Meanwhile, Mr. Whacker has not been idle. He has been giving his
wondering and interested guest an account of what I have just narrated
to the reader; omitting, naturally, many things that I have said; saying
many things that I have omitted; telling his story, that is, in his own
way. Let us drop in upon them and see where they are.
“This was in 1855,—five years ago. How have you managed to supply M.
Villemain’s place during all this time? Have you succeeded in developing
the local talent?”
“Local talent? Bless you, no. I labored faithfully with my grandson, but
had to give him up,—no taste that way. Then there was a young fellow,
the son of a neighbor,—young William Jones,—who is now at the
University. I had great hopes of him when he began to take lessons; but
the scamp was too lazy to practise his exercises, and pretended he
couldn’t see any tune in classical music. Perfectly absurd! However,”
quickly added Mr. Whacker, observing that his guest was silent, “the
majority are of his way of thinking. Bill is a capital fiddler, however,
and is invaluable at our dancing parties. He will be down Christmas, and
you will hear him.”
“I should like very much to do so,” replied the Don, rather stiffly.
“His ‘Arkansas Traveller’ is an acknowledged m-m-m-masterpiece,” chimed
in Charley, “and his ‘B-B-B-Billy in the Low Grounds’ the despair of
every other fiddler in the county.”
“I should like very much indeed to hear him,” said the stranger,
laughing heartily at Charley’s neatly turned phrase, over which his
stammering threw a quaint halo of added humor. “And so you had to give
him up also, Mr. Whacker?”
“Yes, I had to give them all up, except Charley here.” And he gave that
young man’s knee a vigorous slap, accompanied with an admiring glance.
“You could hardly guess how I manage. You see Mr. Waldteufel visits
Baltimore twice a year to lay in a stock of music and other articles
needed by his pupils, and he has instructions to look about him and pick
up, if possible, some violinist newly landed in the country, or one
temporarily out of employment; or perhaps he may find an artist desiring
a vacation, to whom a few weeks in the country would be a tempting bait.
All such he is at liberty to invite to Elmington,—provided, of course,”
added Mr. Whacker, with a wave of his hand, “provided they be proper
persons.”
“Or the reverse,” soliloquized Charley, prying narrowly, as he spoke,
into the bowl of his pipe.
“Or the what?”
“I addressed an observation to my p-p-p-pipe.”
“Well, suppose they _are_ sometimes rather—in fact—rather—what
difference, pray, does it make to us two bachelors? You will no doubt
think, Mr. Smith, that this is a quartet under difficulties,—and so it
is, but it is a quartet after all. If not, in dissenting phrase, a
‘stated,’ it is, at least, an ‘occasional service of song.’”
“Goot for de Barrone!” quoted Charley.
“Then again, I not infrequently invite the leader of some watering-place
band to drop in on us, for a week or so, on the closing of the season at
the Springs. They are generally excellent musicians, and glad enough,
after a summer of waltzes and polkas, to refresh themselves with a
little real music. So you see that, after all, where there is a will
there is a way. Provide yourself with a cage, and some one will be sure
to give you a bird; build a house, and—”
“The r-r-r-rats will soon come.”
“I was going to say a wife—”
“Oh, then, instead of r-r-r-rats, it’s br-br-br-brats!”
“You see,” continued my grandfather, laughing, “I have the Hall there
for a cage.”
“Yes, but where is your bird, your fourth player?”
“Very true, the bird is lacking just at present. The truth is, we have
had poor luck of late. We have not had any quartet music for a
year,—not even our quartets where the piano takes the place of one of
the violins, owing to the absence of our young-lady artiste. By the way,
I forgot to tell you, in speaking of our local talent, that one of our
girls is an excellent pianist, and that through her we have been enabled
(until the past year) to keep up our quartet evenings, in the absence of
a first violin; the main trouble being that I am hardly equal to my
part—that of the first violin—in these compositions,—Lucy Poythress.
You know her?” asked Mr. Whacker, on observing the sudden interest in
the Don’s face.
“Why, Uncle Tom, Mr. Smith saved her life! Don’t you remember?”
“Of course! of course! you must pardon an old man’s tricks of memory!”
“Miss Poythress is a good musician?”
“Oh, wonderful, we think. She was the only one of Mr. Waldteufel’s
pupils who had the least fancy for classical music. She seemed to feel
its meaning from the very first, and I hardly know what we should have
done without her. For several years—ever since she was fourteen, in
fact—she has been playing with us; in quartet when we needed her, a
solo between our Haydn and Mozart when we happened to have a first
violin. You should know her,—know her well, I mean. So much character,
and yet so gentle! Such depth of soul! In fact, she is an incomparable
girl! I must confess, I never cease to wonder how Charley, here—”
“There you go again, Uncle Tom!”
“This good-for-nothing fellow, Mr. Smith, has, for several years, been
crossing the river, Friday afternoons, to fetch her and her mother to
our quartet parties,—taking them back, and spending the night under the
same roof with this noble girl,—breakfasting with her next
morning,—and yet—Where would you find another sister, eh?”
Charley rose, and, after walking about the room and glancing at the
books in an aimless sort of way, without other reply than a smile,
descended the steps and stood on the lawn with his fingers interlaced
behind his back.
“That’s what he would have said,” added Mr. Whacker in an undertone,
“had you not been present; or else, that if Mrs. Poythress were his
mother-in-law, what should he do for a mother? He is a singular
fellow,—a ‘regular character,’ as the saying is. He has the greatest
aversion to giving expression to his feelings, and fancies that he hides
them,—though he succeeds about as well as the fabled ostrich. The truth
is, he has the warmest attachment for Lucy (I wish it were only a little
warmer), but a still greater affection for her mother. There are, in
fact,” added Mr. Whacker, lowering his voice into a mysterious whisper,
“peculiar reasons for his devotion to her and hers to him,—but it is a
sad story which I will not go into; but, for ten or fifteen years—ever,
at least, since a cruel bereavement she experienced—he has made it a
rule to spend, if at all possible, one night of every week under her
roof. This weekly visit is a pleasure to Charley, but it seems to be a
necessity with poor Mrs. Poythress. No weather can keep him back. Fair
or foul, go he will; and, on one occasion, he spent a night in the
water, clinging to his capsized boat. ‘I can’t help it, Uncle Tom,’ he
will say; ‘she misses my visit so.’”
“My God!” cried the stranger, in a voice of piercing anguish; and,
leaping from his seat, he stood with his temples pressed between his
hands and his powerful frame convulsed with emotion.
Had my grandfather been a man of more tact, he could not have failed to
remark in the dancing eyes, twitching mouth, and pallid features of his
guest the symptoms of a coming storm. As it was, it burst upon him like
a bolt from a cloudless sky. He stood aghast; and to the eager inquiring
glances of Charley, who had sprung into the room on hearing the cry and
the noise of the falling chair, he could only return, for answer, a look
of utter bewilderment. The stranger had turned, on Charley’s entrance
upon the scene, and was supporting his head upon his hand, against the
sash of the rear window.
“I cannot _imagine_!” silently declaimed and disclaimed my grandfather.
“I hope—” began Charley, advancing.
The Guest, as though afraid to trust his voice, with a turn of his head
flashed a kindly smile upon Charley, accompanied by a deprecatory motion
of the hand, and again averted his face as though not yet master of his
features; but, a moment after, he straightened himself, suddenly, and
turning, advanced towards his host.
“Mr. Whacker,” he began, with a grave smile, “I beg you a thousand
pardons. There are certain parallelisms in life—I mean that you
inadvertently touched a chord that quite overmastered me for the moment.
Forgive me.” And, taking my grandfather’s hand, he bowed over it with
deep humility. Turning then to Charley, who, the reader will bear in
mind, had not heard the words of Mr. Whacker that had wrought the
explosion, the Guest, to Charley’s great astonishment, grasped both his
hands with a fervid grip, but averted look; then abruptly dropping his
hands, he seized his hat and strode out of the door; leaving our two
friends in blank amazement. They stood staring at each other with wide
eyes. At last, Charley raised his hand and tapped his forehead with his
forefinger, then went to the door and looked out.
“By Jove,” cried he, “he is making straight for the river!” And, hatless
as he was, he sprang to the ground and started after him, at a run—for
the Guest was swinging along with giant strides. Charley’s heart beat
quick, when the stranger, reaching the shore, stopped suddenly,
stretching out both his arms toward the opposite bank with wild,
passionate gestures. The pursuer was about to cry out, when the pursued,
turning sharply to the left, moved on again, as rapidly as before. It
was then that, either hearing Charley’s hurrying steps, or by chance
turning his head, he saw that he was followed. He stopped instantly;
and, coming forward to meet Charley:
“I must ask pardon again,” said he, with extended hand. “I should have
told you that I was going out for a good long walk. I shall be back
before dinner.”
“All right!”
The Guest doffed his hat and began to move on again; but Charley, seized
with a sudden remnant of suspicion, stopped him with a motion of his
hand. “Remember,” said he, going close up to him, and speaking in a low
but earnest tone,—“remember, you have two good friends yonder.” And,
with a toss of his upturned thumb, he pointed, over his shoulder,
towards the house, which lay behind them; and young Frobisher, feeling
that he had said much, cast his eyes upon the ground, bashful as a girl.
“I believe you,” said the guest; “and,” he added with earnestness, “the
belief is much to me—_much_,—see you at dinner.”
Charley, returning, found Mr. Whacker standing on the lawn, awaiting,
with some anxiety, his report.
“It’s all right, I think. Look at him! See how he is booming along the
bank! But, Uncle Tom, how on earth did you and Mr. Smith manage to get
up those theatricals?!”
“Hang me if I know! We were talking, as quietly as possible, about some
trivial matter or other,—entirely trivial, I assure you,—and, all of a
sudden, up he leaped in the air as though he had been shot. Let me see,
what _were_ we talking about?” And Mr. Whacker rested his forehead upon
his hand. “Let—me—see. No, I can’t for the life of me remember. The
‘theatricals,’ as you call them, must have driven everything out of my
head; but they were nothings that we were saying, I assure you.”
“You remember that, when I left the room, you were teasing me about not
falling in love with Lucy Poythress?”
“Yes, yes, yes; now I have it! Well, after you went out, I told him what
friends you and Mrs. Poythress were, and how you paid her a weekly
visit, rain or shine,—ah, yes, and how once you were upset, when you
would cross the river in spite of my remonstrances, and so on and so
on.”
“That was all?”
“Every word. Why, you were not out of the room two minutes!”
“H’m!” And Charley slowly filled his pipe, and, lighting it, went out
upon the lawn, where he walked haltingly up and down for some time.
Quickly raising his eyes at last, and fixing them inquiringly upon the
Poythress mansion, nestling across the river, in its clump of trees, he
gazed at it with a look, now intent, now abstracted. “Can it be?” he
muttered; and he stood long, chin upon breast, buried in thought; but
what these thoughts were he breathed to no man.