as if trying to swallow the long crinkly
gloves that the wearer kept drawing above her pointed elbows, and which
then slipped down.
It is a disrespectful comparison, but it was impossible to look at Miss
Heathery's face without thinking of a white rabbit. One of Nature's
paradoxical mysteries, no doubt, for it was not very white, nor were her
eyes pink, and the sausage-shaped, brown curls on either side of her
forehead, backed by a great shovel-like, tortoise-shell comb, in no wise
resembled ears; but still the fact remained, and even Christie Bayle, on
being introduced to the elderly bashful lady, thought of the rabbit, and
actually blushed.
"You are just in time to sing, Miss Heathery," said Millicent.
Miss Heathery could not; but there was a good deal of pressing, during
which the lady's eyes rolled round pleadingly from speaker to speaker,
as if saying, "Press me a little more, and I will."
"You must sing, my dear," said Mrs Luttrell in a whisper. "Make haste,
and then Millicent's going to ask Mr Bayle, and you must play the
accompaniment." Miss Heathery said, "Oh, really!" and Sir Gordon
completed the form by offering his arm, and leading the little lady to
the piano, taking from her hands her reticule, made in pale blue satin
to resemble a butterfly; after that her gloves.
Then, after a good deal of arrangement of large medical folios upon a
chair to make Miss Heathery the proper height, she raised her shoulders,
the left becoming a support to her head as she lifted her chin and gazed
into one corner of the room.
Christie Bayle was a lover of natural history, and he said to himself,
"How could I be so rude as to think she looked like a white rabbit? She
is exactly like a bird."
It was only that a change that had come over the lady, who was now
wonderfully bird-like, and, what was quite to the point, like a bird
about to sing.
She sang.
It was a tippity-tippity little tinkling song, quite in accordance with
the wiry, zither-like piano, all about "dewy twilight lingers," and
harps "touched by fairy fingers," and appeals to some one to "meet me
there, love," and so on.
The French say we are not a polite nation. We may not be as to some
little bits of outer polish, but at heart we are, and never more so than
at a social gathering, when some terrible execution has taken place
under the name of music. It was so here, for, moved by the feeling that
the poor little woman had done her best, and would have been deeply
wounded had she not been asked to sing, all warmly thanked Miss
Heathery; and directly after, Christie Bayle, with his ears still
burning from the effects of the performance, found himself beside the
fair singer, trying to talk of King's Castor and its surroundings.
"I would rather not ask him, mamma dear," said Millicent at the other
side of the room.
"But you had better, my dear. I know he is musical, and he might feel
slighted."
"Oh, yes, he's a good fellow, my dear; I like him," said the doctor
bluffly. "Ask him."
With a curious shrinking sensation that seemed somehow vaguely connected
with Mr Hallam from the bank, and his eagerness earlier in the evening,
Millicent crossed to where Bayle was seated, and asked him if he would
sing.
"Oh, no," he said hastily, "I have no voice!"
"But we hear that you are musical, Mr Bayle," said Millicent in her
sweet, calm way.
"Oh, yes, I am. Yes, I am a little musical."
"Pray sing then," she said, now that she had taken the step, forgetting
the diffident feeling; "we are very simple people here, and so glad to
have a fresh recruit in our narrow ranks."
"Yes, pray sing, Mr Bayle; we should be so charmed."
"I--er--I really--"
"Oh, but do, Mr Bayle," said Miss Heathery again sweetly.
"I think you will oblige us, Mr Bayle," said Millicent smiling; and as
their eyes met, if the request had been to perform the act of Marcus
Curtius on foot, and with a reasonable chance of finding water at the
bottom to break the fall, Christie Bayle would have taken the plunge.
"Have you anything I know?" he said despairingly.
"I know," cried Miss Heathery, with a sort of peck made in bird-like
playfulness. "Mr Bayle can sing `They bid me forget thee.'"
"Full many a shaft at random sent, hits," et cetera. This was a chance
shot, and it struck home.
"I think--er--perhaps, I could sing that," stammered Bayle, and then in
a fit of desperation--"I'll try."
"I have it among my music, Millicent dear. May I play the
accompaniment?"
Miss Heathery meant to look winning, but she made Bayle shiver.
"If you will be so good, Miss Heathery;" and the piece being found and
spread out, Christie Bayle, perspiring far more profusely than when he
was using the doctor's spade, stood listening to the prelude, and then
began to sing, wishing that the dead silence around had been broken up
by a hurricane, or the loudest thunder that ever roared.
Truth to tell, it was a depressing performance of a melancholy song.
Bayle's voice was not bad, but his extreme nervousness paralysed him,
and the accompaniment would have driven the best vocalist frantic.
It was a dismal failure, and when, in the midst of a pleasant little
chorus of "Thank you's" Christie Bayle left the piano, he felt as if he
had disgraced himself for ever in the eyes of King's Castor, above all
in those of this sweetly calm and beautiful woman who seemed like some
Muse of classic days come back to life.
Every one smiled kindly, and Mrs Luttrell came over, called him "my
dear" in her motherly way, and thanked him again.
"Only want practice and confidence, sir," said the doctor.
"Exactly," said Sir Gordon; "practise, sir, and you'll soon beat Hallam
there."
Bayle felt as if he would give anything to be able to retreat; and just
then he caught Mrs Trampleasure's eyes as she signalled him to come to
her side.
"She told me she did not like music," he said to himself; and he was
yielding to his fate, and going to have the cup of his misery filled to
the brim when he caught Hallam's eye.
Hallam was by the chimney-piece, talking to Mr Trampleasure about bank
matters; but that look seemed so full of triumphant contempt, that Bayle
drew his breath as if in pain, and turned to reach the door.
"It was very kind of you to sing when I asked you, Mr Bayle," said that
sweet low voice that thrilled him; and he turned hastily, seeing again
Hallam's sneering look, or the glance that he so read.
"I cannot sing," he replied with boyish petulance. "It was absurd to
attempt it. I have only made myself ridiculous."
"Pray do not say that," said Millicent kindly. "You give me pain. I
feel as if it is my fault, and that I have spoiled your evening."
"I--I have had no practice," he faltered.
"But you love music. You have a good voice. You must come and try over
a few songs and duets with me."
He looked at her half-wonderingly, and then moved by perhaps a youthful
but natural desire to redeem himself, he said hastily:
"I can--play a little--the flute."
"But you have not brought it?"
"Yes," he said hastily. "Will you play an accompaniment? Anything, say
one of Henry Bishop's songs or duets."
Millicent sighed, for she felt regret, but she concealed her chagrin,
and said quietly, "Certainly, Mr Bayle;" and they walked together to
the piano.
"Bravo!" cried Sir Gordon. "No one need be told that Mr Bayle is an
Englishman."
There was a rather uncomfortable silence as, more and more feeling pity
and sympathy for their visitor, Millicent began to turn over a volume of
bound up music, while, with trembling hands, Bayle drew his quaint
boxwood flute with its brass keys and ivory mounts from its case.
It was a wonderfully different instrument from one of those cocoa-wood
or metal flutes of the present day, every hole of which is stopped not
with the fingers but with keys. This was an old-fashioned affair, in
four pieces, which had to be moistened at the joints when they were
stuck together, and all this business the Reverend Christie Bayle went
through mechanically, for his eyes were fixed upon the music Millicent
was turning over.
"Let's try that," he said suddenly, in a voice tremulous with eagerness,
as she turned over leaf after leaf, hesitating at two or three
songs--"Robin Adair," "Ye Banks and Braes," and another--easy melodies,
such as a flute player could be expected to get through. But though she
had given him plenty of time to choose either of these, he let her turn
over, and went on wetting the flute joints, and screwing them up till
she arrived at "I Know a Bank."
"But it is a duet," she said, smiling at him as an elder sister might
have smiled at a brother she wished to encourage, and who had just made
another mistake.
"Yes," he said hastily; "but I can take up first one voice and then the
other, and when it comes to the duet part the piano will hide the want
of the second voice."
"Or I can play it where necessary," said Millicent, who began to
brighten up. Perhaps this was not going to be such a dismal failure
after all.
"To be sure," he said: "if you will. There, I think that will do. Pray
excuse me if I seem terribly nervous," he whispered.
"Oh! don't apologise, Mr Bayle. We are all friends here. I do not
mind. I was thinking of you."
"Thank you," he said hastily. "You are very kind. Shall we begin?"
"Yes, I am ready," said Millicent, glancing involuntarily at Hallam, who
was still conversing with Trampleasure, his face perfectly calm, but his
eyes wearing a singular look of triumph.
"One moment. Would you mind sounding D?" Millicent obeyed, and Bayle
blew a tremulous note upon the flute nearly a quarter of a tone too
sharp.
This necessitated a certain amount of unscrewing and lengthening which
made the drops glisten upon Bayle's forehead.
"Poor fellow!" thought Millicent, "how nervous he is! I wish he were
not going to play."
"I think that will do," he said at last, after blowing one or two more
tremulous notes. "Shall we begin?" Millicent nodded, giving him a
smile of encouragement, and after whispering, "Don't mind me, I'll try
and keep to your time," she ran over the prelude, and shivered as the
flute took up the melody and began.
It has been said that the flute, of all instruments, most resembles the
human voice, and to Millicent Luttrell it seemed to wail here piteously
how it knew a bank whereon the wild thyme grew. Her hands were moist
from sympathy for the flautist, and she was striving to play her best
with the fullest chords so as to hide his weakness, when, as he went on,
it seemed to her that Bayle was forgetting the presence of listeners and
growing interested in the beautiful melody he played. The notes of the
flute became, moment by moment, more rich and round; they were no longer
spasmodic, beginning and ending clumsily, but were breathed forth
softly, with a crescendo and diminuendo where necessary, and so full of
feeling that the pianiste was encouraged. She, too, forgot the
listeners, and yielding to her love of her art, played on. The slow,
measured strains were succeeded by the florid runs; but she never
wondered whether the flautist would succeed, for they were amongst them
before she knew they were _so_ near, with the flute seeming to trip
deftly over the most difficult passages without the slightest
hesitation, the audience thoroughly enjoying the novel performance, till
the final chord was struck, and followed by a hearty round of applause.
"Oh! Mr Bayle," cried Millicent, looking up in his flushed face, "I am
so glad."
Her brightened eyes told him the same tale, for he had thoroughly won
her sympathy as well as the praise of all present; Mr Hallam from the
bank being as ready as the rest to thank him for so "delicious a
rendering of that charming duet."
The rest of that evening was strange and dreamlike to Christie Bayle.
He played some more florid pieces of music by one Henry Bishop, and he
took Millicent in to supper. Then, soon after, he walked home, Sir
Gordon Bourne being his companion.
After that he sat for some hours thinking and wondering how it was that
while some men of his years were manly and able to maintain their own,
he was so boyish and easily upset.
"I'm afraid my old tutor's right," he said; "I want ballast."
Perhaps that was why, when he dropped to sleep and went sailing away
into the sea of dreams, his voyage was so wild and strange. Every
minute some gust of passion threatened to capsize his barque, but he
sailed on with his dreams growing more wild, the sky around still more
strange.
It was a restless night for Christie Bayle, B.A. But the scholar of
Oriel College, Oxford, was thinking as he had never thought before.