MUSIC HATH CHARMS.
The girls were tired when they went to bed. The life of routine had
fatigued them; although, of course, it would soon cease to do so.
Notwithstanding, therefore, Miss Tredgold's startling announcement with
regard to Nancy King, they slept soundly; and the next morning when nine
o'clock struck they all appeared in the schoolroom, their persons neat,
their hair carefully brushed, and each pair of eyes beaming with
intelligence. Even Penelope looked her very best in a clean brown holland
frock, and she went quite creditably through her alphabet, and did not
squiggle her pot-hooks quite as much as she had done on the previous day.
Miss Tredgold was in an excellent humor. She praised the girls, told them
she was much pleased with their performances, and said further that, if
only they would meet her half-way by being attentive and intelligent and
earnest in their work, she on her part would do all in her power to make
lessons agreeable; she would teach them in a way which would be sure to
arouse their interest, and she would vary the work with play, and give
them as gay a time as the bright weather and their own happy hearts would
permit.
The girls felt quite cheerful; they even began to whisper one to another
that Aunt Sophia was developing more and more good points as days went
on.
On that afternoon a great excitement was in store, for a beautiful new
piano was to arrive from Broadwood's, and Aunt Sophia announced that she
meant to play on it for the benefit of the entire household that evening.
"For, my dears," said that good lady, "I have forgotten neither my
playing nor my singing. I will sing you old-fashioned songs to-night, and
I quite hope that I may lure your father from his retirement. There was a
time when he was musical--very musical."
"The dad musical!" cried Briar. "Aunt Sophia, what do you mean?"
"It is true, Rose. In the days long ago, when your mother and he and I
spent happy times together, he played his violin better than any other
amateur that I happen to know."
"There is an old violin in one of the attics," said Verena. "We have
never touched it. It is in a case all covered with dust."
"His Stradivarius," murmured Miss Tredgold. "Oh dear! How are the mighty
fallen! My dears, you had better say no more to me about that or I shall
lose my temper."
The girls could not imagine why Miss Tredgold's eyes grew full of a
certain mistiness and her cheeks were very pink with color. The next
moment she looked full at her nieces.
"When your mother died she took a great deal away with her," she said.
"What would you have done, poor children! if I had not been able to come
to the rescue? It does seem almost impossible that your father, my
brother-in-law, has forgotten to play on his Stradivarius."
"Well, aren't you glad you comed?" said Penelope, marching up and
standing before the good lady. "Don't you like to feel you are so useful,
the grand piano coming, and all the rest? Then you has us under your
thumb. Don't you like that?"
"I don't understand you, Penny. You are talking in a very naughty way."
"I aren't. I are only saying what nursey said. Nursey said last night,
'Well, well, drat it all! They are under her thumb by this time.' I asked
nursey what it meant, and she said, 'Miss Penny, little girls should be
seen, and not heard.' Nursey always says that when I ask her questions
that I want special to know. But when I comed down this morning I asked
Betty what being under your thumb meant, and she said, 'Oh, lor', Miss
Penny! You had better look out, miss. It means what you don't like,
miss.' Then she said, Aunt Sophy, that old ladies like you was fond of
having little girls under their thumbs. So I 'spect you like it; and I
hope you won't squeeze us flat afore you have done."
Miss Tredgold had turned very red.
"How old are you, Pen?" she said when the loquacious child became silent.
Penelope tossed her head. "You knows of my age quite well."
"Then I will just repeat the remark made by your excellent nurse--'Little
girls should be seen, and not heard.' I will add to that remark by saying
that little girls are sometimes impertinent. I shall not say anything
more to-day; but another time, if you address me as you have just done, I
shall be obliged to punish you."
"And if I don't dress you," said Penelope--"if I'm awful good--will you
give me sugar-plums?"
"That is a treat in the very far distance," said Miss Tredgold.--"But
now, girls, go out. The more you enjoy this lovely air the better."
They did all enjoy it; after their hard work--for lessons were hard to
them--freedom was sweet. With each moment of lesson-time fully occupied,
leisure was delicious. They wandered under the trees; they opened the
wicket-gate which led into the Forest, and went a short way into its deep
and lovely shade. When lunch-bell sounded they returned with hungry
appetites.
The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Even preparation hour was no
longer regarded as a hardship. It brought renewed appetites to enjoy tea.
And in the midst of tea a wild dissipation occurred, for a piano-van came
slowly down the rutty lane which led to the front avenue. It stopped at
the gates; the gates were opened, the piano-van came up the avenue, and
John and two other men carried the beautiful Broadwood into the big
drawing-room.
Miss Tredgold unlocked it and touched the ivory keys with loving fingers.
"I will play to you to-night when it is dusk," she said to the girls.
After this they were so eager to hear the music that they could scarcely
eat their dinner. Mr. Dale now always appeared for the evening meal. He
took the foot of the table, and stared in an abstracted way at Aunt
Sophia. So fond was he of doing this that he often quite forgot to carve
the joint which was set before him.
"Wake up, Henry," said Miss Sophia in her sharp voice; "the children are
hungry, and so am I."
Then the student would shake himself, seize the knife and fork, and make
frantic dashes at whatever the joint might happen to be. It must be owned
that he carved very badly. Miss Tredgold bore it for a day or two; then
she desired the parlor-maid to convey the joint to the head of the table
where she sat. After this was done the dinner-hour was wont to progress
very satisfactorily. To-day it went quickly by. Then Verena went up to
her aunt.
"Now, Aunt Sophy," she said, "the gloaming has come, and music is waiting
to make us all happy in the drawing-room."
"I will play for you, my dears," said Aunt Sophia.
She was just leaving the room when she heard Verena say:
"You love music, father. Do come into the drawing-room. Aunt Sophia has
got her new piano. She means to play on it. Do come; you know you love
music."
"Indeed, I do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Dale.
He pushed his gray hair back from his forehead and looked abstractedly at
Miss Sophia, who was standing in the twilight just by the open door.
"You remind me, Sophia----" said Mr. Dale.
He paused and covered his eyes with his hand.
"I could have sworn that you were she. No music, thanks; I have never
listened to it since she died. Your mother played beautifully, children;
she played and she sang. I liked her songs; I hate the twaddle of the
present day. Now I am returning to my Virgil. My renderings of the
original text become more and more full of light. I shall secure a vast
reputation. Music! I hate music. Don't disturb me, any of you."
When Mr. Dale reached his study he sank into his accustomed chair. His
lamp was already lit; it burned brightly, for Miss Tredgold herself
trimmed it each morning. His piles of books of reference lay in confusion
by his side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen.
Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies;
the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be
impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his
children, to the home in which he lived.
"I could have sworn," he muttered to himself, "that Alice had come back.
As Sophia stood in the twilight I should scarcely have known them apart.
She is not Alice. Alice was the only woman I ever loved--the only woman I
could tolerate in my house. My children, my girls, are none of them women
yet, thank the Almighty. When they are they will have to go. I could not
stand any other woman but Alice to live always in the house. But now to
forget her. This knotty point must be cleared up before I go to bed."
The doors of the ancient world were slowly opening. But before they could
shut Mr. Dale within their portals there came a sound that caused the
scholar to start. The soft strains of music entered through the door
which Verena had on purpose left open. The music was sweet and yet
masterly. It came with a merry sound and a certain quick rhythm that
seemed to awaken the echoes of the house. Impossible as it may appear,
Mr. Dale forgot the ancient classics and the dim world of the past. He
lay back in his chair; his lips moved; he beat time with his knuckles on
the arms of his chair; and with his feet on the floor. So perfect was his
ear that the faintest wrong note, or harmony out of tune, would be
detected by him. The least jarring sound would cause him agony. But there
was no jarring note; the melody was correct; the time was perfect.
"I might have known that Alice----" he began; but then he remembered that
Alice had never played exactly like that, and he ceased to think of her,
or of any woman, and became absorbed in those ringing notes that stole
along the passage and entered by the open door and surrounded him like
lightsome fairies. Into his right ear they poured their charm; in his
left ear they completed their work. Virgil was forgotten; old Homer might
never have existed.
Mr. Dale rose. He got up softly; he walked across the room and opened the
door wide. There was a very bright light streaming down the passage. In
the old days this passage was always dark; no one ever thought of
lighting the lobbies and passages at The Dales. The master of the house
wondered dimly at the light; but at the same time it gave him a sense of
comfort.
Suddenly a voice began to sing:
"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows."
The voice was sweet, pure, and high. It floated towards him. Suddenly he
stretched out his arms.
"I am coming, Alice," he said aloud. "Yes, I am coming. Don't call me
with such insistence. I come, I tell you; I come."
He ran down the passage; he entered the central hall; he burst into the
drawing-room. His eyes were full of excitement. He strode across the room
and sank into a chair close to the singer.
Miss Tredgold just turned and glanced at him.
"Ah, Henry!" she said; "so you are there. I hoped that this would draw
you. Now I am going to sing again."
"A song of the past," he said in a husky voice.
"Will this do?" she said, and began "Annie Laurie."
Once again Mr. Dale kept time with his hand and his feet. "Annie Laurie"
melted into "Home, Sweet Home"; "Home, Sweet Home" into "Ye Banks and
Braes o' Bonny Doon"; "Ye Banks and Braes" wandered into the delicious
notes of "Auld Lang Syne."
Suddenly Miss Tredgold rose, shut and locked the piano, and then turned
and faced her audience.
"No more to-night," she said. "By-and-by you girls shall all play on this
piano. You shall also sing, for I have not the slightest doubt that most
of you have got voices. You ought to be musical, for music belongs to
both sides of your house. There was once a time when your father played
the violin as no one else, in my opinion, ever played it. By the way,
Henry, is that violin still in existence?"
"Excuse me," said Mr. Dale; "I never touch it now. I have not touched it
for years. I would not touch it for the world."
"You will touch it again when the time is ripe. Now, no more music
to-night. Those who are tired had better go to bed."
The girls left the room without a word. Miss Tredgold then went up to Mr.
Dale.
"Go back to your study and your Virgil," she said. "Don't waste your
precious time."
He looked exactly as though some one had whipped him, but he took her at
her word and returned to his study.
The music was henceforth a great feature in the establishment. Miss
Tredgold enhanced its value by being chary in regard to it. She only
played as a special treat. She would by no means give them the great
pleasure of her singing and playing every night.
"When you have all had a good day I will sing and play to you," she said
to the girls; "but when you neglect your work, or are idle and careless,
or cross and sulky, I don't intend to amuse you in the evenings. I was
brought up on a stricter plan than the girls of the present day, and I
mean while I am with you to bring you up in the same way. I prefer it to
the lax way in which young people are now reared."
For a time Miss Tredgold's plans went well. Then there came a day of
rebellion. Pauline was the first to openly rebel against Aunt Sophia.
There came a morning when Pauline absolutely refused to learn her
lessons. She was a stoutly built, determined-looking little girl, very
dark in complexion and in eyes and hair. She would probably be a handsome
woman by-and-by, but now she was plain, with a somewhat sallow face,
heavy black brows, and eyes that could scowl when anything annoyed her.
She was the next eldest to Verena, and was thirteen years of age. Her
birthday would be due in a fortnight. Even at The Dales birthdays were
considered auspicious events. There was always some sort of present, even
though it was worth very little in itself, given by each member of the
family to the possessor of the birthday. Mr. Dale generally gave this
happy person a whole shilling. He presented the shilling with great pomp,
and invariably made the same speech:
"God bless you, my dear. May you have many happy returns of the day. And
now for goodness' sake don't detain me any longer."
A shilling was considered by the Dale girls as valuable as a sovereign
would be to girls in happier circumstances. It was eked out to its
furthest dimensions, and was as a rule spent on good things to eat. Now,
under Miss Tredgold's reign, Pauline's birthday would be a much more
important event. Miss Tredgold had long ago taken Verena, Briar, Patty,
Josephine, and Adelaide into her confidence. Pauline knew quite well that
she was talked about. She knew when, the girls retired into corners that
she was the object of their eager conversations. The whole thing was most
agreeable to her sense of vanity, and when she suddenly appeared round a
corner and perceived that work was put out of sight, that the eager
whisperers started apart, and that the girls looked conscious and as if
they wished her out of the way, she quite congratulated herself on the
fact that hers was the first birthday in the immediate future, and that
on that day she would be a very great personage indeed. As these thoughts
came to her she walked with a more confident stride, and thought a great
deal of her own importance. At night she lay awake thinking of the happy
time, and wondering what this coming birthday, when she would have been
fourteen whole years in the world, would bring forth.
There came a lovely morning about a week before the birthday. Pauline had
got up early, and was walking by herself in the garden. She felt terribly
excited, and almost cross at having to wait so long for her pleasure.
"After all," thought Pauline, "Aunt Sophia has done something for us. How
horrid it would be to go back to the old shilling birthdays now!"
As she thought these thoughts, Patty and Josephine, arm-in-arm and
talking in low tones, crossed her path. They did not see her at first,
and their words reached Pauline's ears.
"I know she'd rather have pink than blue," said Patty's voice.
"Well, mine will be trimmed with blue," was Josephine's answer.
Just then the girls caught sight of Pauline, uttered shrieks, and
disappeared down a shady walk.
"Something with pink and something with blue," thought Pauline. "The
excitement is almost past bearing. Of course, they're talking about my
birthday presents. I do wish my birthday was to-morrow. I don't know how
I shall exist for a whole week."
At that moment Miss Tredgold's sharp voice fell on her ears:
"You are late, Pauline. I must give you a bad mark for want of
punctuality, Go at once into the schoolroom."
To hear these incisive, sharp tones in the midst of her own delightful
reflections was anything but agreeable to Pauline. She felt, as she
expressed it, like a cat rubbed the wrong way. She gave Miss Tredgold one
of her most ungracious scowls and went slowly into the house. There she
lingered purposely before she condescended to tidy her hair and put on
her house-shoes. In consequence she was quite a quarter of an hour late
when she appeared in the schoolroom. Miss Tredgold had just finished
morning prayers.
"You have missed prayers this morning, Pauline," she said. "There was no
reason for this inattention. I shall be obliged to punish you. You cannot
have your usual hour of recreation before dinner. You will have to write
out the first page of Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_; and you must do
it without making any mistake either in spelling or punctuation. On this
occasion you can copy from the book. Now, no words, my dear--no words.
Sit down immediately to your work."
Pauline did sit down. She felt almost choking with anger. Was she, an
important person who was soon to be queen of a birthday, one about whom
her sisters talked and whispered and made presents for, to be treated in
this scant and ungracious fashion? She would not put up with it.
Accordingly she was very inattentive at her lessons, failed to listen
when she should, played atrociously on the piano, could not manage her
sums, and, in short, got more and more each moment into Miss Tredgold's
black books.
When recreation hour arrived she felt tired and headachy. The other girls
now went out into the pleasant sunshine. Pauline looked after them with
longing. They would sit under the overhanging trees; they would eat fruit
and talk nonsense and laugh. Doubtless they would talk about her and the
birthday so near at hand. At noon the schoolroom was hot, too, for the
sun beat hard upon the windows, and Pauline felt more stifled and more
headachy and sulky than ever.
"Oh! please," she said, as Miss Tredgold was leaving the room, "I can't
do this horrid writing to-day. Please forgive me. Do let me go out."
"No, Pauline; you must take your punishment. You were late this morning;
you disobeyed my rules. Take the punishment which I am obliged to give
you as a lady should, and make no more excuses."
The door was shut upon the angry girl. She sat for a time absolutely
still, pressing her hand to her aching brow; then she strolled across the
schoolroom, fetched some paper, and sat down to her unwelcome task. She
wrote very badly, and when the hour was over she had not half copied the
task assigned to her. This bad beginning went on to a worse end. Pauline
declined to learn any lessons in preparation hour, and accordingly next
morning she was absolutely unprepared for her tasks.
Miss Tredgold was now thoroughly roused.
"I must make an example," she said to herself. "I shall have no influence
over these girls if I let them think I am all softness and yielding. The
fact is, I have shown them the south side of my character too long; a
little touch of the northeast will do them no harm."
Accordingly she called the obstinate and sulky Pauline before her.
"I am very much displeased with you. You have done wrong, and you must be
punished. I have told you and your sisters that there is such a place as
Punishment Land. You enter it now, and live there until after breakfast
to-morrow morning."
"But what do you mean?" said Pauline.
"I mean exactly what I say. You have been for the last twenty-four hours
extremely naughty. You will therefore be punished for the next
twenty-four hours. You are a very naughty girl. Naughty girls must be
punished, and you, Pauline, are now under punishment. You enter
Punishment Land immediately."
"But where is it? What is it? I don't understand."
"You will soon. Girls, I forbid you to speak to your sister while she is
under punishment. Pauline, your meals will be sent to you in this room.
You will be expected to work up your neglected tasks and learn them
thoroughly. You must neither play with nor speak to your sisters. You
will have no indulgence of any sort. When you walk, I wish you to keep in
the north walk, just beyond the vegetable garden. Finally, you will go to
bed at seven o'clock. Now leave the room. I am in earnest."