AT HOME.
When the Raymounts reached London, hardly taking time to unpack her box,
Hester went to see her music-mistress, and make arrangement for
re-commencing study with her.
Miss Dasomma was one of God's angels; for if he makes his angels winds,
and his ministers a flaming fire, much more are those live fountains
which carry his gifts to their thirsting fellows his angels. Meeting not
very rarely with vulgar behavior in such as regarded her from the
heights of rank or money, she was the more devoted to a pupil who looked
up to her as she deserved, recognizing in her a power of creation. Of
Italian descent, of English birth, and of German training, she had lived
in intimacy with some of the greatest composers of her day, but the
enthusiasm for her art which possessed her was mainly the outcome of her
own genius. Hence it was natural that she should exercise a forming
influence on every pupil at all worthy of her, and without her Hester
could never have become what she was. For not merely had she opened her
eyes to a vision of Music in something of her essential glory, but,
herself capable of the hardest and truest work, had taught her the
absolute necessity of labor to one who would genuinely enjoy, not to say
cause others to enjoy, what the masters in the art had brought out of
the infinite. Hester had doubtless heard and accepted the commonplaces
so common concerning the dignity and duty of labor--as if labor mere
were anything irrespective of its character, its object and end! but
without Miss Dasomma she would not have learned that Labor is grand
officer in the palace of Art; that at the root of all ease lies slow,
and, for long, profitless-seeming labor, as at the root of all grace
lies strength; that ease is the lovely result of forgotten toil, sunk
into the spirit, and making it strong and ready; that never worthy
improvisation flowed from brain of poet or musician unused to perfect
his work with honest labor; that the very disappearance of toil is by
the immolating hand of toil itself. He only who bears his own burden can
bear the burden of another; he only who has labored shall dwell at ease,
or help others from the mire to the rock.
Miss Dasomma was ready to begin at once, and Hester gradually increased
her hours of practice, till her mother interfered lest she should injure
her health. But there was in truth little danger, for Hester was forcing
nothing--only indulging to the full her inclination, eager to perfect
her own delight, and the more eager that she was preparing delight for
others.
They had not been home more than a week, when one Sunday morning, that
is at four o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Vavasor called--which was not
quite agreeable to Mrs. Raymount, who liked their Sundays kept quiet. He
was shown to Mr. Raymount's study.
"I am sorry," he said, "to call on a Sunday, but I am not so enviably
situated as you, Mr. Raymount; I have not my time at my command. When
other people make their calls. I am a prisoner."
He spoke as if his were an exceptional case, and the whole happy world
beside reveled in morning calls.
Mr. Raymount was pleased with him afresh, for he spoke modestly, with
implicit acknowledgment of the superior position of the elder man. They
fell to talking of the prominent question of the day, and Mr. Raymount
was yet more pleased when he found the young aristocrat ready to receive
enlightenment upon it. But the fact was that Vavasor cared very little
about the matter, and had a facility for following where he was led;
and, always preferring to make himself agreeable where there was no
restraining reason, why should he not gratify the writer of articles by
falling in with what he advanced? He had a light, easy way of touching
on things, as if all his concessions, conclusions, and concurrences were
merest matter of course; and thus making himself appear master of the
situation over which he merely skimmed on insect-wing. Mr. Raymount took
him not merely for a man of thought but one of some originality
even--capable at least of forming an opinion of his own, as is, he was
in the habit of averring, not one in ten thousand.
In relation to the wider circle of the country, Mr. Vavasor was so
entirely a nobody, that the acquaintance of a writer even so partially
known as Mr. Raymount was something to him. There is a tinselly halo
about the writer of books that affects many minds the most
_practical_, so called; they take it to indicate power, which, with
most, means ability in the direction of one's own way, or his party's,
and so his own in the end. Since his return he had instituted inquiries
concerning Mr. Raymount, and finding both him and his family in good
repute, complained of indeed as exclusive, he had told his aunt as much
concerning them as he judged prudent, hinting it would give him pleasure
if she should see fit to call upon Mrs. Raymount. Miss Vavasor being,
however, naturally jealous of the judgment of young men, pledged herself
to nothing, and made inquiries for herself. Learning thereby at length,
after much resultless questioning--for her world but just touched in its
course the orbit of that of the Raymounts--that there was rather a
distinguished-looking girl in the family, and having her own ideas for
the nephew whose interests she had, for the sake of the impending title
made her own, she delayed and put off and talked the thing over, and at
last let it rest; while he went the oftener to see the people she thus
declined calling upon.
On this his first visit he stayed the evening, and was afresh installed
as a friend of the family. Although it was Sunday, and her ideas also a
little strict as to religious proprieties, Hester received him cordially
where her mother received him but kindly; and falling into the old ways,
he took his part in the hymns, anthems, and what other forms of sacred
music followed the family-tea: and so the evening passed without
irksomeness--nor the less enjoyably that Cornelius was spending it with
a friend.
The tone, expression, and power of Hester's voice astonished Vavasor
afresh. He was convinced, and told her so, that even in the short time
since he heard it last, it had improved in all directions. And when,
after they had had enough of singing, she sat down and extemporized in a
sacred strain, turning the piano almost into an organ with the sympathy
of her touch, and weaving holy airs without end into the unrolling web
of her own thought, Vavasor was so moved as to feel more kindly disposed
toward religion--by which he meant "going to church, and all that sort
of thing, don't you know? "--than ever in his life before. He did not
call the next Sunday, but came on the Saturday; and the only one present
who was not pleased with him was Miss Dasomma, who happened also to
spend the evening there.
I have already represented Hester's indebtedness to her teacher as such
that therein she would be making discoveries all her life. Devout as
well as enthusiastic, human as well as artistic, she was not an angel of
music only, but had for many years been a power in the family for
good--as indeed in every family in which she counted herself doing
anything worth doing. Much too generous and helpful to have saved money,
she was now, in middle age, working as hard as she had ever worked in
her youth. Not a little experienced in the ways of the world, and
possessing a high ideal in the memories of a precious friendship,
against which to compare the ways of smaller mortals, she did not find
her atmosphere gladdened by the presence of Mr. Vavasor's. With tact
enough to take his cue from the family, he treated her with studious
politeness; but Miss Dasomma did not like Mr. Vavasor. She had to think
before she could tell why, for there is a spiritual instinct also, which
often takes the lead of the understanding, and has to search and analyze
itself for its own explanation. But the question once roused, she
prosecuted it, and in the shadow of a curtain, while Hester was playing,
watched his countenance, trying to read it--to read, that is, what the
owner of that face never meant to write, but could no more help writing
there than he could help having a face. What a man is lies as certainly
upon his countenance as in his heart, though none of his acquaintance
may be able to read it. Their very intercourse with him may have
rendered it more difficult.
Miss Dasomma's conclusion was, that Vavasor was a man of good
instincts--as perhaps who is not?--but without moral development,
pleased with himself, and not undesirous of pleasing others consistently
with his idea of dignity--at present more than moderately desirous of
pleasing Hester Raymount, therefore showing to the best possible
advantage. "But," thought Miss Dasomma, "if this be his best, what may
not his worst be?" That he had no small capacity for music was plain,
but if, as she judged, the faculty was unassociated in him with truth of
nature, that was so much to the other side of his account, inasmuch as
it rendered him the more dangerous. For, at Hester's feet in the rare
atmosphere and faint twilight of music, how could he fail to impress her
with an opinion of himself more favorable than just? To interfere,
however, where was no solid ground, would be to waste the power that
might be of use; but she was confident that if for a moment Hester saw
him as she did, she could no more look on him with favor. At the same
time she did not think he could be meaning more than the mere passing of
his time agreeably; she knew well the character of his aunt, and the
relation in which he stood to her. In any case she could for the present
only keep a gentle watch over the mind of her pupil. But that pupil had
a better protection in the sacred ambition stirring in her. Concerning
that she had not as yet held communication even with the one best able
to understand it. For Hester had already had sufficient experience to
know that it is a killing thing to talk about what you mean to do. It is
to let the wind in upon a delicate plant, requiring a long childhood
under glass, open to sun and air, closed to wind and frost.