A TROUBLED FANCY.
It was Annie Benton's playing which Allan Dorris occasionally heard as
he wandered about the yard of The Locks, for she came to the church
twice a week in order that she might pretend to practise on Sunday
afternoons, and please her father's critical ear with finished playing;
and Dorris was so much impressed with the excellence of the music that
he concluded one afternoon to look at the performer.
In a stained-glass window looking toward The Locks there was a broken
square, little larger than his eye, and he climbed up on the wall and
looked through this opening.
A pretty girl of twenty, a picture of splendid health, with dark hair,
and features as regularly cut as those of a marble statue, instead of
the spectacled professor he expected to see. Allan Dorris jumped down on
the outer side of the wall, and, going around to the front of the
church, entered the door.
The player was so intent with her work that she did not notice his
approach up the carpeted aisle, until she had finished, and he stood
almost beside her. She gave a little start on seeing him, but collected
herself, and looked at him soberly, as if to inquire why he was there.
"I hope you will pardon me," he said in an easy, self-possessed way,
"but I live in the place next door called The Locks, and having often
heard you play of late, I made bold to come in."
"All are welcome here," the girl replied, turning the leaves of the book
before her, and apparently paying little attention to Dorris. "You have
as much right here as I, and if I can please anyone with my dull
exercises, I am glad of the opportunity."
Allan Dorris seated himself in a chair that stood on the platform
devoted to the choir, and observed that the girl had splendid eyes and
splendid teeth, as well as handsome features.
"Do you mind my saying that I think you are very pretty?" he inquired,
after looking at her intently as she turned over the music.
Allan Dorris thought from the manner in which she looked at him that she
had never been told this before, for she blushed deeply, though she did
not appear confused.
"I don't say it as a compliment," he continued, without giving her an
opportunity to reply; "but I enjoyed the playing so much that I was
afraid to look at the performer, fearing he would be so hideously ugly
as to spoil the effect; but you are so much handsomer than I expected
that I cannot help mentioning it."
"You are a surprise to me, too," the girl replied, avoiding the
compliment he had paid her, and with good nature. "I imagined that the
new occupant of The Locks was older than you are."
There was a polite carelessness in his manner which indicated that he
was accustomed to mingling with all sorts of people; for he was as much
at his ease in the presence of Annie Benton as he had been with Mrs.
Wedge, or with Silas and Tug.
"I am so old in experience that I often feel that I look old in years,"
he replied, looking at the girl again, as though about to repeat his
remark concerning her beauty. "I am glad I do not appear old to you. You
have returned my compliment."
The girl made no other reply than to smile lightly, and then look
intently at her music, as an apology for smiling at all.
"How old are you?" he asked abruptly.
Annie Benton looked a little startled at the question, but replied,----
"Twenty."
"Have you a lover?"
This seemed to require an indignant answer, and she looked at him
sharply for that purpose, when she discovered that there was not a
particle of impudence in his manner, but rather a friendly interest. He
made the inquiry as an uncle might, who had long heard of a pretty niece
whom he had never met; so she compromised the matter by shaking her
head.
"That's strange," he returned. "It must be because the young men are
afraid of you, for you are about the prettiest thing of any kind I have
ever seen. It is fortunate that you live in Davy's Bend; a more
intelligent people would spoil you with flattery. Will you be kind
enough to play for me?"
The girl was rather pleased than offended at what he said, for there was
nothing of rudeness in his manner; and when she had signified her
willingness to grant his request, he went back to the pews, and sat down
to listen to the music. When the tones of the organ broke the silence,
Dorris was satisfied that the girl was not playing exercises, for the
music was very beautiful, and rendered with excellent judgment.
Her taste seemed to run in the direction of extravagant chords and odd
combinations; the listener happened to like the same sort of thing, too,
and the performance had such an effect upon him that he could not remain
in his seat, but walked softly up and down the aisle. The frown upon his
face was very much like that which occupied it when he walked alone in
his own room, after permitting himself to think; for there were wild
cries in the music, and mournful melodies. When it ceased, he walked up
to the player, and asked what she had been playing.
"I don't know myself," she answered, looking at him curiously, but
timidly, as if anxious to know more of him. "It was a combination of
many of the chords I have learned from time to time that pleased me. My
father, who is a very intelligent man, likes them, and I thought you
might. It was made up from hymns, vespers, anthems, ballads, and
everything else I have ever heard."
"The performance was very creditable, and I thank you for the pleasure
you have afforded me," he said. "Would you care if I should seat myself
here in this chair while you play, and look at you?"
The girl laughed quietly at the odd request, and there was a look of
mingled confusion and pleasure in her face as she replied,--
"I wouldn't care, but I could not play so well."
"Then I will go back to the pews; I don't wish to interfere with the
music. If you don't mind it, I will say that I think you are very frank
and honest, as well as pretty and accomplished. Many a worse player than
you are would have claimed that the rare combination of chords I have
just heard was improvising."
"It is my greatest fault," the girl answered, "to let my fancy and
fingers run riot over the keys, without regard to the instructions in
the book, and of which I am so much in need. The exercises are so dull
that it is a great task for me to practise them; but I never tire of
recalling what I have learned heretofore, and using the chords that
correspond with my humor. I have played a great deal, lately, with The
Locks in my mind, for I have heard much of you, and have known of the
strange house all my life. Perhaps I was thinking of you when you were
listening."
"If you will close up the book, and think about me while you are
playing, I will go back to the door, and listen. The subject is not very
romantic, but it is lonely enough, Heaven knows. I should think the old
organ might have sympathy with me, and do the subject justice, for it is
shut up from day to day in a great stone house, as I am."
Allan Dorris went back by the door, and the organ was still for such a
length of time that he thought it very correctly represented the silence
that hung over his house like a pall; but finally there was the thunder
of the double-bass, and the music began. The instrument was an unusually
good one, with a wide range of effects in the hands of such a player as
Annie Benton proved to be; and Allan Dorris thought she must have
learned his history somehow, and was now telling it to whoever cared to
listen. Dirges! The air was full of them, with processions of mourning
men and women. The girl seemed to have a fondness for odd airs, played
in imitation of the lower and middle registers of the voice, with treble
accompaniment, and the listener almost imagined that a strong baritone,
the voice of an actor in a play, was telling in plain English why Allan
Dorris, the occupant of The Locks, came to Davy's Bend, and why he was
discontented and ill at ease.
The actor with the baritone voice, after telling everything he knew,
gave way for a march-movement, and a company of actors, representing all
the people he had ever known, appeared before him under the magic of the
music. Some of them looked in wonder, others in dread and fear, as they
passed him in procession; but the march kept them going, and their
places were soon taken by others, from the store in his memory, who
looked in wonder, and in dread and fear, at the strange man in the back
pew, though he was no stranger to them. Not by any means; they knew him
very well. What an army! They are still coming, flinging their arms to
the time of the march; but the moment they arrive they look toward the
back pew, and continue looking that way, until they disappear; as though
they have been looking for him, and are surprised at his presence in
that quiet place. After a pause, to arrange the stops, the music sounded
as if all those who had appeared were trying to make their stories heard
at once. Their hatred, their dread, their fear,--all were represented in
the chords which he was now hearing, but in the din there was nothing
cheerful or joyous. If any of the actors in the play he had been
witnessing knew anything to the credit of Allan Dorris, their voices
were so mild as to be drowned by the fiercer ones with stories of hate
and fear and dread.
The music at last died away with the double-bass, as it began, and the
player sat perfectly still after she had finished; nor did Dorris move
from his position for several minutes.
The music seemed to have set them both to thinking, for nothing could be
heard for a long time except the working of the bellows; for the old
janitor was so deaf that he did not know that the music had ceased.
"What have you heard about The Locks?" he asked, after he stood beside
the girl, feeling as though there was nothing concerning him which she
did not know; for she had expressed it all in the music.
"Everything about The Locks, and a great deal about you," she answered.
"I didn't suppose that you had ever heard of me. Who talks about me?"
"The people."
"What do they say?"
"I wouldn't care to tell you all they say," she answered; "for in a dull
town, like this, a great deal is said when a mysterious man arrives, and
takes up his residence in a house that has been regarded with
superstitious fear for twenty years."
She was preparing to go out now, and he respectfully followed her down
the aisle.
"Whatever they say," he said, when they were standing upon the outside,
"there was a great deal more than art in the piece you dedicated to me.
You know, somehow, that I am lonely, and thoroughly discontented. Do the
people say that?"
"No."
"Then how did you know it?"
"I saw it in your manner. Anyone could see that."
"A perfectly contented man would become gloomy were he to live long in
that house," he replied, pointing to The Locks. "When the stillness of
night settles upon it there never was a scene in hell which cannot be
imagined by those so unfortunate as to be alone in it. I believe the
wind blows through the walls, for my light often goes out when the
windows and doors are closed; and there is one room where all the people
I have ever known seem collected, to moan through the night. Did you
ever hear about the room in The Locks into which no one is permitted to
look?"
"No."
"Even the new owner was asked to give a promise not to disturb that
room,--it adjoins the one I occupy,--or look into it, or inquire with
reference to it; and if I look ill at ease, it must be because of the
house I occupy. I am sincerely obliged to you for the music. May I
listen to you when you practise again?"
"Certainly," she answered. "I could not possibly have an objection."
She bowed to him, and walked away, followed by the limping negro
janitor, who turned occasionally to look at Dorris with distrust.