The only objection which Edward Randall had to his new bachelor
apartments was found in the fact, that they looked out upon some very
dingy, dull, and gloomy houses opposite. This had been his chief
obstacle in deciding to take these rooms, but there were advantages
which soon proved a sufficient offset.
The fact that he was the only lodger in Mrs. Green’s extremely
well-ordered house, and that the elderly widow had a delicate feeling
for his old china and other perishable property, and looked after
the cleaning and arranging of his rooms, herself, was a great thing
for him; and the fact, also, that his back windows looked out upon a
beautiful little bit of old garden and a wealth of greenery made the
other outlook seem comparatively unimportant. He had the whole of Mrs.
Green’s second floor, and beyond the sitting-room there was a pleasant,
vine-screened porch supplied with hammocks and easy chairs, where, when
the weather was mild, he could sit and smoke with his friends, or read
or meditate, as the humor of the hour dictated.
He was not over thirty-five, and yet the fact was universally conceded
that he was a confirmed bachelor--a matter of some regret to those of
his friends who held that in that condition his good income, personal
attractions, and lovable domestic qualities were more or less wasted.
The front view from his chambers being unpleasing to him, and the
back view decidedly pleasing, he rarely drew aside the curtains of
the former room, but one morning when he was rather idle, and also in
a state of some uncertainty about the weather, he went to look out
into the street to help him to decide whether or not to go out before
lunch. It was Sunday and rather cloudy, and it seemed to him that the
shabby buildings opposite looked duller and dingier than ever, when his
attention was caught by the opening of the door of the house directly
facing him, and the appearance on the threshold of a young girl. She,
too, it seemed, was in some uncertainty about the weather, for she came
out on the steps and turned her face upwards to investigate the clouds.
In this way, Randall was enabled to get a full and satisfactory view of
this upturned face, which was very beautiful--so beautiful, in fact,
that he felt the survey all too brief, and was conscious of a sense of
strong protest when the girl, with an air of decision, shook out the
folds of a thick blue veil and fastened it around her hat, then taking
up her umbrella and a little book, which she had laid aside in order to
pin on her veil, quickly descended the steps and walked away.
Randall watched her as far as he could, and noted carefully every
detail of her dress, which certainly bordered on shabbiness, and was
poor and plain in material, and yet had for him a certain charm. It
could only have been her figure and her movements which gave this
impression, for, contrasted with some very smart young ladies who
walked in front of her, she was an object dull and colorless enough.
These young ladies had their faces frankly bared to observation, but
Randall turned from them with distaste, to recall the pure young beauty
of the face now closely screened behind that thick veil.
He wondered much about the young girl, for she was undoubtedly rarely
beautiful, and there was an impression caught from her appearance which
distinctly charmed him. The sight of the little book in her hand,
together with the ringing of the church bells, assured him that she was
on her way to church, and for the first time for a very long while, he
felt like going to church, himself.
It was much too late to think of this, however, for his toilet was
not begun, and so he turned back within the room, and lounging in
dressing-gown and slippers, spent an hour reading the morning papers
and smoking. At the end of that time, he started up suddenly and began
his toilet, with an air of haste and impatience. As soon as he was
dressed, he took his hat and gloves and went downstairs. Just as he
opened the front door, he caught sight of the young girl mounting the
steps opposite, on her return home. She was in the act of taking off
her veil, and Randall thought she did so with a certain air of relief
from a bondage which irked her. Once more he got a brief impression of
that young and exquisite face, and then, without having looked at him
at all, she opened the door with a latch-key and entered the gloomy old
house, and the dingy door closed behind her.
Randall went his way, and presently found himself seated at a
beautifully appointed lunch table with a party of gay and brilliant
people, among whom he was made very welcome, and where he laughed and
chattered for an hour, but throughout it all he could not shake off the
impression that this girl had made upon him, and her pure, young face,
and plain, dark garments rose before his vision, as alien to this scene
as the impression of some rapt, ascetic nun.
After lunch there was a general demand that Mr. Randall should play to
them, and rather more obligingly than usual he yielded to the request,
and, going to the piano, he began with certain powerful chords and
impressive pauses, that soon compelled the company to perfect silence
and attention. He was a fine musician, and quite accustomed to having
his playing treated deferentially, but he did not often take the
trouble to play to people as he was playing now. His audience had
expected something light and brilliant, and instead of that it was
only sacred music that he played--harmonies and masses from the great
masters of old, with an improvised arrangement and connection of his
own.
He rose from the piano and said good-bye abruptly, hurrying away from
the enthusiastic praise of his audience, and walking quickly back
to his lodgings, where he spent the remainder of the day. Some men
dropped in to see him, but either they were hurried, or they found him
unamusing, for they presently went away, and at twilight he was left
alone.
More than once, he had gone to look out on the opposite house, but
the dull, gray front of that dismal structure was unsuggestive of the
least hint of its radiant young inmate. When the lamps were lighted, at
last, and the curtains drawn, and the servant, having attended to his
comfort, had left him quite alone for the evening, he opened his piano
and began to play. It must have been for hours that he sat there, with
no music before him, playing on and on, thinking, thinking, thinking
to those beautiful strains.
Of course, he did not fancy anything so absurd as that he was in love
with this young girl, whose face and nearness so possessed him; that
was out of the question. But what he did feel was that a quality in her
face had roused to new being a certain ideal which had once held him,
and which in recent years had been losing its hold.
Randall had an ardent and romantic nature, subdued by circumstance
and rearing into conventional conformity. The passion of his life
was music, and although he was a more or less earnest and successful
lawyer, the hearing of good music and the cultivation of his own
musical gift was the strongest interest of his life. His friends
wondered that he had not married, and, to tell the truth, he wondered
at that fact as much as they. If they were ignorant of his reason
though, he, himself, was not. He knew well that it was because he had,
so far in life, met no woman whose nature and personality made the
appeal to him, and satisfied the desire of his soul, in the way that
music appealed to and satisfied him, and what he wondered at was, that
in all his wide acquaintance he had never seen this woman. He had grown
tired of looking for her, at last, and had even deliberately considered
the advisability of marrying a person who would have compelled a
lowering of his ideal. A real, definite woman had been considered in
this light, a woman with beauty, good breeding, position, and money,
whom he thought he might win; but this woman not only was not musical
herself, but she contradicted the ideal which seemed to go hand in hand
with music in his soul.
No, certainly he was not in love with this opposite neighbor of his,
but the remarkable effect which she had had upon him was to rouse in
him the belief of the possibility of realizing this vanished ideal.
There was something in her that seemed to tell him that what he had
dreamed of might still be. It was her face only that had done this. He
had not seen the outline of her figure, for that had been concealed by
a long black cloak, that was loose from neck to hem. And even more than
this, he had not heard her voice. Randall had always conceived that
his ideal woman would sing, though that was not a necessity with him,
but he was so susceptible to the influence of sound that a coarse, or
nasal, or discordant voice, even in speaking, would have killed the
most fiery love that charm or beauty could arouse. He suddenly felt a
great desire to know if this exquisite girl could sing, or to hear her
speak. It was not so much an emotional stirring of love which she had
aroused in him, as a sort of spirit of intellectual investigation. He
knew that she had a face that might belong to his ideal woman, and he
wondered if her voice would carry out the idea.
These thoughts absorbed him, while he was playing, and he began to
imagine plans by which he might hear her speak or sing. He could think
of nothing, except to follow her to church some Sunday, and get a seat
near her in the hope that she might join in the hymns, but the girl
evidently went out alone and unprotected, and he could not quite get
his consent to following and watching her.
Well, whoever she was, and whatever her nature and qualities, she
had certainly managed to make a greater impression on the not very
susceptible mind of Mr. Edward Randall, than that mind had received for
many a long day. He went to sleep that night with a sense of newness
and strangeness upon him, and he waked next morning with a distinct
impression that some important change had come into his life. When he
remembered what it was he smiled at himself; but all the same, the
impression remained.
For several days Randall watched the house opposite, in the hope of
seeing again this charming girl; but it was in vain. Other people came
and went, for the house was evidently let out to lodgers, but they were
of the most uninteresting of the lodging-house class; indeed, as a
rule, they were such people as it irked him to think of as living under
the same roof with the lovely girl.
One afternoon, however, as he was going out he saw coming down the
steps opposite a tall, slight figure in a long, black cloak, which he
recognized at once, though this time the face was carefully veiled
before coming into the street. This fact seemed a little singular, as
it was getting on toward twilight of a mild spring day. He kept the
tall figure well in sight, as he happened to be going the same way, and
even crossed the street that he might observe her more directly. This
fact put a wide space between them which even his rapid walking did
not soon decrease, as the woman’s figure moved very swiftly, and as if
with some definite and important object. When she came at last to one
of the small public parks that relieved the sense of dense habitation
of that part of the great city, Randall observed ahead of her a little
gathering of people, mostly children, who had collected around an
object which he at once recognized.
A cart and horse were drawn up to the sidewalk, and in this light
wagon was a small, upright piano. The instrument was open, and a man
with a small black mask concealing that part of the face which was
not hidden by a black beard, sat on the stool before it, waiting.
Randall had seen this sort of thing in London, but it was new to him
here. It had no interest for him, however, and he would not have given
the thing another thought had not the woman’s figure, which he was
watching, crossed directly over to this cart and the man before the
piano recognized her with a gesture of satisfaction. He further saw her
go straight to the side of the cart, where she paused a moment to take
off her veil, revealing the fact that she was masked, also. A close
covering of black satin hid the upper part of her face, and a frill of
black lace concealed the mouth and chin. The disguise was absolute, and
he could have formed no idea of the appearance of the woman, had it not
been for the vivid image stamped upon his memory.
He felt a sense of shock at seeing her placed in such a position--a
girl with a face like that, a common street singer! True, the face was
hidden from view, but that air of concealment and mystery made it seem
almost worse. He rebelled, evidently, too, against the thought of the
man with his shabby clothes and unkempt beard. He had half a mind to
turn and fly, but if she was going to sing he must hear her voice. If
it should not match her face, he would be bitterly disappointed--but
if, on the other hand, it should, how could he bear her being in such a
situation as the present one?
As he saw the tall, slight figure mount into the cart, Randall felt
so really agitated over the issue ahead of him, that he sank upon one
of the benches in the square and waited with intense interest for the
music to begin. Some chords were struck upon the piano, introducing a
brief prelude, which the masked man executed in a way that proved him,
to Randall’s cultivated ear, to be a well-trained pianist. But while
the young man recognized this fact, he looked only at the woman. She
wore above her mask a hat with a little brim, under which her hair was
all concealed, and between this and the shape of the mask, which was so
made as to stand a little out from the upper part of the face, he could
not catch even a glimpse of her eyes. Randall had a swift mental vision
of the loveliness, pureness, ideality of that hidden face, that stirred
his heart with a vague sweetness, when suddenly upon this tender mood
there fell a sound which made a discord in the harmony.
It was a woman’s voice, singing a popular air in a manner so finished
and correct that the method of it startled him with surprise and
appreciation, even while the voice itself repelled him. He listened
intently to every note. What was the matter with this voice? It was
that of a thoroughly trained and practiced singer, and yet it seemed as
if, in some way, it had been hurt. The low notes were hard and husky,
the high notes were thin and weak. All of this might be accounted for
by some disastrous illness or throat trouble, but even while he made
this allowance, there was something in the quality, or character, or
individuality of the voice, itself, even when singing the middle notes,
which caused no strain, that stung the man who listened with a sharp
pang of disappointment--a certain quality of hardness, even commonness,
which was the direct contradiction of that fair and sensitive young
face.
The selection ended, and Randall, drawing a deep breath, roused himself
and looked around upon the crowd which had gathered. They were a
motley throng, composed of children, nurses, tramps, policemen, and
aimless idlers of various classes. When Randall remembered the girl’s
face, his heart resented them all violently; when he thought of her
voice, the tones of which still lingered in his ear, he did not care!
But the voice was beginning again, and again he turned and listened.
This time it was Schubert’s serenade that she sang, and her technique
seemed to him absolutely perfect. Her voice, however, was colder,
poorer, more expressionless than before, and he rose as it ended, with
an impatient desire to get away. He could have stood any fault of
method, had the voice itself been beautiful and sympathetic, but the
voice distinctly antagonized him. Before he had moved from his place,
however, he saw the woman getting out of the cart with a little basket
in her hand, and he remembered that he was supposed to pay for the
feast of which he had just partaken. He sat down again, and waited for
her to come to him.
As she drew nearer, and he heard the small coins clinking lightly in
the basket, a feeling of what was almost disgust took possession of
him. He saw looks of bold curiosity turned upon her from every side.
He even heard certain comments, which, when he thought of the face
upturned to the sky that Sunday morning, made him hot with indignation.
When he recalled the voice, however, he was able to control himself.
As the singer approached him, he saw that her eyes, of which he sought
eagerly to catch a glimpse, were uniformly cast down, so that even when
the light fell so as to enable him to penetrate the shadows of the
mask, he saw only a pair of lowered lids.
An idea struck him, and as she came toward him he took a silver dollar
from his pocket and dropped it into the basket. He hoped that the
unusual size of the coin might cause her to look up, but it did not.
She made a little gesture of acknowledgment, as she had done for the
pennies and dimes already received, and walked swiftly on. Even the
hand that held the basket was covered by a thick glove, which revealed
nothing of its shape or character.
As she remounted to her place, handing the basket over to the man,
who poured the contents into his pocket, Randall walked away. His
pace quickened suddenly, as he heard behind him the voice that had
so repelled him, singing with that beautiful method, which compelled
admiration in spite of himself, the words and music of “After the Ball.”
The effect of this experience upon Randall was to make him resolve to
put his opposite neighbor completely out of his head, a thing he might
have accomplished, but for a circumstance which occurred the very next
morning.
The day was very mild and beautiful, and his front windows had been
left wide open by the maid who had done up his room. Randall went to
one of them, and stood with the lace curtains shoved aside by his
elbows, his hands resting lightly in his pockets. The people over the
way seemed to be making the most of the spring sunshine also, for
the windows were open all along, and in some cases, even the doors.
The streets, still damp from yesterday’s rainfall, were sending up a
faint steam under the warm sunshine, and there seemed to be a perfect
epidemic of pavement cleaning in progress. Servant maids with hose or
brooms were working away vigorously, and the fresh young green on the
budding branches rose above all this, as if the toilets of the trees
had been completed before those of the pavements were begun.
Randall had determined to forget his neighbor with the beautiful face
and unbeautiful voice, and in order that he might emphasize this
resolution, he looked hard at the door of her house, which happened to
be one of those that stood open.
He could not penetrate far into the dark chasm of a hall which the
opening revealed, but as he looked, out of the darkness there sprang a
jet black object, which, as it bounded into the street, he saw to be
a rather large black kitten. He knew from its precipitous rush that
someone must be after it, and the someone proved to be the beautiful
young girl.
If she had been beautiful before, with her long dark cloak and the
severe little hat that hid both her head and her hair, what was she
now, in a fresh pink cotton gown that revealed every curve of her
slight and exquisite young figure, and her lovely face, surmounted by a
rippling mass of bright gold-brown hair.
As Randall looked down on her through the budding green of the trees,
she seemed of a piece with them, as if she might be the bloom that
was the consummation of all their verdant leafage. Instinctively, he
stepped back behind the curtains, and concealing himself, carefully
watched the scene that followed. The black kitten, evidently used to
games of romps with its mistress, had scudded wildly down the steps
and scrambled up into the veranda of the next house, where it sat
complacently on the railing, to see what was to follow. The girl, with
a look that was a compound of desperation and amusement, sat down on
the steps, with the evident intention of coaxing the kitten to come to
her.
“Minnie, Minnie, Minnie!” she said enticingly, holding out a lovely
hand and making little curling gestures with the delicate fingers.
At the sound of her voice, raised a little high, so as to reach the
kitten, Randall started and caught his breath. It was musical, clear,
refined, harmonious, the very complement of her face and figure! He had
heard of such things, where some serious illness or injury had ruined
a voice for singing, but left its speaking quality untouched! Oh,
why should she ever sing, he thought! And why should he ever have had
the misfortune to hear her? All the time that he was thinking these
thoughts, that vision of youthful loveliness was there before his eyes.
Her figure was charming, as she sat on the doorstep and continued to
coax the kitten, in that beautiful voice of appeal; but it was more
than charming, it was adorable, as she rose to her feet and, with
stealthy motions of consummate grace, began to creep toward the kitten,
which sat, with a wary pretense of unconsciousness, perched upon the
railing. At last, when she was very near, and the kitten as still as
a statue, she darted forward and had almost seized it, when with the
agility of a squirrel, the little black creature, with one mad rush,
sprang to the pavement, flew across the street, and scrambling up the
rough trunk of an old wistaria vine, in a flutter of fun and excitement
darted through the open window, and jumped into Randall’s room.
In an instant he captured it, and running down stairs and out of the
front door bareheaded, he swiftly crossed the muddy street to the
detriment of his patent leather boots, and gave the kitten into the
hands of its young mistress, who stood spellbound on the pavement, in
startled wonderment at this sudden prank of her pet.
It was a quiet street, and there was no one in sight except, at a
little distance, the servants, who were so busy with their swishing and
sweeping that apparently they had not observed the little scene.
Randall, as he stood there, in the sweet spring sunshine, face to face
with this creature of his dreams and thoughts, took in every detail
of her blooming loveliness, more rich than ever now, by reason of a
brilliant blush which had come into her face. As she received the
kitten from his hands she said a demure, “Thank you.”
“Thank _you_,” he answered, “for the opportunity of seeing such a feat.
You could match your kitten with a squirrel, any day, and I’m afraid
your chance of holding on to it, in a city, is very small.”
“O, I never let him get out!” she said with sudden anxiety. “He fooled
me this time, but he shall not do it again,” and as she spoke she gave
the offender a sharp little slap, which so excited it, that with a
sudden wrench it sprang from her arms and bounded away, she and Randall
following in mad pursuit. Randall had once done notable running in a
football team at college, and in the frantic spurt with which he darted
after the kitten, his old training told, and he quickly overtook and
captured it. When he turned and faced the kitten’s mistress, both of
them were flushed and laughing, and rather breathless.
“Oh, how kind you are! Oh, you little brute!” the girl exclaimed,
addressing the man and the kitten in one breath. As she held out her
hands to take the struggling creature from him, he drew it back.
“No, I will take him as far as the door for you,” he said. “He’s not in
the least to be trusted, and would be off and away now, if he could.
Poor little beast! I fancy it’s hard to be shut up in a close house all
the time, and the chance of escape was too much.”
“Yes, he misses the country so, and so do I! I ought to have pity on
Tommy, for I’d run from the city, too, if I could, and if I saw an open
door.”
They had reached the house now, and mounted the steps, side by side. He
made her go inside and close the door, leaving just enough space for
him to hand the wriggling Tommy through. As the little black object
passed from his hands to hers, she looked up at him out of the gloom
within, and said a fervent, “Thank you.” Her glance was frank and
simple as a child’s, but, all the same, it sent him back across the
street with a heart whose quick thumping was not wholly due to the
rather violent exercise which he had had.
Randall returned to the meditations of his own room more puzzled than
ever; and if his interest in the girl of whom he had simply had a
glimpse from afar, had been great before, what was it now that he had
seen, in the glaring sunlight, only a pace or two away from him, the
exquisite perfection of her loveliness, and had heard the refined and
educated utterance of a voice which lingered in his ear as one of the
very sweetest to which he had ever listened? Then, too, her impetuously
expressed longing for the country, and hatred of the city, seemed a
strange note to be struck by this being, whom with his own eyes he
had seen as a common street musician, truckling to the vulgar taste
of a crowd of loafers, and holding out her hands to receive their
dirty pennies. As he recalled the scene, the memory of that strident,
ineffectual, hard, discordant voice came to him, and he found himself
in a state of tempestuous protest against the whole thing. How could
that fair, idyllic girl descend to the playing of such a part, and how
could such singing go with such a face and figure? He had looked in
vain for any signs of illness which might account for it. She seemed
the emblem of eternal youth and health. Then came the memory of that
look that she had flashed upon him from the gloom, and brought with it
certain thoughts and aspirations, which had not been stirred within him
for long and saddened years.
The Sunday after the episode with the kitten, Randall came out of his
lodgings at a little before eleven o’clock, and saw across the street,
just ahead of him, the well-known figure in the long black cloak, with
the close veil around the face. He had watched the opposite house for
days, but had not caught a glimpse of this figure. Other lodgers came
and went (for the house seemed a crowded one), but not the one he
sought. He had started out rather aimlessly this morning, and he saw
no reason why, in taking his airing, he should not keep the graceful
figure ahead of him in view, particularly as he, himself, could not
have been observed by her. So, for a long distance he walked after her
on the other side of the street, until at last she turned and joined
the straggling stream of people that seemed setting toward a small new
church--one of the little mission places so common now in our great
cities. Randall quoted to himself the lines:
“She went to a cheap, cheap church
That stood in a back, back street,”
and smiled at the thought of the new complicatedness of the aspect of
things. And when she joined the crowd and entered, a sudden wish to go
to church himself came over him, and he saw no reason why he should
not indulge it. He did so accordingly, and being told that the seats
were all free, he presently found himself placed a little behind the
young girl, so that he could have a distinct view of her profile during
the entire service. He was secure in the consciousness that he had
not been observed, and his presence, therefore, could cause her no
annoyance. He watched her furtively as she sank upon her knees, burying
her veiled face in two exquisite little shabbily-gloved hands, and
remained for some moments in silent prayer. What a wretch of a creature
he suddenly felt himself to be, and what a yearning he had to ask her
to pray for him!
When she got up presently and took her seat, his heart quickened to see
her raise her hand to unfasten her veil. How odd it appeared that no
one else seemed to be noticing or caring! The congregation was composed
chiefly of people with stolid faces and rather dull expressions,
and Randall was further surprised to see that no one manifested any
interest when this beautiful young face was exposed to view. He had
occasion, however, to congratulate himself upon this indifference,
since it extended to himself, as well, and left him free to look toward
his lovely neighbor very often. He had to admit that she was as
unconscious of the rest of the congregation as he, though no one else
that he could see betrayed such absorbed consciousness of the effect
of the service. It was a high-church service, and this young girl went
through all the rather elaborate forms with an intense devotion and
absorption, that for some unknown reason almost made him feel resentful.
The more Randall looked at her, the more lovely and lovable did she
appear. It was quite, quite the most beautiful face that he had ever
seen, he decided, and his heart was somehow more attuned to worship
to-day than he had felt it for many a year.
At last, a hymn was given out, and the congregation rose. Randall
jumped up rather suddenly with a positive instinct of flight. He did
not want to hear her sing. He could not bear to stand so near and see
those most lovely lips part and send forth such a voice as he knew,
alas, must issue from them! But while he hesitated, the music began,
and the sweet lips remained closed and immovable, except for a little
tremor which he fancied he saw, as the girl’s eyes followed the words
in her book.
When the hymn ended, and the congregation knelt, he saw the young girl
hide her face in her handkerchief for a moment, and then, quickly take
up her thick veil and pin it on securely.
He let her go ahead of him on leaving the church, as he did not wish
to be observed. He did not follow her home, however, but went instead
to the club, and joined a group of chattering men in a bay-window,
and listened for half an hour to their vapid comments on the
smartly-dressed men and women who went by, feeling all the time a dull
ache in his heart for that sensitive, lonely, probably unhappy girl,
whose loveliness, even in her shabby clothes in that little mission
chapel, made the most fashionable of the women who passed him seem
trivial and vulgar by comparison.
For several days, Randall carried this lovely vision in his mind, until
one afternoon, in a populous business neighborhood, he came suddenly
upon a group of people assembled around the familiar horse and cart and
the pair of musicians. He wanted to retreat, but he forced himself to
stop and join the crowd, wondering what effect his presence would have
upon her, if she should see and recognize him. So he took his place
conspicuously, and listened with indignant protest as she sang, in
popular style, with a vulgar abandon that made him positively furious,
the familiar strains of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”
The voice was grating and unlovely as before, but again he felt amazed
at the marvelous method of the singer, and the spirit with which she
gave the song called forth an encore, after which she got out of
the cart and passed around the basket. When she came to Randall, he
purposely fumbled several seconds with his change, hoping that she
might look up at him, but when she persistently looked down, he fancied
that if she saw him, she was ashamed to reveal herself to him. Well she
might be, he thought, and tossing some loose coins into the basket,
he was about to walk away, when he heard a man standing near say some
words to the woman as she held out her basket to him, which roused
such fury in Randall’s soul, that before the insult had died upon the
fellow’s lips, he found himself seized by the shoulders, and hurled
aside with a blow from so powerful an arm that it sent him staggering
against a tree. At the same instant, Randall saw the woman, with a
movement of fright, run swiftly toward the cart. Before she reached
the cart, however, the man at the piano had sprung from his place, and
had rushed after the fellow whose words had caused the disturbance,
but who, warned by the punishment which he had already received, had
made the best use of his time and had escaped. Seeing this, the pianist
turned and, coming toward Randall, said in a voice of controlled
agitation, “I am very much obliged to you, sir, for what you did.”
Randall, who was in a state of disgust at the whole performance, waved
aside the man’s thanks, and rapidly walked away.
During the weeks that followed, Randall was a prey to conflicting
impressions, that kept him in a continual state of excitement and
restlessness. He had got up an interest in the working of the mission
chapel, and the evident help which it gave to those poor working
people, and it pleased him to find a really satisfactory object for
the expenditure of some of his spare cash, so he went to church every
Sunday there, and contributed liberally to the work. He did not deceive
himself as to the prime object of his attendance. He knew it was
because his beautiful neighbor went there, but his interest in the
work was sincere. He had more than once encountered the young girl in
coming and going from the church, and upon these occasions it was his
habit to lift his hat and to bow respectfully, just as it was her habit
to return this greeting by a brilliant and beautifying blush. It made
her adorably lovely, and as she now habitually removed her veil before
entering the church, and did not replace it until after leaving, he had
the full benefit of it. If he chanced to meet her on the street away
from the church, she was always closely veiled, but usually he managed
to bow to her, as she was entering or leaving.
But if the experiences of his Sundays gave him pleasure, it was more
than counterbalanced by the pain he felt in the experiences of his
week days. Try as he might to avoid the humiliating spectacle (and he
did make a great effort) he was liable at any turn to run against that
rusty cart, sleepy old pony, and the pair of musicians. He had had a
sort of hope that the experience with the brute who had insulted the
girl would stop these performances for the future, but he found that
they went on just the same as ever. He could only conclude from this,
that the man who performed with her was oblivious of, or indifferent
to, her need of protection.
Randall did not always sit near her in church. Sometimes he even forced
himself to take a seat where he could not look at her at all, but it
was something to him to feel her nearness. One Sunday, however, he
thought he had won the right to treat himself to an unusual indulgence
of proximity, so on entering the church, after she had taken her usual
place, he quietly walked into the seat on a line with her, and took
his place near the end, where he was only separated from her by the
partition dividing the pews. Never in his life had his manner been
more quiet and composed, than as he sat there, profoundly still, with
his eyes fixed attentively upon the preacher. He knew that she had
recognized him, and he was perfectly confident that she blushed, but
no one observing him would have seen in his manner anything but the
coldest composure. It was, none the less, a very sweet consciousness to
sit there quietly, close by her side, and he half fancied it was also
pleasure to her. During the sermon he was acutely aware of her, and of
every slightest movement that she had made in shifting her position, or
moving her feet upon the footstool. And once, only once, he heard her
breathe a little sigh, the sound of which stirred him to tenderness.
After the sermon the hymn was given out, and it proved to be the one
that had been sung on the occasion of his first coming here. When
the young girl rose with the open book in her hand, she observed
that he had no book, and with a movement at once frank and timid she
offered him hers, glancing up at him as she did so. He shook his head,
declining to deprive her of it, but at the same time he caught hold
of its extreme corner nearest him and continued to hold it so, until
she saw his meaning, and took hold of the opposite corner. Then in a
carefully modulated and sympathetic voice, which had great sweetness
and charm without remarkable power, he began to sing. Admiring women
had been touched by his voice before to-day, and it was no wonder if
it touched with power the woman standing at his side. He hoped it did,
at least, but he could divine nothing, as her little shabby thumb
supported the book unwaveringly until the hymn was ended.
Walking homeward that day, Randall looked his present condition in the
face more boldly and honestly than he had ever done before, and the
result of it was that he owned that he was in love.
Having made this acknowledgment to himself, that he was really in
love, he faced the possible consequences squarely also, and he came to
the conclusion that his only safety was in flight. As for marrying a
street singer, whom he had seen insulted by a common rough, and who had
a voice as rasping to him as a peacock’s, he might be more or less of a
fool in his love of having his own way, but he was not such a fool as
that!
The contradicting facts, that she was as beautiful as a dream, and had,
as he believed, a nature both exalted and refined--did not by any means
seem to him a sufficient compensation, and he made up his mind to go
abroad for several months, and to come back with this little episode
quite eradicated from his mind.
He carried out his plan so far as the trip was concerned, and even as
to its results he felt that he had been fairly successful. Certainly
the absurdity of having fallen in love with a street singer with an
abominable voice was sufficiently clear to him, and change of scene and
absence had done their work in weakening the spell which this girl had
laid upon him. In spite of all this, however, he was not sufficiently
self-secure to run any risks. He would not have dared to go to church,
and he had made up his mind to look out for new lodgings immediately,
and until these should be secured, not to go to the front windows.
These resolutions he religiously kept. He had taken no vow, however,
not to look toward the opposite house in going up and down the street,
and this he always did, half hoping and half fearing to see that lovely
vision in rose-color, who still remained the most beautiful picture in
the world to his mind. He never caught a glimpse of her, however, and
so far had seen and heard nothing of the street singers, a thing which,
of course, might be accounted for by the fact that the cool weather of
autumn had set in, and there was no chance of drawing a crowd in the
streets to listen to singing of that sort.
During his trip abroad Randall had given himself a perfect feast of
music. Convinced more strongly than ever that “love’s young dream” was
not for him, he was determined to make the most of the next best thing,
and to fill his soul with music. To lose the opportunities which Europe
offered him for this had been his greatest regret in coming home, and
after indulgence in the very richest forms of musical delight he felt
more or less impatient of the concerts and recitals of which he read in
the columns of the home newspapers.
One afternoon at his club, he heard some men discussing a concert which
was to take place that evening, and they suggested to him to go. It
seemed that Mensenn, a well-known manager, had discovered a wonderful
new voice, possessed by a young girl living in the city. Only the name
of Mensenn would have drawn Randall into a thing like this, and even
with that important recommendation of the new singer he felt dubious
and half-reluctant, but that evening, having nothing better to do,
and having within him a great thirst for music, he went to the great
concert hall to see what he could do, to satisfy it.
It was rather a surprise to him that Mensenn had ventured on the
biggest hall in the city for the launching of this _débutante_ and yet
he reflected that Mensenn was a man who generally knew what he was
about.
Randall was a somewhat erratic and unaccountable fellow, careful and
economical about money on certain lines, and recklessly prodigal in
others. Where the indulgence of his love for music was concerned, he
never counted it, and this evening, after reading the programme and
seeing several favorites among the selections, he felt inclined to do
his very utmost to get pleasure out of this concert by hearing it under
the best conditions that he could secure. The chief of these was either
sympathetic companionship, or solitude, and as he could not command the
first, he would the latter, so he got a small curtained box in good
sight and sound of the stage, and took his place in it alone.
The concert opened with a very good performance of violin and
violoncello, with piano accompaniment. The players were not great
artists, but Randall got enough out of it to stir the deep, emotional
feelings within, that made him simply yearn and hunger for more--more
music and sweeter, more life and fuller! The next performance was to
introduce the new singer, Miss Bianca May.
He sat quite screened from view behind his curtain, and waited with
mingled hope and doubting for her to come out. And now she appeared,
Mensenn leading her. She was tall, she was dressed in white, she was
supremely beautiful. His heart gave a great leap; the blood seemed to
surge forward in his veins, and then to rush back in a way that gave
him a sense of suffocation. She was walking forward with a step and a
carriage that he recognized. She was looking around the house with
great, pure, innocent and timid eyes that he had looked into before!
She was his opposite neighbor--Tommy’s little mistress!
Her beauty was positively enthralling, but oh, her voice! At the
thought of that, he turned cold with dread, and then hot with angry
protest. What _did_ Mensenn mean? How _could_ he let her adorn her
loveliness like this, to be led as a victim to the sacrifice? He knew
the character of the audience assembled, and he knew that they were
not people to be inveigled into the toleration of such a voice by mere
beauty. The very fact that she had such a beautiful and correct method
would make the thing all the more an insult to their intelligence.
He was almost beside himself with anger and mortification. He longed
passionately to rush upon the stage and drag her away, and to hide her
beautiful, unconscious face against his heart, before she had come to
feel the contempt and indignation which the audience, now spellbound
by her beauty, would very soon have ready for her.
Across the wild confusion of these frantic, angry thoughts a sound
fell, a sound so sweet, so powerful, so exquisite, that it was like the
voice of peace, speaking with a strong, commanding influence to his
soul. It was a voice that satisfied, for the first time in his life,
the utmost ideal of Randall’s soul! Not only was it the perfect method
that he knew, but the voice, itself, was so gloriously exquisite, so
fine, so clear, so passionately sweet, that his soul was wrapt in
ecstacy. It was almost too cruelly sweet. Randall shuddered, and, when
the song ended, he dropped his face in his hands and gave a sort of sob.
Then there came from the audience an absolute storm of applause. So
tempestuous and excited was it, that the girl was evidently divided
between pleasure and fright, and when Mensenn came to her and led her
from the stage, she was so visibly shaken that she could not, at once,
respond to the encore. It seemed to Randall cruel--it made him madly
indignant that they should make this demand upon her, and while the
clapping and calling was at its height, he left his box, and made his
way into the street.
For an hour or more he walked about trying to secure some degree of
calmness, and to solve this inscrutable mystery. What was the secret
of this miraculous change of voice? Had it all been a clever imitation
of inferiority and discordant sound that she had practiced behind her
mask? How could it be possible to so disguise the voice of a lark or of
an angel such as this? And what could have been the object? Whatever it
was, the creature who had long ago won his love, and who had now by the
possession of this voice deepened that love to adoration, was the woman
he must have for his wife, if work of man and prayers to heaven could
accomplish it! The fact that she had been a masked street singer, the
uncertain quantity of her relation toward the man who had played with
her in that character,--all these things vanished, and Randall was
possessed by the headlong wish, which dominated everything else, of
getting access to her immediately, and begging her to become his wife.
He made his way back at last to the concert hall, and found the
audience just dispersing. He had not wished to hear her sing again; he
felt that it would be more than he could bear, but he had a definite
purpose in view as he made his way to the rear of the stage. Here he
met several men whom he knew, coming away.
“It’s no use, my boy!” said one of these. “Old Mensenn is immovable.
He not only will not introduce us, but he refuses, for the present, to
answer any questions. Perhaps he’s wise, for after such an ovation as
this, if she showed up, she’d run the risk of being eaten alive. The
women are as mad over her as the men.” Randall hurried on, however, and
catching sight of the well-known face of old Mensenn, approached him
with a certain confidence. The man had known him long, and, as Randall
hoped, in a way that had made him trust him. Every effort which he made
was perfectly useless, however. It was evident that no exception to his
decision was to be made.
Randall was turning away half-resentfully when a man, small and
unremarkable in appearance, came from a long, dark passage and, seeing
him, stopped a second, and then, as if recognizing him, approached
rapidly and said:
“You do not know me, but you rendered me and mine a service once, which
I can never forget. You are the man who punished the brute who offered
an insult to the being dearest to me in the world. I saw you from
behind my mask, and have often wished that I could thank you properly
for what you did. Will you call to see me to-morrow afternoon at four,
and let me introduce you to my daughter that she may thank you, too?”
And while Randall stood astonished and delighted, the man gave the
address of the house opposite his own, and then walked away.
Randall, on his way home, felt, in spite of his joy at this stroke of
fortune, as puzzled and confused in mind as ever. It was an untold
relief to learn that the man with whom the woman he loved had sung in
the public streets was her father, but oh, how could he have let her do
it? What sort of a father could he be? And yet his somewhat pathetic
face had beamed with tenderness during the few seconds in which he had
spoken to him. Well, one great burden had been rolled away from his
heart by the discovery of this relationship between the street singer
and her companion; another had gone with the discovery that that awful
sound of discord was not her natural voice; and the one that still
remained, the fact that she had been a masked street singer, lay heavy
on his heart still, but contrasted with the love he had for this woman,
that burden he was more than ready to carry.
The next afternoon at precisely four, he rang at the door of the
opposite house, and asked for Mr. May. The servant led him up several
flights of stairs to the very top of the house, and then along a
dark passage leading to the back building, and here she knocked at a
door, and then turned and left him. A man’s voice called “Come in!”
and Randall opened the door and saw his new acquaintance sitting at a
table writing, and at his side his old acquaintance seated on a low
chair engaged in stroking Tommy, who was greatly grown. He did not
see the kitten at first, because of the fact that the young girl was
dressed in deep, intense black, which swathed her to her throat and
wrists. It made the brilliant loveliness of her face, however, all
the more startling, as she rose to her feet, still holding Tommy, and
recognized him with her usual tribute of a rosy blush. His appearance
was evidently a surprise to her, though it soon became evident that her
father had prepared her for the reception of a stranger, and had told
her to what cause the visit was due.
The father, himself, a somewhat feeble and timid man, explained that
they were in the shadow of a recent bereavement, his wife, and the
girl’s mother, having died only a month or so ago. He alluded to it in
a low and sorrowful voice, and ended with the words:
“You can understand, therefore, all the more, why I should have wished
for the opportunity of thanking you for resenting the affront that
was offered to her, by that brute, when she was exposing herself,
for the sake of our child, to the dangers which such a position made
inevitable. It was all that our dear daughter might be nurtured in
refined and wholesome conditions, for the preservation of her health
and her innocence, and the development of her voice, which has
fulfilled, at last, all our hopes concerning it, when the dear mother,
who so passionately loved her has passed beyond the knowledge of it.”
“Don’t say so, Father,” said the young girl, gently. “I felt her very
near to me, last night. It was that thought which kept me up and
enabled me to sing my best.”
As she spoke, she drew a little nearer to him, and putting Tommy on
the floor, she took her father’s hand in hers and held it, while he
talked to their visitor, and told his story, in a simple, frank,
unworldly way that very soon put Randall in possession of the whole
situation. It was made very clear to him that the mother had been the
master spirit of this trio, and that this mild and ineffectual little
man was very helpless without her. His lack of worldly prudence showed
plainly enough in the fact that he took this stranger so fully into his
confidence on the sole ground that he had once defended his dead wife
from an insult. The girl, herself, too, seemed to find nothing strange
in the situation, as she sat by and listened to her father’s recital of
his wife’s labor of love and sacrifices.
She had once possessed a superb voice, herself, it seemed, and had
received the most perfect and thorough training in a great European
_conservatoire_, being herself an Italian, but before she had sung in
public at all, a severe attack of throat trouble had ruined her voice
forever, and she had come to America to give lessons, and in a southern
town had met and married her husband. Then had begun a long life of
vicissitudes of various kinds, culminating in the street-singing
performances, a necessity to which they had been reduced, at last, by
positive want. In this way she had eked out the little that she could
make by taking pupils at a small price, and by the little jobs of
writing and bookkeeping which the man himself could get, until the time
should be ripe for her daughter’s _début_.
All this was told to Randall with the utmost simplicity, and Bianca,
herself, sitting by, seemed pleased that he should know it. When at
last he rose to go, it was like the parting of friends, and he asked
and received permission to come again. He longed almost intolerably to
ask her now, to-day, to be his wife, and he chafed under the necessity
of delay.
And the delay, in point of fact, was not very long. When hearts are
young and trusting, why should it be? And Bianca had had an instinct of
blind trust in him from the first. He got Mensenn to say a good word
for him; he cultivated the father and took pains to make him acquainted
with the details of his life, position and circumstances; and then, at
last, he felt that he had only Bianca’s consent to win.
How would she answer him? How did she feel toward him? He asked himself
these questions with agitated hope and fear. Her very friendliness and
frankness half frightened him at times.
One afternoon when he went to call, as he did almost daily now, he
found Bianca in the little sitting-room alone. It was the first time
it had happened so, and she explained her father’s absence, and that
he might be in at any moment. The situation was a little constrained
for her, and Randall saw it, and to reassure her he asked her to sing.
She had done this frequently before, but always with her father to
play her accompaniments. He volunteered to do this now, himself, and
sitting down to the piano he struck the opening chords of the song he
had first heard her sing. The song which had been the consummation of
her revelation to him. She began to sing it. They were alone together.
The song was more than speech. He turned his head and looked upward at
her. His look agitated her, and her voice faltered. At this he smiled,
and the voice grew more unsteady. Then suddenly he stopped playing, and
without the support of the accompaniment, she broke down utterly.
But the hands that were lifted from the keys suddenly took both of
hers in an imperious grasp. The gaze that she tried desperately to
avoid, compelled her to look at him, and after the confession of that
look she knew no more, but that she was in his arms, and was glad and
satisfied.