‘Mais pourquoi pour ces gens un intérêt si grand?’
One evening--it was Sunday, the day after that drive into the
country--Sebastian Mallory strolled into the drawing-room where his
mother sat, and, glancing round, seated himself, without speaking at
the piano, on which he struck some aimless chords, which presently
developed into a coherent harmony, in a style _un poco pesante_. He
played the first bars of Liszt’s second _Rhapsodie Hongroise_, and then
paused.
‘What is that thumping thing?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory, whose many mental
superiorities did not include an understanding of the art of music.
‘This “thumping thing,” as you so justly term it, is a “Hungarian
Rhapsody,” by that Thor the Hammerer of pianoforte music, Franz Liszt.’
‘I am as wise as I was before.’
‘_N’importe!_ Where is Hugo, I wonder?’
No reply.
‘You have not seen him?’
‘I saw him leave the garden about an hour ago.’
‘Gone out for a walk, I suppose. I am glad he can find anywhere to go
to.’
‘Sebastian, may I ask how long a visit that boy is to pay here?’
‘Visit!’ said Sebastian, turning round on the music stool, in some
surprise; ‘why, Hugo lives with me. I thought you knew.’
Mrs. Mallory lowered her favourite weapon, the feathery screen.
‘Lives with you? What will you say?’
‘I can but repeat my previous statement. He is my ward--you do know
that, mother--but then we drop that connection as much as possible. I
suppose we are more like brothers than anything else.’
‘You are the guardian of his property, then? He is a _von_--is he of
noble family?’
‘Two questions. He is of noble family. Von Birkenau is a good old name,
and he is the last of his race. As for property, he has none--not a
scrap.’
‘How came you to be his guardian? It was very extraordinary--so young a
man as you. Had his family, or whoever left him to you, any claims upon
you?’
‘It was his mother who left him to me, because I asked her to. She had
no claims upon me in the legal sense of the word; only the claim of
having been my great friend, and the source of inestimable benefit to
me. Paula von Birkenau was a woman in a thousand, beautiful, good, and
gifted; and, I am sorry to say, very unhappy.’
Mrs. Mallory, watching her son’s face, thought how odd it was that he
should have such queer, out-of-the-way ideas and tastes. What could
there be in this memory of an impecunious German countess to bring that
smile to his lips, and that light of subdued enthusiasm to his eyes?
‘If her son has no property, how did she manage to live?’
‘She was penniless when she married, and her husband’s family had
been a declining one for generations. When he died, she was left
without a stick or stone of land or house, and without a penny of
fortune. She retired into a _Stift_--an institution, you know, for
poor ladies of noble family. There are many like it in Germany. She
procured admittance for her son into a place of the same kind--a
school, where he was hard-worked and ill-fed, and quite unable to
pursue the real bent of his talent for music. I made the acquaintance
of Frau von Birkenau six years ago. I could not describe her; she
was a beautiful soul; she did more for me than any one I have ever
known. She talked to me a great deal about her boy, and I went to
see him. I liked him, and told her so. She asked me if I would think
of him sometimes, and perhaps pay him an occasional visit, when she
should be dead; she suffered from a painful complaint, and bore her
sufferings like a heroine. I said the best and shortest way would
be for her to make a will, appointing me her son’s guardian, when I
should have full authority over him. This she did, about four years
ago, and very shortly afterwards she died. On my signing a document
to the purport that henceforth I undertook the duties of a parent to
him, the authorities of the school permitted me to remove Hugo, to
his and my great satisfaction. Since then he has been my companion in
all my ramblings, and though I don’t wish to sound my own praises, I
must say he looks a different fellow altogether from the white-faced,
pinched-looking lad whom I took away with me overwhelmed with grief at
his mother’s death.’
‘In-deed!’ observed Mrs. Mallory, in cold tones of intense, though
repressed, exasperation. ‘It sounds like a page from a romance. If my
opinion were asked, I should say I could hardly tell whether he or you
stood most in need of a guardian--of some one to control you. You have
encumbered yourself with his entire maintenance. He is a pensioner on
your bounty?’
Sebastian shook his head. Leaning his elbow upon the top of the piano,
he remarked,
‘There is no question of “incumbrance.” I love the lad. I delight
to see him growing happier every day, and to know that his powers
are expanding in the direction best suited to them. It is not every
one who can secure the pleasure of enabling an artist nature to grow
and develop in a congenial soil. As to his being “a pensioner on my
bounty,” excuse me, mother, I mean no disrespect when I say that I
dislike that expression intensely. If you had not used those words, I
should not have mentioned that Hugo knows nothing at all of this. All
he knows is that I am his guardian. I let him live under the impression
that I guard not only himself, but his property. And that impression
must not be disturbed. I will not have his happiness embittered just
when he should be able to throw aside all care for everything except
his studies. He is intensely sensitive. I never approach the subject
with him--you understand?’
‘I suppose I do. But I consider it the most amazing piece of folly I
ever heard of. How do you know what he may turn out?’
‘How, indeed? At least he will have had every inducement to turn out
well; and, unless I am much mistaken, he will do so. It is not only
his name and lineage that is noble.’
‘I thought you were a _Radical_’ observed Mrs. Mallory.
‘My dear mother!’
‘That Frau von Birkenau must have been a clever woman--too clever for
you, at any rate.’
‘Please don’t say anything against her. I would as soon say anything
against you as against her,’ said Sebastian, calmly; and his mother,
meeting his eyes, found herself blushing for her own meanness. Such
signs of sensibility are often reckoned hopeful.
‘Is he to be always here?’ she asked quickly, to cover her confusion.
‘I don’t know. He will please himself. At present England is new to
him. He may enjoy it, or study it, until he gets tired of it; and then,
I expect, he will go to some German musical _Conservatoire_ to study,
just as he pleases. I shall give him his choice.’
‘Humph!’ said Mrs. Mallory, with indescribable significance of tone.
‘But I repeat, he is never to be told of his position. I shall explain
it all to him myself, when circumstances make it desirable. And I think
you will get to like him, mother. He is the best-hearted fellow, and
absolutely adores those who are kind to him. He is a perfect child in
some ways.’
‘I don’t like young men who are like children.’
‘Well, I like Hugo. It would pain me exceedingly to have any
misunderstanding with him,’ said he, with an emphasis unusual to him,
as he turned again to the piano, and solaced himself with a waltz of
Schubert.
Mrs. Mallory sat puzzling angrily over the character which daily
baffled her more completely; its traits becoming more involved,
enigmatical--nay, to her, insane. She considered this freak of his to
display an eccentricity not short of insanity, but strangely enough she
did not dare to tell him so. Did he care for any one? Was he so devoted
to this lad, whom she disliked for his fantastic, unconventional habits
and speech, and whom she would regard with contemptuous pity, as he
sat, the morning long, at the piano, absorbed, with strange tossings
of the head, and quaint, absent-minded wavings of the hands, and
contortions of the body? Or was he only obstinate to have his own way,
and provoke her, his mother?
At this moment the door was opened, and Hugo entered, followed by the
butler, with tea.
Mrs. Mallory was too much annoyed to linger over that refreshment. She
drank it quickly, and went to her writing-table, where she turned over
the papers, listening vexedly the while to the talk between Sebastian
and Hugo--talk in which she had no sort of share--about music, and
foreign friends, and foreign countries; and she heard Hugo express his
rejoicing that at last he could have an hour of Sebastian’s company,
and she heard Sebastian answer, that he was glad too, for that he
missed his companion. And she knew that the tone was one of genuine
affection; that Mr. Mallory of the Oakenrod was perverse enough to pin
his affections rather upon an eccentric, penniless German lad, than to
make acquaintances which would be to his advantage; that her chance
remark about the cleverness of the late Frau von Birkenau had been, in
vulgar parlance, ‘a bad shot’--a very bad one indeed, and that she had
not increased her own influence by making it.
The laughs and chaff of Hugo and Sebastian became intolerable, as
forming a running accompaniment to reflections of this nature. She made
another shot, this time unconsciously; and this time she hit her mark,
also unconsciously. Picking up a note which lay upon her table, she
suddenly interrupted the conversation.
‘Sebastian, here is a note--it must go to you now, I suppose. I have
nothing more to do with these affairs.’
He looked up; rose and came to fetch it; smiled as he took it; but she
would not see either smile or look.
‘It is from Mr. Blisset,’ she remarked, apparently busily arranging her
papers. ‘Something about repairs. I cannot imagine what he wants doing,
I am sure.’
Sebastian and Hugo exchanged glances.
‘Mr. Blisset--who may he be!’ inquired Sebastian.
‘Your tenant. He lives at Stonegate, that place up at other end of the
town, which your great-grandfather built, and which has always been a
great deal more trouble than profit.’
‘How long has this Mr. Blisset been its tenant?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. Eight or nine years, I think.’
‘Do you know anything about him--who he is, or where he comes from?’
‘No. He is an invalid--paralysed--a most crotchety, tiresome person.’
‘Ah! Let me see what he says.’
He opened the note, and his face changed as he saw the handwriting.
It had been addressed to Mrs. Mallory, as had probably all other
communications on the subject. The hand was small, compact, and
characteristic--the matter was business-like.
‘Mr. Blisset presents his compliments to Mrs. Mallory, and begs to
inform her that the outside of his house stands in need of some
repairs before the winter sets in. If Mrs. Mallory will have the
kindness to send her agent, or the work-people she usually employs,
to inspect the house, Mr. Blisset will feel extremely obliged to her.’
Sebastian, without comment, handed the note to Hugo, who read it with a
smile, and an excited expression, which caused Mrs. Mallory to set him
down in her own mind as a lunatic.
‘I will have it seen to!’ was all Sebastian said, carefully putting the
document into a small letter-case.
‘I should send Mitchell to make an estimate: he will do it as cheaply
as any one,’ observed Mrs. Mallory.
‘Yes, it shall be attended to,’ repeated her son. ‘Now, Hugo, sit
down to that piano, and play something--something right lively and
soul-stirring, you will understand.’
‘I think I do,’ said Hugo, smiling in an uncanny manner, as he placed
himself at the piano, and straightway burst into a triumphal march.
* * * * *
Later, when Hugo and Sebastian were alone, the former said,
‘Now you can go and call, Sebastian.’
‘Heaven forbid! I have not the least right to do so.’
‘But you would like to. Make a way. Make that note about the repairs an
excuse. Call upon Mr. Blisset, and find out what sort of an old party
he is.’
Sebastian said nothing, and the subject dropped.
The next day, as they sat in Sebastian’s study, and he cut the leaves
of a Review, he remarked,
‘I had a conversation with Myles Heywood to-day.’
‘The revolutionary weaver?’
‘He is no weaver, ignoramus. He is a sort of head man, but they call
him a cut-looker.’
‘A how much?’
‘A cut-looker. Your education, like mine, has been neglected. But I
know now what a cut-looker is. Myles Heywood is one. He earns forty
shillings a week. It exercises the brains and the observation, and they
have time for reading and thinking, too. Myles Heywood reads. He has
read Buckle’s _History of Civilisation_.’
‘Indeed!’ said Hugo, sitting with his head on one side, looking like an
intelligent dog. ‘That does not raise my opinion of him. It is a book I
hate.’
‘He has read most of the works of John Stuart Mill.’
‘I’m glad I don’t know him so well as you do.’
‘Impertinent!’
‘Can he play Beethoven’s Sonatas, and paint in oils; and does he sing
tenor, baritone, or bass?’
‘Tsh! I tell you I take the greatest interest in the fellow. He knows a
lot of German, too. Where he learnt it I can’t tell. When I asked him
who taught him he flushed up, looked me straight in the face, and said,
“A friend.” So I had to beg his pardon.’
Sebastian had thrown himself into an easy-chair, and was lighting a
cigar.
‘Beg his pardon--why?’
‘My dear child, you wouldn’t say to your equal, “_You_ learn
German--who teaches you?” and why should you say it to a cut-looker?’
‘Well?’ said Hugo, seeing the expression upon Sebastian’s face, and
knowing it to be no careless one.
‘I did beg his pardon, and he said, “Don’t mention it.” Then I asked
him what he meant to do with himself while we were working half-time.
He said he had no doubt he could manage to dispose of his own time, and
I incautiously persisted, “But how?” He said he really had not thought
much about it--might he ask why I wanted to know? So I had to beg his
pardon again.’
Sebastian was puffing away, with raised eyebrows. Hugo burst out
laughing.
‘I never heard of anything so preposterous. Why did you go on talking
to him, if you got so vexed?’
‘But I didn’t. I got interested. Why should the fellow dislike me so
intensely? What can be his object?’
‘Sebastian! I thought you did not care a straw what any one thought of
you. You have said so often enough.’
‘Well, and it was generally true--_generally_, mind you. I am
interested against my will--personally interested. One thing I’ve found
out--he hates me.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘Hold your froward tongue! You know how to play Beethoven’s Sonatas,
and I know what I am talking about. He hates me, and I have made up my
mind that he shall, so to speak, eat his words--that is, change his
opinion. It will gave me endless trouble, I know,’ added Sebastian,
knocking the ash from his cigar; ‘endless trouble, but I will do it. I
must know whether that man is master, or I.’
‘Oh, if it comes to that,’ said Hugo, shrugging his shoulders, and
laughing a little; ‘if he has excited your obstinate combative
instincts, you will never let the poor beggar alone till he at any rate
_says_ that he gives in. Bless you, I know you!’
‘He will never say he gives in unless he actually does so.’
‘_Ja, ja!_’ said Hugo, nodding significantly, ‘I know. May you find the
game worth the candle, is the sincere wish of one who succumbed long
ago to your masterful disposition!’
‘Thanks!’ laughed Sebastian. ‘And as I can’t begin this laudable
campaign on the instant, I shall carry my investigations into another
direction, that, namely of Stonegate. I am going to call upon Mr.
Blisset.’
‘At Stonegate--also with a view to conquest?’ inquired Hugo, politely,
rising and walking quickly to the door, and closing it after him just
in time for it, instead of his own person, to receive the large bundle
of tape-tied ‘documents’ which Sebastian wrathfully sent flying after
him.