GEORGE'S TUNES.
... Sing our fine songs that tell in artful phrase
The secrets of our lives, and plead and pray
For alms of memory with the after time.
--O. W. H.
There is George sitting at the old piano in the drawing-room. The window
is wide open. The Venetian glass is dazzling over his head, of which the
cauliflower shadow is thrown upon the wall. By daylight, the old damask
paper looks all stained and discoloured, and the draperies hang fainting
and turning grey and brown and to all sorts of strange autumnal hues in
this bright spring sunshine.
The keys answer to George's vigorous fingers, while the shadow bobs in
time from side to side. A pretty little pair of slim gloves and a
prayer-book are lying on a chair by the piano; they are certainly not
George's, nor Eliza Twells', who is ostensibly dusting the room, but who
has stopped short to listen to the music. It has wandered from the
_Freischuetz_ overture to _Kennst Du das Land?_ which, for the moment,
George imagines to be his own composition. How easily the chords fall
into their places! how the melody flows loud and clear from his fingers!
(It's not only on the piano that people play tunes which they imagine to
be their own.) As for Eliza, she had never heard anything so beautiful
in all her life.
'Can it play hymn toones, sir?' says she, in a hoarse voice.
Hymn tunes! George goes off into the Hundredth Psalm. The old piano
shakes its cranky sides, the pedals groan and creak, the music echoes
all round; then another shadow comes floating along the faded wall, two
fair arms are round his neck, the music stops for an instant, and Eliza
begins to rub up the leg of a table.
'How glad I am you have come; but _why_ have you come, George--oughtn't
you to be reading?'
'Oh,' says George, airily, 'I have only come for the day. Look here:
have you ever heard this Russian tune? I've been playing it to Miss
Parnell; I met her coming from church.'
'Miss Parnell? Do you mean Rhoda?' said Dolly, as she sits down in the
big chair and takes up the gloves and the prayer-book, which opens wide,
and a little bit of fresh-gathered ivy falls out. It is Rhoda's
prayer-book, as Dolly knows. She puts back the ivy, while George goes on
playing.
'How pretty!' says she, looking at him with her two admiring eyes, and
raising her thick brows.
George, much pleased with the compliment, goes on strumming louder than
ever.
'Robert is here,' says Dolly, still listening. 'He is in the garden with
Rhoda.'
'Oh, is he?' says George, not over-pleased.
It was at this moment that Lady Sarah came to the garden-window, still
in her district equipments. Eliza Twells, much confused by her
mistress's appearance, begins to dust wildly.
'How d'ye do, George?' said his aunt, coming up to him. 'We didn't
expect you so soon again.'
George offered his cheek to be kissed, and played a few chords with his
left hand.
'I hadn't meant to come,' he said; 'but I was up at the station this
morning, seeing a friend off, and as the train was starting I got in.
I've got a return-ticket.'
'Of course you have,' said Lady Sarah, 'but where will you get a
return-ticket for the time you are wasting? It is no use attempting to
speak to you. Some day you will be sorry;' and then she turned away, and
walked off in her gleaming goloshes, and went out at the window again.
She did not join Robert and Rhoda, who were pacing round and round the
garden walk, but wandered off her own way alone.
'There!' says George, looking up at Dolly for sympathy.
Dolly doesn't answer, but turns very pale, and her heart begins to beat.
'It is one persecution,' cries George, speaking for himself, since Dolly
won't speak for him. 'She seems to think she has a right to insult
me--that she has bought it with her hateful money.'
He began to crash out some defiant chords upon the piano.
'Don't, dear,' said Dolly, putting her hand on his. 'You don't know,'
she said, hesitating, 'how bitterly disappointed Aunt Sarah has been
when--when you have not passed. She is so clever herself. She is so
proud of you. She hopes so much.'
'Nonsense,' said George, hunching up sulkily. 'Dolly, you are for ever
humbugging. You love me, and perhaps others appreciate me a little; but
not Aunt Sarah. She don't care that' (a crash) 'for me. She thinks that
I can bear insult like Robert, or all the rest of them who are after her
money-bags.'
He was working himself up more and more, as people do who are not sure
they are right. He spoke so angrily that Dolly was frightened.
'Oh, George,' she said, 'how can you say such things; you mustn't, do
you hear? not to me--not to yourself. Of course Robert scorns anything
mean, as much as you do. Her savings! they all went in that horrid bank.
She does not know where to go for money sometimes, and we ought to spare
her, and never to forget what we do owe her. She denies herself every
day for us. She will scarcely see a doctor when she is ill, or take a
carriage when she is tired.'
Dolly's heart was beating very quick; she was determined that, come what
might, George should hear the truth from her.
'If you are going to lecture me, too, I shall go,' said George; and he
got up and walked away to the open window, and stood grimly looking out.
He did not believe Dolly; he could not afford to believe her. He was in
trouble; he wanted money himself. He had meant to confide in Dolly that
was one of the reasons why he had come up to town. He should say nothing
to her now. She did not deserve his confidence; she did not understand
him, and always sided with her aunt. 'Look here, I had better give the
whole thing up at once,' he said, sulkily; 'I don't care to be the
object of so many sacrifices.' As he stood there glowering, he was
unconsciously watching the two figures crossing the garden and going
towards the pond; one of them, the lady, turned, and seeing him at the
window, waved a distant hand in greeting. George's face cleared. He
would join Rhoda; it was no use staying here.
As he was leaving the room poor Dolly looked up from the arm-chair in
which she had been sitting despondently: she had tears in her heart
though her eyes were dry: she wanted to make friends. 'You know,
George,' she said, 'I _must_ say what I think true to you. Aunt Sarah
grudges nothing----'
'She makes the very most,' says George, stopping short, of what she
does, and so do you;' and he looked away from Dolly's entreating face.
Again poor Dolly's indignation masters her prudence. 'How can you be so
mean and ungrateful?' she says.
'Ungrateful!' cries George, in a passion; 'you get all you like out of
Aunt Sarah; to me she doles out hard words and a miserable pittance, and
you expect me to be grateful. I can see what Robert and Frank Raban
think as well as if they said it.'
Dolly sprang past him and rushed out of the room in tears.
'Dolly! Dolly! forgive me, do forgive me! I'm a brute,' says George,
running after her,--he had really talked on without knowing what he
said--'please stop!'
'Dolly!' cries Lady Sarah from the breakfast-room.
Dolly went flying along the oak hall and up the old staircase and across
the ivy window. She could not speak. She ran up to her room, and slammed
the door, and burst out sobbing. She did not heed the voices calling
then, but in after days, long, long after, she used to hear them at
times, and how plainly they sounded, when all was silent--'Dolly,
Dolly!' they called. People say that voices travel on through
space,--they travel on through life, and across time,--is it not so?
Years have passed since they may have been uttered, but do we not hear
them again and again, and answer back longing into the past?
Meanwhile poor Dolly banged the door in indignation She was glad George
was sorry, but how dared he suspect her? How dared Mr. Raban--Mr. Raban,
who did not pay his debts--What did she care?--What did they know?
_They_ did not understand how she loved her brother in her own way, her
very own; loving him and taking care for him and fighting his
battles....
'Oh, George, how cruel you are,' sobbed poor Dolly, sitting on her
window-sill. The warm sun was pouring through the open casement,
spreading the shadow of the panes and the framework upon the carpetless
floor; in a corner of the window a little pot of mignonette stood ready
to start to life; a bird came with the shadow of its little breast upon
the bars, and chirruped a cheerful chirp. Dolly looked up, breathed in
the sun and the bird-chirp, how could she help it? Then her wooden clock
struck, it distracted her somehow, and her indignation abated; the girl
got up, bathed her red eyes, and went to the glass to straighten her
crisp locks and limp tucker. 'Who is knocking?--come in,' said Dolly.
She did not look round, she was too busy struggling with her laces:
presently she saw a face reflected in the glass beside her own, a pale
brown face with black hair and slow, dark eyes, and close little red
lips.
'Why, Rhoda, have you come for me?' said Dolly, looking round, sighing
and soothed.
At the same time a voice from the garden below cried out, 'Dolly, come
down! Have you forgiven me?'
'Yes, George,' said Dolly, looking out from her window.
'Here, let me help you,' cried Rhoda. 'Dolly, Mr. Robert and your
brother sent me to find you.'