I was in the most contented frame of mind that can be conceived of
until the very May month of the year I speak of, when my sensations,
as usual, began to be peculiar. I don't think anybody can love summer
better than I do, can more approvedly languish out, by heavy-shaded
stream in an atmosphere all roses, the summer noons, can easier spend,
in _insomnie_ the lustrous moony nights.
But May does something to me of which I am not aware during June and
July, or at the first delicate spring-time. When the laburnums rain
their gold, and the lilacs toss broad-bloomed their grape-like
clusters, when the leaves, full swelling, are yet all veined with
light, I cannot very well work hard, and would rather slave the
livelong eleven months besides, to have that month a holiday. So it
happened now; and though I had no absolute right to leave my pupils
and desert the first stones of my musical masonry just laid and
smoothed, I was obliged to think that if I were to have a holiday at
all, I had better take it then. But I had not decided until I received
a double intimation,--one from Davy, and one from the county
newspaper, which last never chronicled events that stirred in London
unless they stirred beyond it. My joyous brother brought me the
letter, and the paper was upon our table the same morning when I came
down to breakfast.
"See here, Charles," said Clo, who, sitting in her own corner, over
her own book, was unwontedly excited; "here is a piece of news for
you, and my mother found it first!"
I read, in a castaway paragraph enough, that the Chevalier Seraphael,
the pianist and composer, was to pay a visit to England this very
summer; though to remain in strict seclusion, he would not be
inaccessible to professors. He brought with him, I learned, "the
fruits of several years' solitary travel, no doubt worthy of his
genius and peculiar industry."
Extremely to the purpose were these expressions, for they told me all
I wanted to know,--that he was alive, must be himself again, and had
been writing for those who loved him,--for men and angels. Now, for my
letter. I had held it without opening it, for I chose to do so when
alone, and waited until after breakfast. It was a choice little
supplement to that choicest of all invites for my spirit and heart,--a
note on foreign paper; the graceful, firm character of the writing
found no difficulty to stand out clear and black from that
milk-and-water hue and spongy texture. It was from Clara,--a simple
form that a child might have dictated, yet containing certain business
reports for Davy, direct as from one who could master even business.
She was coming definitely to England, not either for any purposes save
those all worthy of herself; she had accepted, after much
consideration, a London engagement for the season; and, said she,--
"I only have my fears lest I should do less than I ought for what I
love best; it is so difficult to do what is right by music in these
times, when it is fashionable to seem to like it. You will give me a
little of your advice, dear sir, if I need it, as perhaps I may; but
I hope not, because I have troubled you too much already. I trust
your little daughter is growing like you to please her mother, and
like her mother to please you. I shall be delighted to see it when I
come to London, if you can allow me to do so."
The style of this end of a letter both amused and absorbed me; it was
Clara's very idiosyncrasy. I could but think, "Is it possible that she
has not altered more than her style of expressing herself has done? I
must go and see."
Davy received my ravings with due compassion and more indulgence than
I had dared to hope. The suspension of my duties, leaving our
orchestra in limbo still longer, disconcerted him a little; but he was
the first to say I must surely go to London. The only thing to be
discovered was when to go, so as not to frustrate either one of my
designs or the other; and I declared he must, to that end, address
Clara on the very subject.
He did so, and in a fortnight there came the coolest note to say she
would be in London the next day, and that she had heard the great
musician would arrive before the end of the month. I inly marvelled
whether in all the course of his wanderings Clara and the Chevalier
had met; but still I thought and prophesied not. I was really
reluctant to leave Davy with his hands and head full, that I might
saunter with my own in kid-gloves, and swarming with May fancies; but
for once my selfishness--or something higher, whose mortal frame is
selfishness--impelled me. I found myself in the train at the end of
the next week, carrying Clara's address in my memorandum-book, and my
violin-case in the carriage along with me.
It was early afternoon, and exquisitely splendid weather when I
arrived in London. In London, however, I had little to do just then,
as the address of the house to which I was bound was rather out of
London,--above the smoke, beyond the stir, at the very first plunge
into the surrounding country that lingers yet as a dream upon her day
reality, with which dreams suit not ill, and from which they seldom
part. I love the heart of London, in whose awful deeps reflect the
mysterious unfathomable of every secret, and where the homeless are
best at home, where the home-bred fear not to wander, assured of sweet
return; but I do not love its immediate precincts,--the rude waking
stage between that profound and the conserved, untainted sylvan
vision, that, once overpast it, dawns upon us.
Dashing as abruptly as possible, and by the nearest way through all
the brick wilderness outward, I reached in no long weary time, and by
no long weary journey, though on foot, a quiet road, which by a
continuous but gentle rise carried me to the clustered houses, neither
quite hamlet nor altogether village, where Miss Benette had hidden her
heart among the leaves.
Cool and shady was the side I took, though the sunshine whitened the
highway, and every summer promise beamed from the soft sky's azure,
the green earth's bloom. The painted gates I met at intervals, or the
iron-wreathed portals, guarded dim walks, through whose perspective
villas glistened, all beautiful as they were discerned afar in their
frames of tossing creepers, with gay verandas or flashing
green-houses. But the wall I followed gave me not a transient glimpse
of gardens inwards, so thickly blazed the laburnums and the paler
flames of the rich acacia, not to speak of hedges all sweet-brier,
matted into one embrace with double-blossomed hawthorn. I passed
garden after garden and gate after gate, seeing no one; for the great
charm of those regions consists in the extreme privacy of every
habitation,--privacy which the most exclusive nobleman might envy, and
never excel in his wilderness parks or shrubberies; and when at length
I attained the summit of the elevation where two roads met and shut in
a sweep of actual country, and I came to the end of the houses, I
began to look about for some one to direct me; then, turning the
corner, I came in turning upon what I had been seeking, without having
really sought it by any effort.
The turn in the road I speak of went tapering off between hedgerows;
and meadow-lands, as yet unencroached upon, swept within them as far
as I could see. But just where I stood, a cottage, older than any of
the villas, and framed in shade more ancient than the light groves I
left behind me, peeped from the golden and purple May-trees across a
moss-green lawn,--a perfect picture in its silence, and a very
paradise of fragrance. It was built of wood, and had its roof-hung
windows and drooping eaves protected by a spreading chestnut-tree,
whose great green fans beat coolness against every lattice, and whose
blossoms had kindled their rose-white tapers at the sun. The garden
was so full of flowers that one could scarcely bear the sweetness,
except that the cool chestnut shadow dashed the breeze with freshness
as it swept the heavy foliage and sank upon the checkered grass to a
swoon. I was not long lost in contemplating the niche my saint had
chosen, for I could have expected nothing fitter; but I was at some
loss to enter, for the reminiscences of my childhood burdened me, and
I dreaded lest I should be deprived of anything I now held stored
within me, by a novel shock of being. I need not have feared.
After waiting till I was ashamed, I opened the tiny gate and walked
across the grass, still soft with the mowing of the morning, to the
front door, where I pulled a little bell-handle half smothered in the
wreaths of monthly roses that were quivering and fluttering like pink
doves about the door and lower windows. This was as it should be, the
very door-bell dressed with flowers; but more as it should be, it was
that Thoné opened the door. I was almost ready to disappear again, but
that her manner was the most reassuring to troublesome nerves. She did
not appear to have any idea who I was, nor did she even stare when I
presented my card, but like some strange bronze escaped from its
pedestal, and attired in muslin, she conducted me onwards down a
little low hall, half filled with the brightest plants, into a double
parlor, whose folding-doors were closed, and whose diamond-paned back
window looked out far, and very far, into the country.
Hearing not a voice in the next room, nor any rustle, nor even a soft
foot hastily cross the beamed ceiling overhead, I dared look about me
for a moment, hid my hat in confusion under a chair, saw that the
round table had a bowl of flowers in its centre, caught sight of my
face in the intensely polished glass-door of a small closed book-case,
and, as if detected in some act, walked away to the window.
I could not have done a better thing to prepare myself for any fresh
excitement; I was ready in an instant to weep with joy at the beauty
that flooded my spirit. Over and beyond the garden I gazed; it did not
detain my eye,--I passed its tree-tops, all apple-bloom and lilac, and
its sudden bursts of grass where the tree-tops parted. I looked out to
the country,--an undulating country, a sea of green, flushed here and
there with a bloomy level, or a breeze upon the crimson clover;
odorous bean-fields quivered, and their scent was floating
everywhere,--it drowned the very garden sweetness, and blended in with
waftures of unknown fragrance, all wild essences shed from woodbines,
from dog-roses, and the new-cut grass, or plumy meadow-sweet, by the
waters of rills flowing up into the distance, silver in the sunlight.
Soft hills against the heaven swept over visionary valleys; the
sunshine lay white and warm upon glistening summer seas and picture
cottages; over all spread the purple, melting, brooding sky,
transparent on every leaf and blossom, shining upon those tender
sloping hills with an amethyst haze of light, not shade.
As I stood, the things that seemed had never been, and the things that
had been grew dilated and indefinitely bright,--the soft thrall of the
suspense that bound me intertwining itself with mine "electric chain"
as that May-dream mixed itself with all my music, veiling it as
moonlight, the colors of the flowers, or as music itself veils
passion.
I waited quite half an hour, and had lost myself completely, feeling
as if no change could come, when, without a sound, some one entered
behind me. I knew it by the light that burst through the folding-door,
which had, however, again closed when I turned, for the tread was so
silent I might otherwise have gone dreaming on. Clara stood before me,
so little altered that I could have imagined that she had been put
away in a trance when I left her last, and but this instant was
restored to me.
She was not more womanly, nor less child-like; and for her being an
actress, it seemed a thing impossible. I could but stand and gaze; nor
did she seem surprised, nor did her eyes droop, nor her fair cheek
mantle: through the untrembling lashes I caught the crystal light as
she opposed me, still waiting for me to speak.
I was heartily ashamed at last, and resolved to make her welcome as
she maintained that strange regard. I put out my hand, and in an
instant she greeted me; the infantine smile shone suddenly that had
soothed me so long ago.
"I am very glad to see you, Miss Benette. It was very kind of you to
let me come."
"By no means," she replied, with the slightest possible Italian
softening of her accent. "I am very much obliged to you, and I am very
pleased also. Please sit down, sir, for you have been standing, I am
afraid, a long time. I was out at first, and since I returned I made
haste; but still, I fear, I have kept you waiting."
"I could have waited all day, Miss Benette, to see such a window as
this. How did you manage to put your foot into such a nest?"
"It is a very sweet little place, and the country is most beautiful. I
don't know what they mean by its being too near London. I must be near
London, and yet I could not exactly live in it, for it makes me idle."
"How very strange! It has the same effect upon me,--that is to say, I
always dream in those streets, and lose half my purpose. Still, it
must be almost a temptation to indulge a certain kind of idleness
here; in such a garden as that, for example, one could pass all one's
time."
"I do pass half my time in the garden, and yet I do not think it is
too much, for it makes me well; and I cannot work when I am not
well,--I was always unfortunate in that respect."
"How do you think I look, by the by, Miss Benette? Am I very much
changed? It is perhaps, however, not a safe question."
"Quite safe, sir. You have grown more and more like your inseparable
companion,--you always had a look of it, and now it takes the place of
all other expression."
"I don't know whether that is complimentary or not, you see, for I
never heard your opinion in old times. I was a very silly boy then,
and not quite so well aware of what I owed to you as I may be now."
"I do not feel that you owe anything to anybody, Mr. Auchester, for
you would have gone to your own desires as resolutely through peril as
through pleasure; at all events, if you are still as modest as you
were, it is a great blessing now you have become a soul which bears so
great a part. If I must speak truth, however, about your looks, you
seem as delicate as you used to be, and I do not suppose you could be
anything else. You have not altered except to have grown up."
"And you, if I may say so, have not altered in growing up."
Nor had she. She had not gained an inch in height. She could never
have worn that black silk frock those years; yet the folds, so grave
and costly, still shielded her gentle breast to meet the snow-soft
ruffle that fringed her throat: nor had she ornament upon
her,--neither bracelet nor ring upon the dimpled hands, the delicate
wrists. Though her silken hair had lengthened into wreaths upon
wreaths behind, she still preserved those baby-curls upon her temples,
nor had a shade more majesty gathered to her brow,--the regal
innocence was throned there, and looked forth from her eyes as from a
shrine; but it was evident that there was nothing about her from head
to foot on which she piqued herself,--a rare shortcoming of feminine
maturity. The only perceptible difference in the face was when she
spoke or smiled; and then the change, the deepened sweetness, can be
no more given to description than the notion of music to the destitute
ear. It was something of a reserve too inward to be approached, and
too subtile to subdue its own influence,--like perfume from unseen
flowers diffusing itself when the wind awakens, while we know neither
whence the windy fragrance comes nor whither it flows.
"Is it possible, Miss Benette," I continued,--for I forced myself
absolutely to speak; I should so infinitely have preferred to watch
her silently,--"that you can have passed through so much since I saw
you?"
"No, I have lived a very quiet life; it is you who have lived in all
the stir until you fancy there is not any calm at all."
"I should have certainly found calm here. But you, I thought, and
indeed I know, have had every kind of excitement ready made to your
hand, and only waiting for you to touch the springs."
"I have had no excitement till I came here."
"None? Why, who could have had more, and who could have borne the same
so bravely? We have heard of you here, and it must have been a
transcending tempest for the shock to echo so far."
"I do not call singing in theatres, and acting, excitement. I always
felt cool and collected in them, for I knew they were not real, and
that I should get through them soon, and very glad should I be; so I
was patient and did my best. You look at me shocked. I knew I should
shock you after all our talk."
"Oh, fie! Miss Benette, to talk so, then, and to shock yourself, as
you must, if you are faithless."
"Poor I, faithless! Well, I am not important enough for it to signify.
And yet I should like to tell you what I mean, because you were always
kind to me, and I should not wish you to despise me now. No, Mr.
Auchester, I am not faithless; I love music more and more; it is the
form of my religion; I dare to call it altogether holy,--I am sure,
indeed, it must be so, or it would have been trodden long ago into
nothing with the evil they have heaped over it to hide it, and the
mistakes they have made about it. I act and I sing, because that is
what I can do best; but my idea of music goes with yours, and
therefore I am not excited as I should be, if I were filling up a
place such as that which you fill; though I would not leave my own for
any consideration, and hope to continue in it. My excitement since I
came here, where most ladies would be dull or sick, has arisen from
the feeling that I am brought into contact with what is most like
music, as I always find solitude, and also because since I came I have
been raised higher by several spirits which are lofty in their
desires, instead of being dragged through a mass of all opinions as I
was abroad. My pleasures here are so great that I feel my soul to be
quite young again, and to grow younger; and you cannot fancy what it
is to return here after being in London, because you do not go to
London, and if you did go to London, you would not do as I do."
She turned to me here, and told me it was her dinner-hour, asking me
to remain and dine with her. It was about two o'clock, and I hesitated
not to stay,--indeed, I know not that I could have gone.
We arose together, and I led her forward. We crossed the hall to a
door beyond us, when, removing her little hand from my arm, and laying
it on the lock, she looked into my face and smiled.
"You remembered me so well that I hope you will remember an old friend
of mine who is staying here with me."
Before I could reply, or even marvel, she opened the door, and we
entered. The little dining-room was lined with warmer hues than the
airy drawing-room, but white muslin curtains made sails within the
crimson ones, and some person stood within these, lightly screened,
and looking out over the blind.
"Laura," said Miss Benette, and she turned with exquisite elegance.
Had it not been for her name, which touched my memory, I could not
have remembered her,--certainly, at least, not then.
Perhaps, when we were seated opposite at table, with nothing between
us but a vase of garden flowers, I might have made out her lineaments;
but I was called upon by my reminding chivalry to assist the hostess
in the dissection of spring chickens and roasted lamb, and there was
something besides about that very Laura I did not like to face until
she should at least speak and reveal herself, as by the voice one
cannot fail to do.
However she spoke not, nor did Clara speak to her, though we two
talked a good deal,--that is to say, _I_ talked, as so it behooved me
to behave, and as I wished to see Miss Benette eat. When, at last, all
traces of the snowy damask were swept out by a pair of careful hands,
and we were left alone with the cut decanters, the early strawberries,
and sweet summer oranges, I did determine to look, for fear Miss
Lemark should think I did not dare to do so. I was not mistaken, as it
happened, in believing her to be quite capable of this construction,
as I discovered on regarding her immediately.
Her childish nonchalance had ripened into a hauteur quite alarming;
for though she was scarcely my own age, she might have been ten years
older. Not that her form was not lithe,--lithe as it could be to be
endowed with the proper complement of muscles,--but for a certain
sharpness of outline her countenance would have been languid in
repose; her brow retained its singular breadth, but had not gained in
elevation; her eyes were large and lambent, fringed with lashes that
swept her cheek, though not darker than her hair, which waved as the
willow in slightly-turned tresses to her waist. That waist was so
extremely slight that it scarcely looked natural, and yet was entirely
so, as was evident from the way she moved in her clothes.
She afforded a curious contrast to Clara in her black silk robe, for
she was dressed in muslin of the deepest rose-color, with an immense
skirt, its trimmings lace entirely, the sleeves dropped upon her arms,
which were loaded with bracelets of all kinds, while she wore a
splendid chain upon her neck. She bore this over effect very well, and
would not have become any other, it appeared to me, though there was
something faded in her appearance even then,--a want of color in her
aspect that demanded of costume the intensest contrasts.
"You have very much grown, Miss Lemark," I ventured to say, after I
had contemplated her to my satisfaction. She had, indeed, grown; she
was taller than I.
"So have you, Mr. Auchester."
"She has grown in many respects, Mr. Auchester, which you cannot
imagine," said Clara, with a winning mischief in her glance.
"I should imagine anything you pleased, I am afraid, Miss Benette, if
you inspired me. But I have been thinking it is a very curious thing
that we should meet in this way, we three alone, after meeting as we
did the first time in our lives."
"It was rather different then," exclaimed Laura, all abruptly, "and
the difference is, not that we are grown up, but that when we met on
the first occasion, we told each other our minds, and now we don't
dare."
"I am sure I dare," I retorted.
"No, you would not, no more would Clara; perhaps I might, but it would
be of no use."
"What did I say then that I dare not say now? I am sure I don't
remember."
"You may remember," said Clara, smiling; "I think it is hardly fair to
make _her_ remind you."
"It is my desert, if I remembered it first. You thought me very
vulgar, and you told me as much, though in more polite language."
"If I thought so then, I may be allowed to have forgotten it now, Miss
Lemark, as I think your friend will grant, when I look at you."
"You do not admire my style, Mr. Auchester; I know you,--it is
precisely against your taste. Even Clara does not approve of it, and
you have not half her forbearance,--if, indeed, you have any."
"Nobody, Laura dear, would dispute that you can bear more dressing
than I can; it does not suit me to wear colors, and you look like a
flower in them. Does not that color suit her well, Mr. Auchester?"
"Indeed I think so, and especially this glorious weather, when the
most vivid hues are starting out of every old stone. But Miss Lemark
could afford to wear green,--a very unusual suitability; it is the hue
of her eyes, I think."
Laura had looked down, with that hauteur more fixed than ever now the
light of her eyes was lost; she drew in the corners of her mouth, and
turned a shade colder, if not paler, in complexion. I could not
imagine what she was thinking, till she said, without raising her
eyes,--
"You know, Clara, that is not the reason you wear black and I do not.
You know that you look well in anything, because nobody looks at
anything you happen to wear. Besides, there is a reason I could give
if I chose."
"There is no other reason that you know of, Laura," she answered, and
then she asked me a question on quite another subject.
I was rather anxious to discover whether Laura had fulfilled her
destiny as far as we had compassed ours; but I did not find it easy,
for she scarcely spoke, and had not lost a certain abstraction in her
air that alienated the observer insensibly from her. After dinner
Clara rose, and I made some demonstration of going, which she met so
that I could not refuse her invitation to remain at least an hour or
two. We all three retired into the little drawing-room; Miss Benette
placed me a chair in the open window which I had admired, and herself
sat down opposite, easily as a child, and saying, "I will not be rude
to-day, as I used to be, in taking out my work whenever you came."
"It suited you very well, however, and I perceive, by your kind
present to my little niece, that you have not forgotten that delicate
art of yours."
"I had laid it aside, except to work for babies, some time, but it was
long since I had a baby to work for; and when Mr. Davy sent me word in
such joy that his little girl was born, I was so rejoiced to be able
to make caps and frocks."
"My sister was very much obliged to you on a former occasion too, Miss
Benette."
"Yes, I suppose she was very much obliged that I did not accept Mr.
Davy's hand, or would have been, only she did not know it!"
"I did not mean so. I was remembering whose handiwork graced her on
her marriage-day."
"Oh! I forgot the veil. I have made several since that one, but not
one like that exactly, because I desired that should be unique. You
have not told me, Mr. Auchester, anything about Seraphael and his
works."
I was so used to call him, and to hear him called, the Chevalier, that
at first I started, but was soon in a deep monologue of all that had
happened to me in connection with him and his music, only suppressing
that which I was in the habit of reserving, even in my own mind, from
my conscious self. In the midst of my relation, Laura, apparently
uninterested, as she had been seated in a chair with a book in her
hands, left the room, and we stayed in our talk and looked at each
other at the same instant.
"Why do you look so, Mr. Auchester?" said Clara, half amused, but with
a touch of perturbation too.
"I was expecting to be asked what I thought of that young lady, and
you see I was agreeably disappointed, for you are too well-bred to
ask."
"No such thing. I thought you would tell me yourself if you liked, but
that you might prefer not to do so, because you are not one, sir, to
assume critical airs over a person you have only seen a very few
hours."
"You do me more than justice, Miss Benette. But though I despair of
ever curing myself of the disposition to criticise, I am not
inconvertible. I admire Miss Lemark; she is improved, she is
distinguished,--a little more, and she would be lady-like."
"I thought 'lady-like' meant less than 'distinguished.' You make it
mean more."
"Perhaps I do mean that Miss Lemark is not exactly like yourself, and
that when she has lived with you a little longer, she will be indeed
all that she can be made."
"That would be foolish to say so,--pardon!--for she has lived with me
two years now, and has most likely taken as much from me by imitation
as she ever will, or by what you perhaps would call sympathy."
"I find, or should fancy I might find, to exist a great dissympathy
between you."
"I suppose 'dissympathy' is one of those nice little German words that
are used to express what nobody ought to say. I thought you would not
go there for nothing. If your dissympathy means not to agree in
sentiment, I do not know that any two bodies could agree quite in
feeling, nor would it be so pleasant as to be alone in some moods. I
should be very sorry never to be able to retreat into the cool shade,
and know that, as I troubled nobody, so nobody could get at me. Would
not you?"
"Oh! I suppose so, in the sense you mean. But how is it I have not
heard of this grace, or muse, taking leave to furl her wings at your
nest? I should have thought that Davy would have known."
"Should I tell Mr. Davy what I pay to Thoné for keeping my house in
order,--or whether I went to church on a Sunday? Laura and I always
agreed to live together, but we could not accomplish it until
lately,--I mean, since I was in Italy. We met then, as we said we
would. I carried her from Paris, where she was alone with every one
but those who should have befriended her; her father had died, and she
was living with Mademoiselle Margondret,--that person I did not like
when I was young. If I had known where Laura was, I should have
fetched her away before."
I felt for a moment as if I wished that Laura had never been born, but
only for one moment. I then resumed,--
"Does she not dance in London? She looks just ready for it."
"She has accepted no engagement for this season at present. I cannot
tell what she may do, however. Would you like to see my garden, Mr.
Auchester?"
"Indeed, I should very particularly like to see it, above all, if you
will condescend to accompany me. There is a great deal more that I
cannot help wishing for, Miss Benette; but I scarcely like to dream of
asking about it to-night."
"For me to sing? Oh! I will sing for you any time, but I would
certainly rather talk to you,--at least until the beautiful day begins
to go; and it is all bright yet."
She walked before me without her bonnet down the winding garden-steps;
the trellised balustrade was lost in rose-wreaths. We were soon in the
rustling air, among the flowers that had not a withered petal,
bursting hour by hour.
"It would tease you to carry flowers, Mr. Auchester, or I should be
tempted to gather a nosegay for you to take back to London. I cannot
leave them alone while they are so fresh, and they quite ask to be
gathered. Look at all the buds upon this bush,--you could not count
them."
"They are Provence roses. What a quantity you have!"
"Thoné chose this cottage for me because of the number of the flowers.
I believe she thinks there is some charm in flowers which will prevent
my becoming wicked! If you had been so kind as to bring your violin, I
would have filled up the case with roses, and then you would not have
had to carry them in your hands."
"But may I not have some, although I did not bring my violin? I never
think of anything but violets, though, for strewing that sarcophagus."
"Sarcophagus means 'tomb,' does it not? It is a fine idea of
resurrection, when you take out the sleeping music and make it live. I
know what you mean about violets,--their perfume is like the tones of
your instrument, and one can separate it from all other scents in the
spring, as those tones from all other tones of the orchestra."
"I have a tender thought for violets,--a very sad one, Miss Benette;
but still sweet now that what I remember has happened a long while
ago."
"That is the best of sorrow,--all passes off with time but that which
is not bitter, though we can hardly call it sweet. I am grieved I
talked of violets, to touch upon any sorrow you may have had to bear;
still more grieved that you have had a sorrow, for you are very
young."
"I seem to feel, Miss Benette, as if you must know exactly what I have
gone through since I saw you, and I am forced to remember it is not
the case. I am not sorry you spoke about violets, or rather that I
did, because some day I must tell you the whole story of my trouble. I
know not why the violet should remind me more than does the beautiful
white flower upon that rose-bush over there, for I have in my
possession both a white rose that has lived five summers, and an
everlasting violet which will never allow me to forget."
"I know, from your look, that it is about some one dying: but why is
that so sad? We must all die, Mr. Auchester, and cannot stay after we
have been called."
"It may be so, and must indeed; but it was hard to understand, and I
cannot now read why a creature so formed to teach earth all that is
most like heaven, should go before any one had dreamed she could
possibly be taken; for she had so much to do. You would not wonder at
the regret I must ever feel, if you had also known her."
Clara had led me onwards as I spoke, and we stood before that
rose-tree; she broke off a fresh rose quietly, and placed it in my
hand.
"I am more and more unhappy. It was not because I was not sorry that I
said so. Pray tell me about her."
"She was very young, Miss Benette, only sixteen; and more beautiful
than any flower in this garden, or than any star in the sky; for it
was a beauty of spirit, of passion, of awful imagination. She was at
school with me, and I was taught by her how slightly I had learned all
things; she had learned too much, and of what men could not teach her.
I never saw such a face,--but that was nothing. I never heard such a
voice,--but neither had it any power, compared with her heavenly
genius and its sway upon the soul. She had written a symphony,--you
know what it is to do that! She wrote it in three months, and during
the slight leisure of a most laborious student life. I was alarmed at
her progress, yet there was something about it that made it seem
natural. She was ill once, but got over the attack; and the time came
when this strange girl was to stand in the light of an orchestra and
command its interpretation. It was a private performance, but I was
among the players. She did not carry it through. In the very midst she
fell to the ground, overwhelmed by illness. We thought her dead then,
but she lived four days."
"And died, sir? Oh! she did not die?"
"Yes, Miss Benette, she died; but no one then could have wished her to
live."
"She suffered so?"
"No, she was only too happy. I did not know what joy could rise to
until I beheld her face with the pain all passed, and saw her smile in
dying."
"She must have been happy, then. Perhaps she had nothing she loved
except Jehovah, and no home but heaven."
"Indeed, she must have been happy, for she left some one behind her
who had been to her so dear as to make her promise to become his own."
"I am glad she was so wise, then, as to hide from him that she broke
her heart to part with him; for she could not help it: and it was
worthy of a young girl who could write a symphony," said Clara, very
calmly, but with her eyes closed among the flowers she was holding in
her hand. "Sir, what did they do with the symphony? and, if it is not
rude, what did the rose and the violet have to do with this sad tale?"
"Oh! I should have told you first, but I wished to get the worst part
over; I do not generally tell people. It was the day our prizes were
distributed she took her death-blow, and I received from the Chevalier
Seraphael, who superintended all our affairs, and who ordered the
rewards, a breast-pin, with a violet in amethyst, in memory of certain
words he spoke to me in a rather mystical chat we had held one day, in
which he let fall, 'the violin is the violet.' And poor Maria received
a silver rose, in memory of Saint Cecilia, to whom he had once
compared her, and to whom there was a too true resemblance in her
fateful life. The rose was placed in her hair by the person I told you
she loved best, just as she was about to stand forth before the
orchestra; and when she fainted it fell to my feet. I gathered it up,
and have kept it ever since. I do not know whether I had any right to
do so, but the only person to whom I could have committed it, it was
impossible to insult by reminding of her. In fact, he would not permit
it; he left Cecilia after she was buried, and never returned."
Clara here raised her eyes, bright and liquid, and yet all-searching;
I had not seen them so.
"I feel for him all that my heart can feel. Has he never ceased to
suffer? Was she all to him?"
"He will never cease to suffer until he ceases to breathe, and then he
will, perhaps, be fit to bear the bliss that was withdrawn from him as
too great for any mortal heart; that is his feeling, I believe, for he
is still now, and uncomplaining,--ever proud, but only proud about his
sorrow. Some day you will, I trust, hear him play, and you will agree
with me how that grief must have grown into a soul so passionate."
"You mean, when you say he is proud, he will not be comforted, I
suppose? There are persons like that, I know; but I do not understand
it."
"I hope you never will, Miss Benette. You must suffer with your whole
nature to refuse comfort."
"To any one so suffering I should say, the comfort is that all those
who suffer are reserved for joy."
"Not here, though."
"But it will not be less joy because it is saved for by and by. Now
that way of talking makes me angry; I believe there is very little
faith."
"Very little, I grant. But poor Florimond Anastase does not fail
there."
She stopped beside me as we were pacing the lawn.
"Florimond Anastase! you did not say so? Do you mean the great player?
I have heard of that person."
Her face flushed vividly, as rose hues flowing into pearl, her aspect
altered, she seemed convicted of some mistaken conclusion; but,
recovering herself almost instantly, resumed,--
"Thank you for telling me that story,--it will make me better, I hope.
I do not deserve to have grown up so well and strong. May I do my duty
for it, and at least be grateful! You did not say what was done with
the symphony?"
"The person I mentioned would not allow it to be retained. And,
indeed, what else could be done? It was buried in her virgin grave,--a
maiden work. She sleeps with her music, and I know not who could have
divided them."
"You have told me a story that has turned you all over, like the
feeling before a thunder-storm. I will not hear a word more. You
cannot afford to talk of what affects you. Now, let me be very
impertinent and change the key."
"By all means; I have said quite enough, and will thank you."
"There is Laura in the arbor, just across the grass; we will go to
her, if you please, and you shall see her pretty pink frock among the
roses, instead of my black gown. On the way I will tell you that there
is some one, a lady too, so much interested in you that she was going
down to your neighborhood on purpose to find out about you; but I
prevented her from coming, by saying you would be here, and she
answered,--
"'Tell him, then, to come and call upon me.'"
"It can only have been one living lady who would have sent that
message,--Miss Lawrence. Actually I had forgotten all about her, and
she returns upon me with a strong sense of my own ingratitude. I will
certainly call upon her, and I shall be only too glad to identify my
benefactress."
"That you cannot do; she will not allow it,--at least, to this hour
she persists in perfect innocence of the fact."
"That she provided us both with exactly what we wanted at exactly the
right time? She chalked out my career, at least. I'll make her
understand how I feel. Is she not a character?"
"Not more so than yourself, but still one, certainly; and a
peculiarity of hers is, that generous--too generous almost--as she is,
she will not suffer the slightest allusion to her generosities to be
made, nor hint to be circulated that she has a heart at all."
Laura was sitting in the arbor, which was now at hand, but not, as
Clara prophesied, among the roses in any sense, for the green branches
that festooned the lattice were flowerless until the later summer, and
her face appeared fading into a mist of green. The delicate leaves
framed her as a picture of melancholy that has attired itself in
mirth, which mirth but served to fling out the shadow by contrast and
betray the source. Clara sat on one side, I on the other, and
presently we went in to tea. But I did not hear the voice I longed for
that evening, nor was the pianoforte opened that I so well remembered
standing in its "dark corner."