TANCREDI'S TWO PUPILS
And something did actually happen. It was in the most unexpected way and
it came from a quarter that caused Patricia to believe in modern
miracles.
She had gone with some quaking to her appointment with Madame Tancredi,
and she was waiting alone in the anteroom--Elinor having left her for
some necessary shopping until the lesson should be over--when the maid
ushered in a girl in sumptuous street clothes, carrying a music roll of
extravagant design.
Patricia loved pretty clothes and pretty people, and the girl was
undeniably pretty in a dark, tropical way. She moved with graceful,
gliding steps and her face under the wide drooping velvet hat looked
amiable as well as comely.
Patricia wanted to speak to her, but was uncertain as to the propriety
of the act. The girl solved her difficulty, however, by choosing a
chair near Patricia's, and, settling easily in it with an accustomed air
of being agreeable, smiled pleasantly and spoke in a most melodious
voice.
"Are you the new pupil?" she asked, apparently less from curiosity than
a desire to break the silence. "I have heard that Madame was expecting
someone recommended by Milano, but since she didn't tell me any more
than just that much, I may be mistaken."
Patricia eagerly assured her that she was indeed the expected student,
adding a rather anxious question as to the manner of instructor she was
to have in Madame Tancredi.
The girl laughed a tinkling laugh which showed her faultless little
white teeth and waved her hand in quite the foreign manner.
"Tancredi is very well as teachers go," she said with an indifference
that seemed superhuman to the quivering Patricia, who immediately set
her up in her mind as authority on matters musical.
"I've never studied before," she confessed, with a tinge of confusion.
"I am afraid Madame will find me awfully stupid."
The girl looked at her with a lightening of her amiable, indifferent
air. "Are you really so very young as all that?" she asked in some
surprise. "You look very childish in this dim light, but I thought you
must be old enough to have studied somewhere before this. Tancredi
doesn't usually take rank amateurs."
Patrica felt very small indeed before this calm criticism, but she
confessed bravely, though with flushing cheeks. "I am past seventeen,"
she said resolutely. "And I've been waiting six months to begin study."
And then at the encouraging look on the other's face she rushed into a
rather jumbled account of her aspirations, her trials and lastly her
disappointment of yesterday in being refused admittance at Artemis Lodge
on the score of lack of room.
The girl listened closely, and Patricia thought she nodded approval at
the names of Bruce Hayden and Greycroft, and showed a keener interest
when Milano's visit to Rockham was hastily mentioned. She made few
comments, however, and when the gong rang, rose to go into the studio
with graceful alacrity.
At the threshold she paused to say, "If you are here when I come out, I
should like to see you again," and then with a return of her amiable,
indifferent air, she passed into the inner sanctum, leaving the
impulsive Patricia worshiping at her shrine.
Some sounds of liquid melody found their way out through the heavy
doors, and helped to make the tedious half hour pass like magic.
Patricia was thankful she had made a mistake in the time and had arrived
so much too soon, since it gave her the opportunity of having even this
small glimpse into the world of music before she ventured into it
herself.
The girl came out, and her expression was heightened into positive
radiance. Evidently her lesson had been a good one and she had been
praised.
Coming over to where Patricia still sat, she stood for a moment looking
down on her. Then she smiled her slow smile and held out her hand.
"I am Rosamond Merton," she said, "and I know that you are Patricia
Kendall. I am living at the Lodge while I study with Madame. I have
three rooms there. Will you come and stay with me for a month?"
Patricia gasped. "Why--" she began in some confusion. "Oh, you're awful
kind, but--but--you don't know me at all."
Rosamond Merton smiled again, but did not withdraw her hand. "Which
means that you don't know me," she replied, not at all affronted. "Ask
Tancredi who I am, and--if you are still in doubt, come to see me at the
Lodge. I like you, Miss Patricia Kendall, and I mean that you shall like
me."
Patricia was so overcome by these magnanimous words that she shook hands
with great heartiness, promising to visit Miss Merton and vowing
appreciation of her kindness.
"Though I can't come and stay with you, you know," she said as she rose
in response to the gong which was now summoning her. "I'm simply crazy
to stay at Artemis Lodge, but I couldn't sponge on a perfectly
absolutely strange girl." Then fearing that this might sound
ungracious, she added hastily, "Though there isn't anyone I'd like to
visit better than you."
The frank admiration in her tone pleased the girl and she took up her
muff and gloves with a gratified air. "I warn you that I am hard to
discourage when I've set my mind on a thing," she said lightly as she
turned to go. "You will come to see me this afternoon, I am sure."
She was gone before Patricia could reply and since the door into the
studio was opening softly, there was no other course for Madame Milano's
protege than to walk as calmly as she might straight into the fiery
furnace, leaving all thoughts of Rosamond Merton behind her.
Tancredi proved a rather good-natured portly woman with a taste for
exaggerated garments which suggested the operatic stage. She met
Patricia on the threshold, and patted her shoulder kindly as she led her
into the large bare apartment.
"So, so. You are a very young one," she said with a strong foreign
accent, yet with great kindness. "Milano did not prepare me for this.
Sit there, little one, while I look thee over."
She pushed Patricia to the piano bench, and settled herself on the
opposite settee by the music stand, and though her scrutiny was
amazingly thorough, Patricia was surprised to find that it did not
disconcert her in the least. Madame Tancredi was the exact opposite of
her friend Milano in all save the kindly spirit of the true artist. She
was stout and heavy, where Milano was swift and graceful; she was
frankness itself where Milano was cryptic; and, finally, she was the
owner of a very lively curiosity.
Patricia feared lest her precious half hour go by in catechism, and was
beginning to feel a bit downcast over the length and variety of the
questions put to her by the smiling Tancredi, when suddenly, with a
jingle of her chatelaines and bangles, she rose and beckoned to a
screened corner where, unnoticed by Patricia, a dark-haired young woman
had been copying music.
"The Heather Song, Marcon," she said briefly. "This young lady requests
the Heather Song."
As a matter of fact, Patricia had done no more than to confess with
reluctance that she had tried it by herself at Greycroft, strumming the
accompaniment with careless fingers. She heard, with a sort of dismay,
the dashing introduction rendered faultlessly by the competent Marcon,
and she stood beside the shining grand piano in no very pleasant frame
of mind.
Her throat grew dryer with every moment and when it was her time to
burst into the rippling, tender song, she heard a trembling little
voice, which she could hardly recognize for her own, stumble faintly
into the melody.
It was too much for her tried nerves. She broke down utterly, turning
away from the piano with a sob, and, flinging out her hands in a
despairing gesture, cried out that she could not sing, that she never
should be able to sing and that she might as well go.
Tancredi was too much used to the emotions of the geniuses and
near-geniuses, whose temperamental outbreaks she had learned by heart,
not to understand what was the matter.
Waving the composed Marcon out of her room, she pushed Patricia to the
stool with no very gentle hand. "There now, my little one. Sing for me
in your own way," she commanded. "Rome was not builded in one day. You
are too much excited--and you so young," she ended with a softening of
pity in her rich tones.
Somehow that accusation of youthfulness was the spur that drove Patricia
to victory. Raising her head with a toss of determination, she ran her
hands over the keys first lightly and then with growing certainty of
herself, while, unseen by her, Tancredi nodded and smiled to herself in
high good humor.
The song bubbled out in Patricia's best notes, rippling in silver waves
through a golden atmosphere of pure melody. She sang it to the end and
then sat mutely on the bench, with her anxieties returning slowly as the
silence grew.
When she could bear it no longer she turned a pale face to where
Tancredi sat staring into space.
"S--shall I try it again?" she faltered uncertainly.
Tancredi shook her head silently. "That will be enough of songs for the
present, my treasure," she said, in a strange tone, of which Patricia
could make nothing.
Presently she rose and walked the length of the apartment with something
very like triumph on her heavy face, at which the puzzled Patricia
wondered all the more, though she waited docilely enough on her stool in
front of the great shining piano.
After a few turns, Tancredi came suddenly to her where she sat and took
her chin in her warm, soft padded fingers, staring sharply into her face
as though to read her whole being at a glance. Decidedly, she was a
woman of unusual moods, for she stooped and kissed the anxious, girlish
face, first on one cheek and then on the other.
"There, my little one, we are friends now," she said, releasing her,
"and you shall sometimes sing for me some of those songs when it is
needed to cheer your heart. But otherwise you shall not sing--no, not
for the king himself should he ask it."
Patricia's hopes went down with a flop! Was she being told that she
could not study? Had the end come so swiftly? She had a hard time not
to cry out with the pain of this horrible fear, and the kind eyes of the
experienced Tancredi caught her despairing look.
"Ah, no. It is not that you shall not sing at all," she said hurriedly.
"It is only that you shall sing the exercises only as yet. We must walk
ere we may run. Come, let us see about the breathing now," and she stood
erect and vigorous, motioning Patricia to face her and follow her every
movement.
Patricia came out from that interview so bewildered yet so happy that
she forgot completely about questioning the teacher as to Rosamond
Merton. Elinor, who was waiting for her in the anteroom, saw her shining
face before she spoke, and knew that all had gone well with her.
"Dear Miss Pat," she said softly, slipping her arm into Patricia's as
they went out of the wide front door. "So it has all come out well, and
you are really going to be a singer some day! How glad I am that you
have passed this first test."
Patricia was still slightly puzzled, though more confident than she had
been before Tancredi had begun her instructions.
"I've had a mighty lucky day, Norn," she said with real thankfulness.
"I've been put down on the books as a regular pupil at Tancredi's,
and--oh, I forgot all about it--I've had a sort of a chance to go into
Artemis Lodge, though of course I couldn't take it."
Elinor agreed with her after hearing the incident. "Though it is
certainly very sweet of her to be so generous," she said thoughtfully.
"Rosamond Merton, you say her name is. We'll have to ask Doris Leighton
about her."
But, as it happened, they did not have time to put any questions to
Doris Leighton. Rosamond Merton was not the sort of girl who cares to
postpone interesting events. Miss Pat had piqued her fancy and she took
a very determined course to gain her point.
Bruce handed Elinor a note when they reached the studio.
"Messenger boy brought it ten minutes ago," he explained. "Said it was
urgent, but as I didn't know where to find you, I had to leave it till
you came in."