Never, perhaps, was there a merrier Christmas party than that which was
now laughing and chattering as they seated themselves before that noble
hickory fire which lit up the Hall with its ruddy glow. The pleasantest
thing of all was to see the happy change that had come over the Don. He
was a different man. That air of self-restraint and conscious reserve,
which had never left him before, had entirely vanished. It was evident
that, whatever his motives for concealing his musical talents, it was an
immense relief to him to have abandoned the singular rôle he had been
playing; and his long-imprisoned feelings had bounded up like a released
spring. We hardly knew him. He was not only unconstrained and cheerful,
he was even jolly. “I say, old boy,” said he, slapping Jones on the
shoulder, “you must not suppose that it was I who laid that trap for you
yesterday evening. My playing was purely unintentional,—even
involuntary. But who could have resisted Uncle Tom?” This was the first
time he had ever called my grandfather by that name.
“No apologies, no apologies,” replied Billy. “Mr. Charles Frobisher set
that snare for my unwary feet.”
“Not at all,” rejoined Charley. “I kept my wary feet out of it, that was
all.”
“But wasn’t it capital!” cried Jones; and showing all his massive white
teeth, he made the hall resound with a laugh that echoed contagiously
from group to group.
But there was one person in the room who did not share in the general
joyousness,—our friend Mary. She had taken her stand apart, by a window
that commanded the western horizon; and turning with a half-startled
air, at the sound of the laughter, responded to it with a faint and
preoccupied smile. In truth, the poor child was ill at ease; though what
it was that troubled that young heart none of my readers, I feel
assured, would ever guess. Yet, while to most of them the cause of her
annoyance will appear whimsical in the extreme, as it was characteristic
of her to suffer from such a cause, I must state it, and towards this
end a few prefatory words will be necessary.
Neither the Virginians nor the American people, nor any branch of the
great race from which they spring, are lovers of music. Our boys, it is
true, will troop up and down the streets of village or city, following
the band-wagon of a circus. We manufacture an enormous number of the
very best pianos in the world, and thousands of our girls labor for
years learning to play a few tunes on them. Mothers without number pinch
themselves that their daughters may have the desired instruction. It is
the correct thing. Yet, her graduating concert over, her piano soon
ceases to constitute any more considerable element of a girl’s
happiness, or that of her family, than her copy of Euclid.
Yet, although English of the purest breed, there are Virginians who
really love music; just as you shall find Spaniards with red hair,
bashful Irishmen, women with beards, hens that crow, bullies with
courage, mules without guile, and short sermons and true happiness. I do
not allude to our charming girls who flock to the occasional opera that
visits Richmond,—for in Richmond, as elsewhere, there are dozens of
reasons for flocking to the opera.
No; I had in my mind the far-famed Virginia fidddler—mock him not, ye
profane—who, though frowned upon by the moralist, viewed askance from
the pulpit, without honor as without profit in his own country, still
scrapes away as merrily as he can under the load of obloquy that weighs
him down. But his devotion, if heroic, wins him no glory; for the people
of Virginia, forgetting, with the usual ingratitude of republics, Thomas
Jefferson and Patrick Henry, regard the worthlessness of the whole
fiddling tribe as axiomatic. Nay, worse, there is a vague feeling that
the thing is vulgar.
Now, in that word lies the key to Mary Rolfe’s distress of mind. Born
and bred in the midst of that singularly pure, and simple, and refined
society of Richmond in the ante-bellum days, inheriting from her father
a love of all that was most beautiful in English prose and verse, as
well as led by his hand to the nooks where were to be culled its
choicest flowers; her manners formed and her instincts moulded by her
mother upon the classic types of Virginia patrician life of the olden
time, she was more than a representative of her class. The refined
delicacy of her nature amounted, if not to a fault, at least to a
misfortune. In the society of those like herself she was easy, affable,
winning; but the slightest deviation from high breeding chilled her into
silence and unconquerable reserve. The most trivial social solecism
shocked, vulgarity stunned her.
And fiddling!
According to her high-wrought soul the thing was unworthy of a
gentleman. Nor is this so much to be wondered at, for, although
distinguished violinists had visited Richmond, it so happened that she
had never heard one. Her knowledge of violin music was confined to
fiddling pure and simple,—the compositions, jigs and reels; the
performers, as a rule, negroes.
If, then, I have in any measure succeeded in depicting Mary as she
really was,—an exquisitely refined, oversensitive girl just out of
school, her head full of poetry and romance, her heart beginning to
flutter with a sweet pain in presence of an Ideal Hero, so suddenly, so
strangely encountered,—my reader (being a woman) will appreciate the
shock she felt on that Christmas morning. It will be remembered that it
was Aunt Phœbe who had been the first to describe the Don’s performance
to the young ladies.
“Play de fiddle? Can _he_ play de fiddle? I b’lieve you, honey! Why,
Lor’ bless me, I do p’int’ly b’lieve into my soul dat Mr. Smith is de
top fiddler of de Nunited States!”
A fiddler! And a top fiddler! Shades of Byron and of Bulwer! Mary felt
an icy numbness at her heart.
Half an hour afterwards, when the two girls were nearly ready for
breakfast, she was standing behind Alice, pinning on her collar.
“Oh, Alice,” cried the little hypocrite, suddenly, as though the thought
had but just occurred to her, “what charming music we shall have now!”
“Oo-ee,” cried Alice, shrinking.
“Ah, did I prick your neck?”
“Yes; but no matter. Oh, yes, I am just dying to hear him play,—and
play he shall, or my name is not Alice Carter. There you go again! Bear
in mind, please, that the collar is to be pinned to my dress, not to my
lovely person. What _could_ have induced him to hide such an
accomplishment!” added she, stamping her little foot.
“There! That sets very nicely! I don’t know what made me so awkward. So
you think it is—wait a moment,—ah, that’s just right,—an
accomplishment?”
One man in a thousand may acquire somewhat of the art, but every woman
is born a perfect actress. True, you shall not see this perfection on
the stage. There the ambition of women is to be actresses, rather than
actresses women.
It was perfect! But Alice was not thrown off the scent.
Men can deceive men; men may hoodwink women, and be hoodwinked in turn;
but it has not been given to one woman to throw dust into the eyes of
another. The silliest girl can see through the most astute as though she
were of glass.
“An accomplishment? What? To pin people’s collars to their necks?”
“Of course not, goosey! An accomplishment for gentlemen to play on the
fid—violin?”
“Oh!” said Alice, dryly. “Why, of course it is. Any art which gives
pleasure is an accomplishment.”
“Yes, I know; but—”
“Go on.”
“I don’t think it is—exactly—oh, I don’t know what I think about it.”
“But I do,” replied Alice, quickly, turning and facing her friend.
“And what do you know that I think, that I do not know myself?” said
Mary, putting her hands on Alice’s shoulders, drawing her close, and
smiling affectionately into her eyes.
“Don’t you remember my laughing, once, at school, over the story about
Alcibiades’ refusing to learn to play on the flute, because he deemed
the necessary puckering of the mouth undignified, and that you thought
he was right? Heroes, my dear, according to your romantic notions, must
always be heroic.”
“Heroes!” exclaimed Mary, with wide-eyed innocence. “Who, pray,
mentioned heroes!” But a heightened color tinged her cheeks.
Alice, without making reply, placed her hand over Mary’s heart, and
stood as though counting its beats. “’Tis a dear little heart,” mused
she, “but—”
“But what?”
“But very susceptible, I fear.” And lifting her right hand, she shook
her forefinger at her friend. “Take care!” said she, with a voice and
look half serious, half jocular.
“Oh, don’t be uneasy about me!” And with a bright smile on her flushed
face Mary frisked away to join some of the other girls who were
descending to the breakfast-room.
Falling in love is like getting drunk,—we blush when we betray symptoms
of the malady, yet rejoice in its progress!