Three years had passed by and still the situation was unchanged. Halfdan
still taught music and told fairy stories to the children. He had a
good many more pupils now than three years ago, although he had made no
effort to solicit patronage, and had never tried to advertise his talent
by what he regarded as vulgar and inartistic display. But Mrs. Van Kirk,
who had by this time discovered his disinclination to assert
himself, had been only the more active; had “talked him up” among her
aristocratic friends; had given musical soirees, at which she had coaxed
him to play the principal role, and had in various other ways exerted
herself in his behalf. It was getting to be quite fashionable to admire
his quiet, unostentatious style of playing, which was so far removed
from the noisy bravado and clap-trap then commonly in vogue. Even
professional musicians began to indorse him, and some, who had
discovered that “there was money in him,” made him tempting offers for a
public engagement. But, with characteristic modesty, he distrusted
their verdict; his sensitive nature shrank from anything which had the
appearance of self-assertion or display.
But Edith--ah, if it had not been for Edith he might have found courage
to enter at the door of fortune, which was now opened ajar. That fame,
if he should gain it, would bring him any nearer to her, was a thought
that was alien to so unworldly a temperament as his. And any action that
had no bearing upon his relation to her, left him cold--seemed unworthy
of the effort. If she had asked him to play in public; if she had
required of him to go to the North Pole, or to cut his own throat, I
verily believe he would have done it. And at last Edith did ask him to
play. She and Olson had plotted together, and from the very friendliest
motives agreed to play into each other’s hands.
“If you only WOULD consent to play,” said she, in her own persuasive
way, one day as they had finished their lesson, “we should all be so
happy. Only think how proud we should be of your success, for you know
there is nothing you can’t do in the way of music if you really want
to.”
“Do you really think so?” exclaimed he, while his eyes suddenly grew
large and luminous.
“Indeed I do,” said Edith, emphatically.
“And if--if I played well,” faltered he, “would it really please you?”
“Of course it would,” cried Edith, laughing; “how can you ask such a
foolish question?”
“Because I hardly dared to believe it.”
“Now listen to me,” continued the girl, leaning forward in her chair,
and beaming all over with kindly officiousness; “now for once you must
be rational and do just what I tell you. I shall never like you again if
you oppose me in this, for I have set my heart upon it; you must promise
beforehand that you will be good and not make any objection. Do you
hear?”
When Edith assumed this tone toward him, she might well have made him
promise to perform miracles. She was too intent upon her benevolent
scheme to heed the possible inferences which he might draw from her
sudden display of interest.
“Then you promise?” repeated she, eagerly, as he hesitated to answer.
“Yes, I promise.”
“Now, you must not be surprised; but mamma and I have made arrangements
with Mr. S---- that you are to appear under his auspices at a concert
which is to be given a week from to-night. All our friends are going,
and we shall take up all the front seats, and I have already told my
gentlemen friends to scatter through the audience, and if they care
anything for my favor, they will have to applaud vigorously.”
Halfdan reddened up to his temples, and began to twist his watch-chain
nervously.
“You must have small confidence in my ability,” he murmured, “since you
resort to precautions like these.”
“But my dear Mr. Birch,” cried Edith, who was quick to discover that she
had made a mistake, “it is not kind in you to mistrust me in that way.
If a New York audience were as highly cultivated in music as you are,
I admit that my precautions would be superfluous. But the papers, you
know, will take their tone from the audience, and therefore we must make
use of a little innocent artifice to make sure of it. Everything depends
upon the success of your first public appearance, and if your friends
can in this way help you to establish the reputation which is nothing
but your right, I am sure you ought not to bind their hands by your
foolish sensitiveness. You don’t know the American way of doing things
as well as I do, therefore you must stand by your promise, and leave
everything to me.”
It was impossible not to believe that anything Edith chose to do was
above reproach. She looked so bewitching in her excited eagerness for
his welfare that it would have been inhuman to oppose her. So he meekly
succumbed, and began to discuss with her the programme for the concert.
During the next week there was hardly a day that he did not read some
startling paragraph in the newspapers about “the celebrated Scandinavian
pianist,” whose appearance at S---- Hall was looked forward to as the
principal event of the coming season. He inwardly rebelled against
the well-meant exaggerations; but as he suspected that it was Edith’s
influence which was in this way asserting itself in his behalf, he set
his conscience at rest and remained silent.
The evening of the concert came at last, and, as the papers stated the
next morning, “the large hall was crowded to its utmost capacity with
a select and highly appreciative audience.” Edith must have played her
part of the performance skillfully, for as he walked out upon the stage,
he was welcomed with an enthusiastic burst of applause, as if he had
been a world-renowned artist. At Edith’s suggestion, her two favorite
nocturnes had been placed first upon the programme; then followed one
of those ballads of Chopin, whose rhythmic din and rush sweep onward,
beleaguering the ear like eager, melodious hosts, charging in thickening
ranks and columns, beating impetuous retreats, and again uniting
with one grand emotion the wide-spreading army of sound for the
final victory. Besides these, there was one of Liszt’s “Rhapsodies
Hongroises,” an impromptu by Schubert, and several orchestral pieces;
but the greater part of the programme was devoted to Chopin, because
Halfdan, with his great, hopeless passion laboring in his breast, felt
that he could interpret Chopin better than he could any other composer.
He carried his audience by storm. As he retired to the dressing-room,
after having finished the last piece, his friends, among whom Edith and
Mrs. Van Kirk were the most conspicuous, thronged about him, showering
their praises and congratulations upon him. They insisted with much
friendly urging upon taking him home in their carriage; Clara kissed
him, Mrs. Van Kirk introduced him to her lady acquaintances as “our
friend, Mr. Birch,” and Edith held his hand so long in hers that he came
near losing his presence of mind and telling her then and there that he
loved her. As his eyes rested on her, they became suddenly suffused with
tears, and a vast bewildering happiness vibrated through his frame.
At last he tore himself away and wandered aimlessly through the long,
lonely streets. Why could he not tell Edith that he loved her? Was there
any disgrace in loving? This heavenly passion which so suddenly had
transfused his being, and year by year deadened the substance of his old
self, creating in its stead something new and wild and strange which he
never could know, but still held infinitely dear--had it been sent to
him merely as a scourge to test his capacity for suffering?
Once, while he was a child, his mother had told him that somewhere in
this wide world there lived a maiden whom God had created for him, and
for him alone, and when he should see her, he should love her, and his
life should thenceforth be all for her. It had hardly occurred to him,
then, to question whether she would love him in return, it had appeared
so very natural that she should. Now he had found this maiden, and she
had been very kind to him; but her kindness had been little better than
cruelty, because he had demanded something more than kindness. And still
he had never told her of his love. He must tell her even this very night
while the moon rode high in the heavens and all the small differences
between human beings seemed lost in the vast starlit stillness. He knew
well that by the relentless glare of the daylight his own insignificance
would be cruelly conspicuous in the presence of her splendor; his
scruples would revive, and his courage fade.
The night was clear and still. A clock struck eleven in some church
tower near by. The Van Kirk mansion rose tall and stately in the
moonlight, flinging a dense mass of shadow across the street. Up in the
third story he saw two windows lighted; the curtains were drawn, but the
blinds were not closed. All the rest of the house was dark. He raised
his voice and sang a Swedish serenade which seemed in perfect concord
with his own mood. His clear tenor rose through the silence of the
night, and a feeble echo flung it back from the mansion opposite:
[3] “Star, sweet star, that brightly beamest,
Glittering on the skies nocturnal,
Hide thine eye no more from me,
Hide thine eye no more from me!”
The curtain was drawn aside, the window cautiously raised, and the
outline of Edith’s beautiful head appeared dark and distinct against the
light within. She instantly recognized him.
“You must go away, Mr. Birch,” came her voice in an anxious whisper out
of the shadow. “Pray go away. You will wake up the people.”
Her words were audible enough, but they failed to convey any meaning
to his excited mind. Once more his voice floated upward to her opened
window:
“And I yearn to reach thy dwelling,
Yearn to rise from earth’s fierce turmoil;
Sweetest star upward to thee,
Yearn to rise, bright star to thee.”
“Dear Mr. Birch,” she whispered once more in tones of distress. “Pray DO
go away. Or perhaps,” she interrupted herself “--wait one moment and I
will come down.”
Presently the front door was noiselessly opened, and Edith’s tall, lithe
form, dressed in a white flowing dress, and with her blonde hair rolling
loosely over her shoulders, appeared for an instant, and then again
vanished. With one leap Halfdan sprang up the stairs and pushed through
the half-opened door. Edith closed the door behind him, then with rapid
steps led the way to the back parlor where the moon broke feebly through
the bars of the closed shutters.
“Now Mr. Birch,” she said, seating herself upon a lounge, “you may
explain to me what this unaccountable behavior of yours means. I should
hardly think I had deserved to be treated in this way by you.”
Halfdan was utterly bewildered; a nervous fit of trembling ran through
him, and he endeavored in vain to speak. He had been prepared for
passionate reproaches, but this calm severity chilled him through, and
he could only gasp and tremble, but could utter no word in his defense.
“I suppose you are aware,” continued Edith, in the same imperturbable
manner, “that if I had not interrupted you, the policeman would have
heard you, and you would have been arrested for street disturbance.
Then to-morrow we should have seen it in all the newspapers, and I
should have been the laughing-stock of the whole town.”
No, surely he had never thought of it in that light; the idea struck
him as entirely new. There was a long pause. A cock crowed with a
drowsy remoteness in some neighboring yard, and the little clock on the
mantel-piece ticked on patiently in the moonlit dusk.
“If you have nothing to say,” resumed Edith, while the stern
indifference in her voice perceptibly relaxed, “then I will bid you
good-night.”
She arose, and with a grand sweep of her drapery, moved toward the door.
“Miss Edith,” cried he, stretching his hands despairingly after her,
“you must not leave me.”
She paused, tossed her hair back with her hands, and gazed at him over
her shoulder. He threw himself on his knees, seized the hem of
her dress, and pressed it to his lips. It was a gesture of such
inexpressible humility that even a stone would have relented.
“Do not be foolish, Mr. Birch,” she said, trying to pull her dress away
from him. “Get up, and if you have anything rational to say to me, I
will stay and listen.”
“Yes, yes,” he whispered, hoarsely, “I shall be rational. Only do not
leave me.”
She again sank down wearily upon the lounge, and looked at him in
expectant silence.
“Miss Edith,” pleaded he in the same hoarse, passionate undertone, “have
pity on me, and do not despise me. I love you--oh--if you would but
allow me to die for you, I should be the happiest of men.”
Again he shuddered, and stood long gazing at her with a mute, pitiful
appeal. A tear stole into Edith’s eye and trickled down over her cheek.
“Ah, Mr. Birch,” she murmured, while a sigh shook her bosom, “I am
sorry--very sorry that this misfortune has happened to you. You have
deserved a better fate than to love me--to love a woman who can never
give you anything in return for what you give her.”
“Never?” he repeated mournfully, “never?”
“No, never! You have been a good friend to me, and as such I value you
highly, and I had hoped that you would always remain so. But I see that
it cannot be. It will perhaps be best for you henceforth not to see
me, at least not until--pardon the expression--you have outlived this
generous folly. And now, you know, you will need me no more. You have
made a splendid reputation, and if you choose to avail yourself of it,
your fortune is already made. I shall always rejoice to hear of your
success, and--and if you should ever need a FRIEND, you must come to no
one but me. I know that these are feeble words, Mr. Birch, and if they
seem cold to you, you must pardon me. I can say nothing more.”
They were indeed feeble words, although most cordially spoken. He
tried to weigh them, to measure their meaning, but his mind was as if
benumbed, and utterly incapable of thought. He walked across the floor,
perhaps only to do something, not feeling where he trod, but still with
an absurd sensation that he was taking immoderately long steps. Then
he stopped abruptly, wrung his hands, and gazed at Edith. And suddenly,
like a flash in a vacuum, the thought shot through his brain that he had
seen this very scene somewhere--in a dream, in a remote childhood, in a
previous existence, he did not know when or where. It seemed strangely
familiar, and in the next instant strangely meaningless and unreal.
The walls, the floor--everything began to move, to whirl about him;
he struck his hands against his forehead, and sank down into a
damask-covered easy-chair. With a faint cry of alarm, Edith sprang up,
seized a bottle of cologne which happened to be within reach, and knelt
down at his side. She put her arm around his neck, and raised his head.
“Mr. Birch, dear Mr. Birch,” she cried, in a frightened whisper, “for
God’s sake come to yourself! O God, what have I done?”
She blew the eau-de-cologne into his face, and, as he languidly opened
his eyes, he felt the touch of her warm hand upon his cheeks and his
forehead.
“Thank heaven! he is better,” she murmured, still continuing to bathe
his temples. “How do you feel now, Mr. Birch?” she added, in a tone of
anxious inquiry.
“Thank you, it was an unpardonable weakness,” he muttered, without
changing his attitude. “Do not trouble yourself about me. I shall soon
be well.”
It was so sweet to be conscious of her gentle ministry, that it required
a great effort, an effort of conscience, to rouse him once more, as his
strength returned.
“Had you not better stay?” she asked, as he rose to put on his overcoat.
“I will call one of the servants and have him show you a room. We will
say to-morrow morning that you were taken ill, and nobody will wonder.”
“No, no,” he responded, energetically. “I am perfectly strong now.” But
he still had to lean on a chair, and his face was deathly pale.
“Farewell, Miss Edith,” he said; and a tender sadness trembled in his
voice. “Farewell. We shall--probably--never meet again.”
“Do not speak so,” she answered, seizing his hand. “You will try to
forget this, and you will still be great and happy. And when fortune
shall again smile upon you, and--and--you will be content to be my
friend, then we shall see each other as before.”
“No, no,” he broke forth, with a sudden hoarseness. “It will never be.”
He walked toward the door with the motions of one who feels death in his
limbs; then stopped once more and his eyes lingered with inexpressible
sadness on the wonderful, beloved form which stood dimly outlined before
him in the twilight. Then Edith’s measure of misery, too, seemed full.
With the divine heedlessness which belongs to her sex, she rushed up
toward him, and remembering only that he was weak and unhappy, and that
he suffered for her sake, she took his face between her hands and kissed
him. He was too generous a man to misinterpret the act; so he whispered
but once more: “Farewell,” and hastened away.