A NEW PIANO
Richard Lister had been a placid, comfortable baby, though his birth had
followed a period of deep anguish in his mother's life. To her he was a
miracle, an incredible phenomenon, his dependence upon her for every
need of his little being the most heavenly experience she had ever had.
He slept a proper and wholesome number of hours and remained awake long
enough for ample petting, and for the first twelve years of his life he
was scarcely out of her sight. She tended him awake and watched him
while he slept, enduring with considerable pain the sight of him in the
arms of any one except his father or Thomasina Davis or 'Manda.
When he was five years old, she entered upon a period of anxiety whose
beginning she had set for this time. She compelled herself to realize
that she could not have him always; that the small imitations of mannish
clothes which he wore would be presently exchanged for full-grown
originals which he would put on and off without her aid. He would have,
moreover, some day a wife who would supersede his mother in the
delectable kingdom of his heart.
She began also to anticipate the moment when she must begin to
discipline him, and to dread the various forms of infant crime for which
she searched her mind. Presently he would cease to obey promptly; he
would refuse to put his toys away neatly on the low shelf of the
cupboard assigned to him; he would stamp and scream like other naughty
little boys. He might, alas, take pennies from her pocketbook. Then
there would be the fondness for tobacco and playing-cards on whose
account he would have to be struggled with and possibly whipped. She had
never been whipped, and she had good reason to doubt the efficacy of
whipping, but she would not allow her own observation to contradict
Biblical injunction. No one but herself, however, should lay hand or
switch upon Richard, hideous as such necessity would be to her.
But Richard needed no whipping and his mother could decide upon no
moment when the discipline, to which she had given so many hours of
anxious thought, should begin. He continued, up to and long past the age
of five, to be the most biddable little child that ever lived, satisfied
with what he had, requiring no other companionship than that of his
father and mother and 'Manda, playing a great deal by himself, and never
screaming or stamping or taking pennies from pocketbooks. He liked, as
he grew older, to have little Cora Scott come to play with him, but to
the Scotts he would not go without his mother, having a wholly
justifiable fear of Walter.
He was allowed each pleasant morning in summer to cross the broad,
grassy field back of the campus to a little stream, tin bait-can,
fishing-rod, and package of lunch in hand, and a great old straw hat of
his father's on his head. As he sat and fished, 'Manda could watch him
from the kitchen window and his mother could gloat over him from a
window above. Even Dr. Lister left his work once an hour to see how he
fared. If it were a baking morning 'Manda would go down with a fresh
patty-cake or a handful of cookies.
Luck was always poor with Richard, probably because he sang constantly
while he fished. His repertoire was composed of hymns and songs of a
rather solemn cast. He was particularly fond of the lengthy liturgical
service of the church, and prayed the Lord a hundred times in a morning
to have mercy upon him. The fervor with which he expressed this plea
frightened his mother, who feared that such intense emotion indicated a
spirit not long for this world.
Sometimes in the evenings he and 'Manda held a concert at the kitchen
door, 'Manda in her rocking-chair on the porch, Richard on the lowest
step, hands on knees, eyes gazing upon the meadow with its shadowy trees
and its myriad fireflies or looking up at the stars. 'Manda was loath to
leave upon such occasions and sat long after the hour when she was
usually in the colored settlement.
Richard was the soloist and always selected and began the hymns.
Frequently the two took liberties with the original form. Richard made a
long pause after each line of "I was a wandering sheep," and 'Manda's
rich contralto inserted an eerie, tender, indescribably deep and rich
"po' lamb!" The refrain varied constantly and the variety indicated a
keen instinct for harmony.
When he changed to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," or "Hallelu," or "These
Bones Shall Rise Again," 'Manda ceased to rock, and bending forward,
hands on knees, joined in at the beginning, her rich voice furnishing a
background for the child's soprano with its piercing sweetness. In her
performance was all the savagery of deepest Africa and besides all
spiritual meanings and desires. Thomasina Davis, sitting often with Dr.
and Mrs. Lister on the porch on the other side of the house, commanded
every one to stop and listen.
"It makes clear the universal kinship of believers," said she with
shining eyes. "There are a hundred thrilling suggestions in that duet of
blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon and black-haired African."
Dr. Lister smiled back at Thomasina. Mrs. Lister did not understand
exactly what she meant, but she smiled also and obeyed willingly the
command for silence. No sound in the world was so sweet to her as
Richard's voice.
Little Richard liked also to preach. The audience which he usually
selected was, like that of St. Anthony, one of fishes. In imagination he
saw before him, from his pulpit on the bank, a decorous congregation and
a tuneful choir. His performance, while it shocked his mother, yet gave
her hope that he might incline toward the ministry. Her father, for whom
he was named, had had theological training and used to preach in the
college church. It seemed to her often that she could see in Richard's
solemn gestures a resemblance to those of the grave old man.
Richard's discourses suggested no such probability to his father,
eavesdropping from behind a convenient tree. They were pleasant to Dr.
Lister, who sometimes feared that a boy who was never uproarious, who
always remembered to wipe his shoes on the mat, and who never carried
toads or mice in his pockets, might be too amiable and good. He wished
for a little temper, a little disobedience, a little steel under the
satin. When Richard cried out, "Oh, you darned fishes!" in imitation of
the ice man whom Mrs. Lister could neither silence nor reform, his
father was convulsed.
When Richard grew older and ceased to sing, his mother, while she missed
his hymns, was content. Thus had Basil sung when he was a little boy. At
Thomasina's suggestion, Richard had begun early to take music lessons
from her. Except that he had often to be summoned from the old piano to
other duties, and that he often called to his mother to listen to little
melodies which he invented or to certain resolutions of chords which
pleased him, and which were to her ear like any other musical sounds, he
gave no disturbing sign of special interest in music. Sometimes he
repeated stories of musicians which Thomasina told him, about Beethoven
who was an accomplished player at the age of nine, and who had become
deaf when he had scarcely left his youth, and about Handel who had
become blind. Richard's face would glow and his eyes shine with tears.
"Could you imagine, mother, how he felt when he knew that he could never
hear again? He never heard his greatest works. Think of it, mother,
what a fearful thing that would be!"
Mrs. Lister could not imagine it and would not think of it, having but
slight conception of the pleasures which harmonious sound can give to
the ear of the musician. Thus had Basil called upon her for sympathy in
his strange, incomprehensible satisfactions. She wished that Thomasina
would not tell Richard such stories.
Richard was always busy. He kept a series of little notebooks, neatly
indexed; he cut clippings from newspapers and filed them away; he
divided his day into periods for each sort of study, for exercise, and
for play.
Soon after he entered college, his voice returned, a clear, serviceable
tenor. He led the Glee Club which then took no long journeys round the
country, but sang for its own amusement and that of the college, and he
played the chapel organ and the assembly room piano. He continued to
practice at home, but his practice was chiefly that of dull exercises
and unending scales which roused no alarm in his mother's breast, and
which his father regarded fearfully as the indication of a rather feeble
intellect seeking exercise which involved no mental or physical effort.
Richard called out no more with tears, "Oh, mother, did you know that
Handel was blind?" cried out no more, "Oh, mother, listen!" in ecstasy
over some sound which he had produced, no more, "That is to be played
_delicatessimente_, mother. Isn't that a beautiful word?" Richard's
musical passion, at least so it seemed to his mother, had died a
natural death. She could not quite understand why he sought the society
of Cora Scott so seldom and that of Thomasina for several hours
daily--but that was a choice to be thankful for at his age.
In the fall he would have to begin in earnest to prepare for whatever
profession he was to follow. So far there had been no family discussion
of this matter. Mrs. Lister had not quite given up her hopes that he
might become a preacher. Of the other professions open to him, medicine,
law, and teaching, she hoped that he would choose teaching. Then they
could all stay here, forever.
As a matter of fact--alas, for poor Mrs. Lister!--Richard's plans were
made, and of them in their entirety one person knew beside himself.
Under Richard's satin there was steel. His life-work had been selected
and he meant to begin to-morrow. His Commencement money would buy him a
clavier and to it he intended to devote the summer. He could have it in
his own room where it would disturb no one and where he could look upon
it when he woke and practice upon it when he was supposed to be in bed.
He knew that his mother was not fond of music, but his mother would let
him have his way, had always let him have his way. He did not realize
that thus far his way had been hers. In the fall he would go to study
with Faversham in New York, and therefore it was probable that he would
be at home no more. Thus lightly does youth arrange for itself. If poor
Mary Alcestis could have looked into Richard's mind as he sat beside her
at the dinner table when Commencement was over, and could there have
read its hopes and plans so alien to her own, her heart would have been
nearly broken.
Thomasina Davis was not sanguine about Mrs. Lister's easy yielding to
Richard's wishes. She was prepared to talk to his parents by the hour if
need be; she would have been willing to live on bread and water and go
without shoes so that he should be able to study. She was determined to
behold in him the fruit of her labors. Faversham had been a fellow pupil
in the three happy years away from Waltonville; to send Richard Lister
to him with supple, well-trained fingers and with fine taste, to have
Richard say to him that he was a pupil of Thomasina Davis, was a reward
she had promised herself since Richard had sat beside her piano on a
high chair, enchanted by her music. Thomasina, unlike Mrs. Lister, had a
profound respect, an adoration, indeed, for genius. This adoration was
innate, but it owed its strength to certain events in her past, a past
which seemed to Mrs. Lister to have been pathetically empty of most of
women's joys.
When Commencement and the Commencement dinner were over, Richard felt
suddenly restless. He realized that there was nothing that he must do,
that no lessons waited. He sat for a while talking with his mother's
guests, then he went out to the kitchen, meaning to escape across the
campus to the chapel and play. That was what he wanted and needed, the
touch of the smooth keys under his fingers, the sound of the full, rich
organ tones, to give him, instead of this sense of idleness and
emptiness, a consciousness of all the work that was beginning.
But there were obstacles in the way of his playing. The chapel organ and
the assembly room piano were public; he would have an audience in a few
minutes, and he did not wish an audience. If he could find some one to
play duets with him, he would have the volume of sound for which his ear
longed. Thomasina was away; only Cora Scott remained. Cora did not read
well, but they could play compositions which she knew.
'Manda paused in her dishwashing to regard him with a warm and beaming
glance which expressed entire sympathy with him in his flight.
"Goin' to git out, honey?"
"Yes, 'Mandy, I'se goin' to git out."
Making a wide détour in the shrubbery and round the back of the chapel,
he approached the Scotts' porch. Then he stopped short. There in white
splendor sat the stranger whom he had seen that morning in the chapel
gallery. He turned promptly away.
"No sitting for an hour listening to that!" said he.
Then it was, swayed by the slight incident of Evan Utterly's presence,
that Richard, who had hitherto sailed in such a calm domestic stream,
turned his boat into another and an alien channel. He said to himself
that he would play, that he would perish if he did not play. He
considered going to Thomasina's, even though she was not at home and
rousing 'Melia from her afternoon nap to let him in. But when he had
reached Thomasina's gate, he thought of Eleanor Bent.
Eleanor played well; he had heard her at Thomasina's. She was pretty and
bright, but not very friendly. There was, he believed, something queer
about her and her mouselike little mother. He had a vague feeling that
his own mother would not quite approve of his going to their house.
But he had set his mind upon playing the Eighth Symphony, and, if
possible, several other symphonies. He had, he remembered suddenly and
happily, a volume of music belonging to Eleanor Bent, which he had
carried away by accident from Thomasina's. He would take this round to
Eleanor, and if she were not cordial or the piano not tolerable, he
would come away.
With the same care he stole back through the shrubbery to the kitchen
door and succeeded, after ludicrous blunders, in getting through 'Manda
the volume which he sought. As he crossed the campus again, he saw
Utterly rising from his chair. But the die was cast; it was with Eleanor
Bent that he wished to play and not with Cora Scott. He kept on his way
through the college gate and down the broad street which led to the
other side of the town, whistling softly as he went, and feeling a sense
of freedom and adventure.
Mrs. Bent let him in from the little front porch to the neat little
hall. He explained that he was Richard Lister and that he had come to
return a book of Eleanor's, and she invited him into the parlor, saying
that Eleanor would appear in a few minutes. Eleanor had had a surprise,
she explained, which had delayed their dinner. Her cheeks were flushed;
she seemed to be excited.
There was nothing queer to Richard's eye, either in Mrs. Bent, or, at
his first glance, in the interior of her little house. All was fresh and
neat and simple and in good taste. There was a picture opposite the
door, a view of the Castel Angelo, exactly like one which hung in his
father's study; there were pretty curtains, there was--Richard stopped
short in the doorway, the bright color in his fair cheeks fading rapidly
away and then as suddenly returning. Here before him in the parlor of
this little gray house, unknown of him, was a new piano! Moreover, it
was a magnificent grand piano, finer than Thomasina's, finer, indeed,
than any piano he had ever seen. He did not need to read the name on the
front; its very shape was familiar to him from catalogues at which he
had gazed in inexpressible longing.
"Why, Mrs. Bent!" cried Richard.
Mrs. Bent smiled in her frightened way at his confusion and delight.
"That is the surprise," said she. "It is hers. It came while she was at
the exercises."
"It looks as though it hadn't been touched!"
"It hasn't. She had sort of a queer spell when she saw it"--was that
right, or was it "seen"?--"I said she would better eat something."
"It was a surprise to her?"
"Yes."
"How glorious! I wish some one would surprise me that way!"
Left alone, Richard walked round and round staring at the shining
rosewood and the gleaming keys. He had expected--he almost laughed aloud
as he remembered--an upright piano of a poor make, covered with a velvet
cover laden with vases and photographs. Thus was the Scott piano
decorated. And here was really a grand piano, and the best grand piano
that could be bought! If he might only play it!
Eleanor found him walking about. She held out her hand, like her mother
all excitement and friendliness. She still wore her beautiful
embroidered dress, full in the skirt and low in the neck. Her hair was
ruffled and her eyes more than ever brilliant.
There were no introductory explanations. Richard forgot to say why he
had come, never explained, indeed, until long afterward when together,
as is the custom of those in like case, they made each impulse, each
trivial incident of their association the subject of conversation.
"It hasn't been touched," said Eleanor. "When I saw it I forgot how to
play!"
"Does Miss Thomasina know about it?"
"She selected it in Baltimore. She had known about it for weeks and I
knew nothing. It doesn't seem as though it could be real. Will you, oh,
will you play it first?"
Richard turned pale once more.
"I'm not sure that I can play either. I'm not sure that I ever touched
a piano!"
"Oh, you can! Something with great, heavy, rolling, smashing chords. I
know that if I touch it it will disappear, and I can't possibly wait
till Miss Thomasina comes home. I never could have got through
Commencement if I had known it was here."
"Nor I. If I had met it, I would have followed it like the children
follow the elephant, and some one else might have saluted the audience.
It makes Commencement seem like three cents."
"Now, play!" commanded Eleanor. "Mother!"
Mrs. Bent came to the door. Richard saw her look at her daughter, and
the glance was worth coming farther than this to see. It adored her,
swept over her from head to foot, devoured her. Something of its
intensity entered into Richard. Eleanor was older than he; she had stood
ahead of him in school; she had scarcely spoken to him a dozen times;
but she became in that moment a creature to be admired, to be cherished.
Life changed for him, boyhood was left behind. He met Eleanor's eyes and
saw in them youth, curiosity about himself, restlessness, a reflection,
it seemed to him, of the confused emotions of his own heart. It was
Eleanor's gaze which first turned away.
"The concert is going to begin, mother."
Mrs. Bent sat down in the bay window and Eleanor took a chair from which
she could watch Richard's beautiful hands. Once after he had taken his
place on the stool, he looked into her eager face, then he let his
hands fall upon the keys. He shut his eyes to keep back starting tears.
He remembered that some one had said that life held few moments to which
a man would say, "Stay, thou art so fair!" The saying was not true. Here
was such a moment; there would be for him, he knew, a thousand more.
A Schumann Nachtstück, a Bach Prelude, a Mozart Sonata rolled from under
his fingers, which then danced into a jig, performances allowed by
Thomasina. There were others, forbidden except under her own direction
and in careful, studious sections. These Richard now hazarded boldly and
played them not ill. A dozen compositions finished, he whirled round
upon the piano stool.
"Won't you play, now?"
"I can't."
"Will you play with me?"
"There is nothing here."
"I brought the second volume of Beethoven with me."
"I will try," promised Eleanor.
Richard spread the music open on the rack. Both had been trained by
Thomasina, both played easily and well, both knew their parts. Shoulders
and hands touched; sometimes Richard laughed aloud from sheer pleasure,
sometimes he sang an air, sometimes he stopped to give directions. At
that Eleanor laughed a little nervously. Richard seemed to all his mates
to hold himself above them, to be dictatorial. He had seemed all of this
to Eleanor, but now she obeyed instantly.
In the bay window Mrs. Bent sat and watched. She could not have looked
at them with anything but pleasure. Eleanor was so young, so pretty.
There was no mother in Waltonville who would not have been pleased to
see her daughter playing duets with Richard Lister.
But a shadow had settled on Mrs. Bent's face. The look which had
transfigured her changed to a look of anxiety and trouble. She had years
ago made wise plans for her life and Eleanor's--they had begun to seem
now not wise, but insane. They were wicked, because they were made in
one of the rages into which she had fallen, like her father, in her
youth; they were stupid, because they had taken no account of the
future; and they were selfish, because they had taken no account of
anything but her own fury.
When Dr. Green drove by in his buggy, Mrs. Bent laid her hand with a
gesture which was almost melodramatic across her heart, and stared after
him, as though the sight of him had for an instant illuminated her
despair. In another instant, however, the shadow returned to her face
and she bent over her sewing.
Dr. Green drove by, returned and passed again, drove a mile or two into
the country and passed the fourth time. He thought that Eleanor was
playing, and he said, "Good for her!" He took a great deal of credit to
himself for Eleanor.
The afternoon light softened, shadows began to spread over the little
garden. When Richard rose to go, Mrs. Bent had vanished, and the two
young people looked at each other, startled and a little bewildered,
trying to hide their confusion. Eleanor did not say "Come back," nor did
Richard ask whether he might come again, but the volume was left open on
the piano.