_"THE ORIGIN OF THE HARP."_
IN the course of a few days Marion produced her book, which turned
out to be a fine edition of Robertson's history of Scotland, a very
charming book, though strongly partisan, as is the case with most
readable histories. Rhoda found it as interesting as a novel, and
Marion was equally pleased.
"Lass, never mind the things," she would say on ironing days, when it
was Rhoda's business to help her. "I can do your share as well as my
own. Get your book and read."
Then Rhoda would get out Robertson and read aloud for hours while
Marion, with marvellous dexterity, ironed and pleated and did two
hours' work in the time of one. She listened to the clear, sounding
periods with critical satisfaction, and made her odd remarks. She was a
woman of fine mind; and though her schooling, as she called it, had not
been long, she had always been a reader and a thinker.
"Eh, but that's grand!" said she, one day, as Rhoda closed the book.
"He would have made a fine preacher, that doctor."
"He was a preacher," answered Rhoda. "I remember reading about him in
a book Flora Fairchild lent me. It said he had a colleague, and they
did not agree about church discipline, but for all that they never
had a quarrel. I should like to see his sermons. I never read such an
interesting history.
"But, Marion, Mr. Ferrand does not approve of young people reading
history—I heard him read that out from the book he is writing; and I
am sure he would not think well of my reading it. He said he would
select some books suitable for me, and you ought to see them. Such
silly little stories, all about wicked servant-girls that wore pink
ribbons, and went straight to destruction in consequence, and about
good labourers that were contented on ten shillings a week, and wicked
labourers that wanted more. Do people really live on ten shillings a
week over there, Marion?"
"Ay, do they, and far less than that," said Marion. "Ten shilling a
week would be high wages in our parts, and it's called very good, even
in England."
"But what do they live on?"
"Aweel, they don't see much of butcher's meat or tea and coffee, ye
may guess. If they get kirnmilk—that's buttermilk—for their porridge,
and butter for their potatoes, they ay think themselves well off. But
come, lass, help me with the vegetables, or I shall be late with my
dinner, and yon man's as petted as a bairn if his dinner is behindhand
a minute. He behooves to please his own palate, let what will become of
his daughter."
"He isn't stingy, either," said Rhoda.
"No, he is a good provider. It's only these nonsense maggots he gets in
his head. Now, attend and see me make the pudding, and ye 'll know how
yourself. Book-learning is a fine thing, but it's not all the learning
worth knowing. It's fine to be a good cook, specially if you have a man
to manage."
"Yon man," as Marion usually designated her employer, did not make his
appearance in the kitchen so often, now that it was under the rule of
Mrs. Campbell. In truth, he was a good deal afraid of the Scotch woman,
having come off second best in more than one encounter. He would hardly
have borne so much from any other servant, but Marion was, as I have
said, a superlative cook, and Mr. Ferrand was fond of dinner company
and liked to have a good and elegant table.
Rhoda, on the contrary, was no favourite with her employer. Mr. Ferrand
had a great horror of feminine independence in any shape, and he felt
quite sure that Rhoda had, as he said, "ideas of her own." He strongly
suspected that she continued her studies in spite of his disapproval,
and it was a real annoyance to him that a servant-girl should love
study for its own sake, while his daughter hated it.
He watched Rhoda closely, but as yet he had been unable to detect any
flaw in her conduct. She was neat and systematic in her work, and
always respectful in her manners, though there was sometimes a twinkle
in her eye and a movement of the muscles round her mouth which annoyed
Mr. Ferrand.
She was especially apt in waiting on the table, and never interrupted
his disquisitions with the noise of clashing plates or dropped silver.
She never asked to go out in the evening, except now and then to go
to church, and on these occasions she was at home so promptly that it
was plain she went nowhere else. There was no fault to be found. Mrs.
Ferrand was satisfied, and Mr. Ferrand could not discover any pretext
for quarrelling with Rhoda.
Rhoda, on her part, was not satisfied with herself; though, thanks to
Marion, she had more leisure than ever for her books, and was making
very fair progress with her studies. There was all the time a little
rankling thorn in her conscience. She knew she was helping Isa to
deceive her father, and no sophistry of her own or Marion's would make
deceit seem right to Aunt Hannah's pupil.
Nor was this all: her Bible was neglected from evening to evening while
she pored over her mathematics; her prayers were shortened for the same
reason; and when she did pray, her devotions were cold and lifeless, or
else a mere discomfort. Even her visits to "The Home" and to Miss Brown
were few and far between.
"We don't see you very often now-a-days," said Miss Wilkins, one day.
"I am so busy," answered Rhoda. "I hardly go out at all."
"I thought you would have more time, now that there is a cook in the
family," remarked Miss Brown.
"I should, only we have so much company—dinner company every other day;
and that makes a deal of work, you know. Then there are my lessons, and
Marion likes to have me read for her evenings; her eyes are bad."
"What do you read?" asked Miss Brown, rather anxiously.
"History mostly; we have been reading some of Scott's works lately, and
a pretty Scotch story called Magdalen Hepburn. I am going to borrow it
for you, Miss Brown, I am sure you will like it. Oh, you needn't be
afraid. Marion don't like trashy books any better than I do."
"And your music?" asked Miss Wilkins.
"Oh, that will have to wait," said Rhoda, starting up and taking the
coal-scuttle from her hand as she moved to replenish the fire. "Mr.
Ferrand thinks it is dreadful for a servant to learn geometry. I don't
know what he would say to music."
"Then it appears he interests himself about what his servants do?"
"Don't he?" said Rhoda. "The other day I was altering a waist for
Marion. I had just got it all contrived out, when I heard the clock
strike, so I ran down to set the table, leaving the work lying on my
bed. After dinner, as I was washing the dishes, Mr. Ferrand came into
the pantry.
"'Rhoda,' said he, 'your room is in great disorder. I do not like to
see a young person's bed covered with rags and pieces of cloth.'
"He always calls me 'a young person.' I thought I might say that I
didn't like to have an old person prying into my room, particularly a
gentleman. But I didn't. I explained it all as demurely as possible,
and he was pleased to be satisfied, and to say that he liked to see
persons in our position in life helpful to one another. Mrs. Ferrand
is lovely; only she is always in a fidget for fear something should be
wrong, but she don't worry so much since Marion came."
"I am sorry about your music," remarked Miss Wilkins. "You really have
talent, and you had made a very nice beginning. My dear, how flushed
your face is!"
"The room is so warm," said Rhoda, "and I have been out in the wind.
Can I do anything for you? I am going down town to do some errands for
Marion."
Miss Wilkins had several errands connected with worsted, wax, and
leather, and Miss Brown wanted some yarn, so Rhoda executed the
commissions successfully, and took her leave, promising to come soon
again.
"It isn't right, I know," she said to herself as she walked homeward;
"I am sure Aunt Hannah would say so. And yet I am getting on so well,
and it does nobody any harm. Marion says what people don't know don't
hurt them, but I can't think that. Well, I will just finish learning
this piece, and then I won't touch it again."
The flush on Rhoda's face had been more than the reflection of Miss
Wilkins's open fire or of her exposure to the wind. It was a blush
of honest shame. Rhoda had been carrying on a course of deceit on
which she could not think without shame and remorse. A celebrated
lecturer was giving a course of lectures upon one of Mr. Ferrand's
pet sciences—geology. Professor A—'s stay was limited, and in order
to complete his course, he lectured every evening. It was no part of
Mr. Ferrand's system to have Isa attend lectures for the present, and
she was left at home with strict injunctions to practise an hour and a
half, and to give at least half the time to her singing.
Isa had very little ear, and less voice, but Mr. Ferrand believed that
any person could learn to sing with proper instruction. Her former
teacher had bluntly told him that it was a loss of time and money for
his daughter to take singing lessons. She might possibly learn to play
tolerably, said this impracticable man, though she would never be
anything but a mechanical performer at the best; but as for singing, it
was all nonsense, and he really could not afford to waste his time on
her.
Mr. Ferrand put on his grandest air of dignity, paid Mr. Tyndale's
bill, and dismissed him, and then looked for another master who would
be more docile. He found one in the person of Mr. Harvey, who was poor
and had a family, two arguments which had much more weight with the
music-master than any of Mr. Ferrand's.
"She will never learn anything," he said to his wife. "She has no more
voice than a sparrow, and she hates music besides. She sets my teeth
on edge worse than saw-filing. But her father is determined she shall
learn, and two dollars an hour is not to be despised. It is all very
well for Tyndale to set up for frankness. He has more pupils than he
can attend to at forty dollars a quarter. I shall do the best I can
by the girl, and at all events, I sha'n't work her to death, as Brown
would."
Certainly the atmosphere around Mr. Ferrand did not seem to be
favourable to sincerity.
One of the first times that Isa was left alone to her music, Rhoda
came into the little back parlour where the piano stood just as Isa,
was blundering over a new piece. It was that pretty little song,
"The Origin of the Harp." The accompaniment is peculiarly simple and
graceful, requiring delicacy of touch and execution, and Rhoda's ears
were distracted by the way in which Isa attacked it.
"Oh, Isa, you do make such work!" she exclaimed, without ceremony,
which indeed had been long disused between them.
"I can't help it," returned Isa, pettishly. "I can't see any sense in
it. It is all up and down, without any tune at all. Do see if you can
make anything of it."
"It can't do any harm just for once," said Rhoda, hesitating, for her
fingers tingled to be at the piano.
"Of course not. As if anything could hurt this old piano! Come, do try."
Rhoda sat down. She could sing well at sight, thanks to the pains of
her country singing-school master, and she had that real genius for
music which is born with one in five hundred. She caught the spirit of
the song directly, and in half an hour had mastered the accompaniment;
and Isa listened with honest admiration.
"Oh dear!" said she, half envyingly, as Rhoda ceased. "If I had such a
voice as that, I wouldn't mind my singing lessons. You don't have to
pick it out a bit. You know just how to make your voice go by looking
at the notes, don't you?"
"Of course," answered Rhoda. "I can sing any easy music at sight,
and this is very easy, though it wants care and taste. I think it is
lovely, though the words are not much."
"It is a rather pretty notion, though, to think of the poor things
being turned into a harp," said Isa, who had a certain vein of
poetry in her. "Now, I should never turn to anything but a miserable
hand-organ, or at the best a musical-box, to go when it is wound up.
Do play something else, Rhoda. Try this waltz. I thought it was very
pretty when Mr. Harvey played it."
This was only the first of a series of surreptitious practisings. It
became a regular thing for Rhoda to sit down to the school-room piano
and occupy at least half of Isa's lesson-time playing over her pieces.
It annoyed Isa that Rhoda would always play the scales first:
"What is the use of them? They are not a bit pretty."
"No, but they are useful, and I want to improve myself. Now I will play
this waltz, and then you must play it after me. I must give you some
help to pay for the use of the piano, you know; and besides, Mr. Harvey
will make a fuss and tell your father if you don't know your lesson.
Come, now, do your best."
Then Isa would sit down, and by dint of patient and careful teaching
and overlooking, Rhoda would get her creditably through the piece.
"There! That is a great deal better than ever you played it before."
"Mr. Harvey says I improve," remarked Isa. "He told pa so. Pa found
fault because he gave me such easy lessons, and Mr. Harvey told him
he did it that I might acquire facility of execution. He said it was
a part of his system to teach the true method of execution upon easy
pieces, that the pupil's mind might be occupied with but one thing at a
time; and then pa gave in directly. I think it is a part of his system
to get through the lessons and earn his money the easiest he can,"
added Isa, shrewdly; "but I don't care as long as it saves me work.
Come, now, sing this song."
And Rhoda sung the song, comforting herself by the thought that she
really was helping Isa and doing nobody any hurt—a comfort which
answered tolerably well till she came to say her prayers, when it
vanished away and left her with a miserably burdened conscience and a
sore heart.
These practisings went on very prosperously for a good while. To the
geological lectures succeeded a chemical course, and then, dearest of
all to Mr. Ferrand's mind, a course of lectures on education. At least
three evenings in the week the girls were left to themselves, and
spent their time over the piano. Marion grumbled a little at the loss
of so much of her readings, but she liked the piano, and she was too
good-natured to interfere with Rhoda's pleasure.
"This is a miserable piano," said Rhoda, one evening. "Mr. Harvey tuned
it this morning, and now just hear!"
"Why, what's the matter?" said Isa as Rhoda struck a chord. "I don't
see anything wrong."
"Eh, lass, you've no more ear than a brown pig," said Marion.
"Haven't brown pigs as many ears as other pigs?" asked Isa.
Rhoda laughed.
"She means a pitcher," said she. "That's the Scotch of it. But really,
Isa, does that sound right to you?"
"I don't see anything out of the way, honestly. But, Rhoda, you might
as well play on the grand piano if you want to. Nobody will be the
wiser."
"It would be venturesome," observed Marion. "You see, nobody can hear
this piano from the street, and your father ay makes such a work
scraping his feet that you have time enough to get out of the way. But
in the drawing-room, you would be sure to get caught unless you heard
the gate shut, and that unlucky baker's boy ay leaves it open. You
wouldn't like Mr. Ferrand to come home and catch you?"
Rhoda's very ears tingled with the burning blush which these words
brought to her face.
Had it come to that? Was she afraid of being found out, like a boy who
has been stealing apples? Some words of Aunt Hannah's, spoken long ago
in Sunday-school, rose to her mind:
"Whenever you are afraid of being found out, be sure you are doing
wrong."
What would Aunt Hannah say to her now? Rhoda had weakened her own
moral sense and powers of resistance very much lately, but she had not
brought herself to think deception right or excusable. She resisted
faintly, however, as Isa continued to urge her to try the grand piano
in the parlour, and only yielded after a struggle. The piano was a
very superior one—by far the finest she had ever seen or touched; and
she forgot everything in the fascination of playing Beethoven's grand
waltz, which she had just learned.
"I declare, you are beyond everything," said Isa, drawing a long breath
as the piece was concluded. "And just to think that you didn't know
hardly anything when you came here!"
"Didn't know hardly anything?" repeated Rhoda. "Oh, Isa, what a
sentence! But I did know a good deal, you must remember. I could read
notes very well, and I had learn some pieces before I came from home.
I used to play on Fanny Badger's piano and on the church melodeon, and
Miss Wilkins taught me a great deal. Don't make me out quite a prodigy,
Isa. But oh, I do wish I could have some lessons."
"Aweel, my dear, don't fret. Maybe they will come some time." And
kind-hearted Marion began to consider the possibility of herself paying
for some music-lessons for her young friend.
The grand instrument in the drawing-room made the school-room piano
seem worse than ever by contrast, and Rhoda was easily persuaded to use
it over and over again.
"But I will never touch it after I have learned this piece, I am
determined I won't," said Rhoda to herself as she walked homeward after
her visit to Miss Brown. "I must learn this piece, so as to show Isa. I
am sure she will never get through it alone. Oh dear! I don't care; I
do think it is a real abominable shame that I should be used so. I wish
I should have been just like the others then. I should not have found
out what was in me. And to think, after all, when they could afford to
educate me as well as not, they should cast me off for the sake of that
miserable baby! It was not his fault, either, poor little fellow! I am
sure I don't wish him any ill, but I wish he had never been born, or
else that I never had. I think that would be best of all." And Rhoda
pulled down her veil to hide the hot tears which would gush out in
spite of her.
"What's the matter, my dear?" asked Marion, her quick eye perceiving at
once that something was wrong.
"Nothing," said Rhoda; "only I wish there was no such person as I am,
that's all."
"Aweel, there's no use wishing that now, ye ken. A man canna unmake
himself by any process that ever I heard of. Best wish for something
you have a chance of getting. But what ails ye, lassie? Come, tell me,
and ease your mind."
Rhoda poured out all her grief in a flood.
Marion listened with patience and sympathy.
"I'll no deny but it's a hard case," said she. "But, my lass, will you
let me tell you one thing? And that's this: if ye mean to give up these
music-lessons—and I'm no easy in my own mind about them—but if ye make
up your mind to give them up, do it at once. Dinna wait to learn one
more tune, no, nor one note more. It's like the poor drunkard that says
he will take only one cup more, and that one cup more is just the ruin
of him."
"But I do so want to learn this one piece," said Rhoda. "It suits me
exactly, and I am sure Isa will never learn it unless I help her."
"Let every herring hang by its own head," said Marion. "You are not
Isa's keeper. I said I was no easy in my mind about these lessons,
and I'm not. I heard a grand sermon last Sunday on lying and
leasing-making, and I have been thinking we have all been to blame in
this matter; myself, maybe, worst of all. Come, don't cry any more, but
wash your eyes and be ready to wait at dinner."
"Marion just wants me to spend the whole evening reading to her," said
Rhoda to herself as she went up stairs. She knew she was unjust and
that Marion was right, but in her present frame of mind, she found a
certain comfort in blaming everybody. "I don't know but she is right
though, about leaving off the music; only this piece is so lovely. Oh,
I must finish it, and then I won't touch the piano again. Oh dear! It
is too bad."
Rhoda's eyes overflowed again; she checked her tears as soon as she
could, and tried to bathe away their traces, but this was never
easy. Crying gave her a wretched headache, and made her usually fine
complexion look pale and sallow.
Mr. Ferrand, who was not deficient in kind feeling when his system was
not in the way, remarked to his wife that the young person was not
looking well.
"You had better see that she diets and bathes properly," said he.
"Young persons of her class—and indeed of every class—are apt to be
careless about such matters."
Rhoda heard the remark, and it brought a new sting to her conscience.
She tried to drive it out by resentment at being called a young person,
but it stayed all the same.
"Now, Isabella, be faithful in your practising," said Mr. Ferrand as he
set out for his customary lecture in the evening. "Mr. Harvey tells me
that you are improving, and I am very glad to hear it."
"Then, pa, if you want me to improve still more, you must let me
practise in the parlour, or else get a new piano for the school-room,"
said Isa, casting a glance of triumph at Rhoda. "Mr. Harvey says
himself that school-room piano won't keep in tune five minutes."
"I think that must be an exaggeration," remarked Mr. Ferrand. "I should
not suppose any instrument would become disordered in so short a time
as five minutes. However, I will speak to Mr. Harvey on the subject;
and if he thinks it desirable, I will request him to procure a proper
instrument. Meantime, as you will not be subject to interruption from
company this evening, you may practise in the drawing-room."
"Are ye going at it again?" said Marion as Rhoda turned toward the
drawing-room after putting her dishes away.
"Only this once," answered Rhoda; "and then, Marion, I'll read to you
all you like."
"It's not for myself I spoke," said Marion, justly offended. "But take
your own gait. I'll say no more. If a wilful man must have his way, the
byword is doubly true of a wilful lass."
"Oh, please don't be vexed, Marion," exclaimed Rhoda, ashamed of the
words the moment they were spoken. "I didn't mean anything. Just come
and hear me play this one piece, and I'll sing all the Scotch songs I
know for you."
But Marion had "got her Scotch up." She retreated to her kitchen; and
shutting the doors between, she sat down to her knitting. Meantime,
Rhoda played piece after piece, excusing herself for taking up all the
time by the thought that she should never touch the piano again.
"Only one more," pleaded Isa, as Rhoda made a motion to rise. "This is
the last lecture-night, you know, and very likely we shall not have
another chance for ever so long. Sing 'The Origin of the Harp.' I do
think it is so lovely. Come; they won't be here for an hour yet, I
know."
Isa was mistaken. The lecture had been very much shortened by an
accident to the gas-pipes which had left the hall in darkness. Mr. and
Mrs. Ferrand were alighting from the street-car at the corner at that
very moment, and they entered the gate just as Rhoda began the second
verse of the song.
"Can that be Isabella singing?" said Mrs. Ferrand, astonished at the
clear, round notes which reached her ears—notes as different from Isa's
as the whistle of the oriole from the twitter of the sparrow. "I never
heard her sing like that, or play like that either."
"Perhaps your sister Harriet may have arrived unexpectedly," said Mr.
Ferrand.
"Harriet would not be out of school so near the close of the term; and
besides, she does not sing. No, that is like no voice in our family."
Mr. Ferrand stepped to the long drawing-room window, which looked out
on the lawn, and opened the blind. He could hardly believe his eyes.
There sat Rhoda at the grand piano, and there, standing by, with her
arm on the "young person's" shoulder, was his own systematically
educated daughter Isa, actually abetting this low-born servant's
crime—so Mr. Ferrand at once called Rhoda's desecration of his
treasured instrument.
"Mrs. Ferrand," said he, in a voice of calm, concentrated anger, "will
you do me the favour to look into this window?"
Mrs. Ferrand looked, and at that moment, attracted by some slight
noise, or by that curious sense of being looked at which almost every
one has experienced, both the girls turned round and saw the faces at
the window.
Isa uttered a shriek of dismay, rushed away to her own room, and bolted
herself in.
Rhoda stood her ground. She was very much frightened, and equally
ashamed also, but it was not in her nature to run.
"What are you doing here?" was Mr. Ferrand's first question.
"I was playing on the piano," answered Rhoda, humbly enough.
Mr. Ferrand turned to his wife:
"Mrs. Ferrand, I believe no words are necessary. You must see now—even
you must see, I think—that this young person is no fit inmate of our
household. She may remain to-night, and also to-morrow, as it is
Sunday, but no longer."
"But, Mr. Ferrand, you know we are expecting company on Monday,"
pleaded his wife. "She might at least stay till I can find somebody. It
will be very inconvenient. I don't mean to excuse her, but—"
"Is it possible?" asked Mr. Ferrand, with sarcastic emphasis. "I
believe I have made myself understood, Mrs. Ferrand. The young person
will leave on Monday. Meantime, you will please send Isabella to me in
the library."
This, however, was more easily said than done. Isa had locked and
bolted herself into her room, where she was to be heard sobbing
hysterically, but no entreaties of her mother or commands of her father
would induce her to unbar the door or get a word out of her till her
father threatened to break the door down.
"If you do, I'll jump out of the window and run away," cried Isabella,
and she was heard to open her window as if to put her threat into
execution. She was crying at the top of her voice, and more than one
person had already stopped in the street to listen.
Mr. Ferrand dreaded nothing so much as any publicity of his family
affairs, and he was at last persuaded by his wife to let Isa alone for
the night.