During his stay at The Pines Mr. Britton spent the greater portion of
his time with Mr. Underwood, either at their offices or at the mines.
Darrell, therefore, saw little of his new-found friend except as they
all gathered in the evening around the glowing fire in the large family
sitting-room, for, notwithstanding the lingering warmth and sunshine of
the days, the nights were becoming sharp and frosty, so that an open
fire added much to the evening's enjoyment. Each morning, however,
before his departure, Mr. Britton stopped for a few words with Darrell;
some quaint, kindly bit of humor, the pleasant flavor of which would
enliven the entire day; some unhackneyed expression of sympathy whose
very genuineness and sincerity made Darrell's position seem to him less
isolated and solitary than before; or some suggestion which, acted upon,
relieved the monotony of the tedious hours of convalescence.
At his suggestion Darrell took vigorous exercise each day in the morning
air and sunshine, devoting his afternoons to a course of light, pleasant
reading.
"If you are going to work," said Mr. Britton, "the first requisite is to
have your body and mind in just as healthful and normal a condition as
possible, in order that you may be able to give an equivalent for what
you receive. In these days of trouble between employer and employed, we
hear a great deal about the laborer demanding an honest equivalent for
his toil, but it does not occur to him to inquire whether he is giving
his employer an honest equivalent for his money. The fact is, a large
percentage of working-men and working-women, in all departments of
labor, are squandering their energies night after night in various forms
and degrees of dissipation until they are utterly incapacitated for one
honest day's work; yet they do not hesitate to take a full day's wages,
and would consider themselves wronged were the smallest fraction
withheld."
Darrell found himself rather restricted in his reading for the first few
days, as he found but a limited number of books at The Pines, until Mrs.
Dean, who had received a hint from Mr. Britton, meeting him one day in
the upper hall, led him into two darkened rooms, saying, as she hastened
to open the blinds,--
"These are what the children always called their 'dens.' All their books
are here, and I thought maybe you'd like to look them over. If you see
anything you like, just help yourself, and use the rooms for reading or
writing whenever you want to."
Darrell, left to himself, looked about him with much interest. The two
rooms were similar in style and design, but otherwise were as diverse as
possible. The room in which he was standing was furnished in embossed
leather. A leather couch stood near one of the windows, and a large
reclining-chair of the same material was drawn up before the fireplace.
Near the mantel was a pipe-rack filled with fine specimens of briar-wood
and meerschaum pipes. Signs of tennis, golf, and various athletic sports
were visible on all sides; in the centre of the room stood a large
roll-top desk, open, and on it lay a briar pipe, filled with ashes, just
where the owner's hand had laid it. But what most interested Darrell was
a large portrait over the fireplace, which he knew must be that of
Harry Whitcomb. The face was neither especially fine nor strong, but the
winsome smile lurking about the curves of the sensitive mouth and in the
depths of the frank blue eyes rendered it attractive, and it was with a
sigh for the young life so suddenly blotted out that Darrell turned to
enter the second room.
He paused at the doorway, feeling decidedly out of place, and glanced
about him with a serio-comic smile. The furnishings were as unique as
possible, no one piece in the room bearing any relation or similarity to
any other piece. There were chairs and tables of wicker-work, twisted
into the most ornate designs, interspersed among heavy, antique pieces
of carving and slender specimens of colonial simplicity; divans covered
with pillows of every delicate shade imaginable; exquisite etchings and
dainty bric-a-brac. In an alcove formed by a large bay-window stood a
writing-desk of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and on an easel in a
secluded corner, partially concealed by silken draperies, was the
portrait of Kate Underwood,--a childish, rather immature face, but with
a mouth indicating both sweetness and strength of character, and with
dark, strangely appealing eyes.
The walls of both rooms were lined with bookcases, but their contents
were widely diverse, and, to Darrell's surprise, he found the young
girl's library contained far the better class of books. But even in
their selection he observed the same peculiarity that he had noted in
the furnishing of the room; there were few complete sets of books;
instead, there were one, two, or three volumes of each author, as the
case might be, evidently her especial favorites.
But Darrell returned to the other room, which interested him far more,
each article in it bearing eloquent testimony to the happy young life
of whose tragic end he had now often heard, but of which he was unable
to recall the faintest memory. Passing slowly through the room, his
attention was caught by a violin case standing in an out-of-the-way
corner. With a cry of joy he drew it forth, his fingers trembling with
eagerness as he opened it and took therefrom a genuine Stradivarius. At
that moment his happiness knew no bounds. Seating himself and bending
his head over the instrument after the manner of a true violin lover, he
drew the bow gently across the strings, producing a chord of such
triumphant sweetness that the air seemed vibrating with the joy which at
that instant thrilled his own soul.
Immediately all thought of himself or of his surroundings was lost. With
eyes half closed and dreamy he began to play, without effort, almost
mechanically, but with the deft touch of a master hand, while liquid
harmonies filled the room, quivering, rising, falling; at times low,
plaintive, despairing; then swelling exultantly, only to die away in
tremulous, minor undertones. The man's pent-up feelings had at last
found expression,--his alternate hope and despair, his unutterable
loneliness and longing,--all voiced by the violin.
Of the lapse of time Darrell had neither thought nor consciousness until
the door opened and Mrs. Dean's calm smile and matter-of-fact voice
recalled him to a material world.
"I see that you have found Harry's violin," she said.
"I beg your pardon," Darrell stammered, somewhat dazed by his sudden
descent to the commonplace, "I ought not to have taken it; I never
thought,--I was so delighted to find the instrument and so carried away
with its tones,--it never occurred to me how it might seem to you!"
"Oh, that is all right," she interposed, quietly; "use it whenever you
like. Harry bought it two years ago, but he never had the patience to
learn it, so it has been used very little. I never heard such playing as
yours, and I stepped in to ask you to bring it downstairs and play for
us to-night. Mr. Britton will be delighted; he enjoys everything of that
sort."
Around the fireside that evening Darrell had an attentive audience,
though the appreciation of his auditors was manifested in a manner
characteristic of each. Mr. Underwood, after two or three futile
attempts to talk business with his partner, finding him very
uncommunicative, gave himself up to the enjoyment of his pipe and the
music in about equal proportions, indulging surreptitiously in
occasional brief naps, though always wide awake at the end of each
number and joining heartily in the applause.
Mrs. Dean sat gazing into the glowing embers, her face lighted with
quiet pleasure, but her knitting-needles twinkled and flashed in the
firelight with the same unceasing regularity, and she doubled and seamed
and "slipped and bound" her stitches with the same monotonous precision
as on other evenings.
Mr. Britton, in a comfortable reclining-chair, sat silent, motionless,
his head thrown back, his eyes nearly closed, but in the varying
expression of his mobile face Darrell found both inspiration and
compensation.
For more than three hours Darrell entertained his friends; quaint
medleys, dreamy waltzes, and bits of classical music following one after
another, with no effort, no hesitancy, on the part of the player. To
their eager inquiries, he could only answer,--
"I don't know how I do it. They seem to come to me with the sweep of
the bow across the strings. I have no recollection of anything that I am
playing; it seems as though the instrument and I were simply drifting."
Late in the evening, when they were nearly ready to separate for the
night, Darrell sat idly strumming the violin, when an old familiar
strain floated sweetly forth, and his astonished listeners suddenly
heard him singing in a rich baritone an old love-song, forgotten until
then by every one present.
Mrs. Dean had already laid aside her work and sat with hands folded, a
smile of unusual tenderness hovering about her lips, while Mr. Britton's
face was quivering with emotion. At its conclusion he grasped Darrell's
hand silently.
"That is a very old song," said Mrs. Dean. "It seems queer to hear you
sing it. I used to hear it sung when I was a young girl, and that," she
added smiling, "was a great many years ago."
"And I have sung it many a time a great many years ago," said Mr.
Britton. And he hastily left the room.
_Chapter VII_