THE LOST STRADIVARIUS
by
J. MEADE FALKNER
1895
Penguin Books
Harmondsworth Middlesex, England
245 Fifth Avenue, New York, U.S.A.
THE AUTHOR
John Meade Falkner was a remarkable character, as he was not only a
scholar and a writer, but a captain of industry as well. Born in 1858,
the son of a clergyman in Wiltshire, he was educated at Marlborough and
Hertford College, Oxford. On leaving the university, he became tutor to
the sons of Sir Andrew Noble, then vice-chairman of the
Armstrong-Whitworth Company; and his ability so much impressed his
employer that in 1885 he was offered a post in the firm. Without
connections or influence in industrial circles, and solely by his
intellect, he rose to be a director in 1901, and finally, in 1915,
chairman of this enormous business. He was actually chairman during the
important years 1915-1920, and remained a director until 1926.
His intellectual energy was so great that throughout his life he found
time for scholarship as well as business. He travelled for his firm in
Europe and South America; and in the intervals of negotiating with
foreign governments studied manuscripts wherever he found a library. His
researches in the Vatican Library were of special importance, and in
connection with them he received a gold medal from the Pope; he was also
decorated by the Italian, Turkish and Japanese governments.
His scholastic interests included archæology, folklore, palæography,
mediæval history, architecture and church music; and he was a collector
of missals. Towards the end of his life he was made an Honorary Fellow
of Hertford College, Oxford, Honorary Reader in Palæography to Durham
University, and Honorary Librarian to the Chapter Library of Durham
Cathedral, which he left one of the best cathedral libraries in Europe.
He died at Durham in 1932.
Apart from _The Lost Stradivarius_, Falkner was the author of two other
novels, _The Nebuly Coat_ (1903--also published in Penguin Books) and
_Moonfleet_ (1898). He also wrote a History of Oxfordshire, handbooks to
that county and to Berkshire, historical short stories, and some
mediævalist verse.
THE LOST STRADIVARIUS
Letter from MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS
to her Nephew, SIR EDWARD MALTRAVERS,
then a Student at Christ Church, Oxford.
13 Pauncefort Buildings, Bath,
Oct. 21, 1867.
MY DEAR EDWARD,
It was your late father's dying request that certain events which
occurred in his last years should be communicated to you on your coming
of age. I have reduced them to writing, partly from my own recollection,
which is, alas! still too vivid, and partly with the aid of notes taken
at the time of my brother's death. As you are now of full age, I submit
the narrative to you. Much of it has necessarily been exceedingly
painful to me to write, but at the same time I feel it is better that
you should hear the truth from me than garbled stories from others who
did not love your father as I did.
Your loving Aunt,
SOPHIA MALTRAVERS
To Sir Edward Maltravers, Bart.
"A tale out of season is as music in mourning."
--ECCLESIASTICUS xxii. 6.
MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS' STORY
CHAPTER I
Your father, John Maltravers, was born in 1820 at Worth, and succeeded
his father and mine, who died when we were still young children. John
was sent to Eton in due course, and in 1839, when he was nineteen years
of age, it was determined that he should go to Oxford. It was intended
at first to enter him at Christ Church; but Dr. Sarsdell, who visited us
at Worth in the summer of 1839, persuaded Mr. Thoresby, our guardian, to
send him instead to Magdalen Hall. Dr. Sarsdell was himself Principal of
that institution, and represented that John, who then exhibited some
symptoms of delicacy, would meet with more personal attention under his
care than he could hope to do in so large a college as Christ Church.
Mr. Thoresby, ever solicitous for his ward's welfare, readily waived
other considerations in favour of an arrangement which he considered
conducive to John's health, and he was accordingly matriculated at
Magdalen Hall in the autumn of 1839.
Dr. Sarsdell had not been unmindful of his promise to look after my
brother, and had secured him an excellent first-floor sitting-room, with
a bedroom adjoining, having an aspect towards New College Lane.
I shall pass over the first two years of my brother's residence at
Oxford, because they have nothing to do with the present story. They
were spent, no doubt, in the ordinary routine of work and recreation
common in Oxford at that period.
From his earliest boyhood he had been passionately devoted to music,
and had attained a considerable proficiency on the violin. In the autumn
term of 1841 he made the acquaintance of Mr. William Gaskell, a very
talented student at New College, and also a more than tolerable
musician. The practice of music was then very much less common at Oxford
than it has since become, and there were none of those societies
existing which now do so much to promote its study among undergraduates.
It was therefore a cause of much gratification to the two young men, and
it afterwards became a strong bond of friendship, to discover that one
was as devoted to the pianoforte as was the other to the violin. Mr.
Gaskell, though in easy circumstances, had not a pianoforte in his
rooms, and was pleased to use a fine instrument by D'Almaine that John
had that term received as a birthday present from his guardian.
From that time the two students were thrown much together, and in the
autumn term of 1841 and Easter term of 1842 practised a variety of music
in John's rooms, he taking the violin part and Mr. Gaskell that for the
pianoforte.
It was, I think, in March 1842 that John purchased for his rooms a piece
of furniture which was destined afterwards to play no unimportant part
in the story I am narrating. This was a very large and low wicker chair
of a form then coming into fashion in Oxford, and since, I am told,
become a familiar object of most college rooms. It was cushioned with a
gaudy pattern of chintz, and bought for new of an upholsterer at the
bottom of the High Street.
Mr. Gaskell was taken by his uncle to spend Easter in Rome, and
obtaining special leave from his college to prolong his travels; did not
return to Oxford till three weeks of the summer term were passed and May
was well advanced. So impatient was he to see his friend that he would
not let even the first evening of his return pass without coming round
to John's rooms. The two young men sat without lights until the night
was late; and Mr. Gaskell had much to narrate of his travels, and spoke
specially of the beautiful music which he had heard at Easter in the
Roman churches. He had also had lessons on the piano from a celebrated
professor of the Italian style, but seemed to have been particularly
delighted with the music of the seventeenth-century composers, of whose
works he had brought back some specimens set for piano and violin.
It was past eleven o'clock when Mr. Gaskell left to return to New
College; but the night was unusually warm, with a moon near the full,
and John sat for some time in a cushioned window-seat before the open
sash thinking over what he had heard about the music of Italy. Feeling
still disinclined for sleep, he lit a single candle and began to turn
over some of the musical works which Mr. Gaskell had left on the table.
His attention was especially attracted to an oblong book, bound in
soiled vellum, with a coat of arms stamped in gilt upon the side. It was
a manuscript copy of some early suites by Graziani for violin and
harpsichord, and was apparently written at Naples in the year 1744, many
years after the death of that composer. Though the ink was yellow and
faded, the transcript had been accurately made, and could be read with
tolerable comfort by an advanced musician in spite of the antiquated
notation.
Perhaps by accident, or perhaps by some mysterious direction which our
minds are incapable of appreciating, his eye was arrested by a suite of
four movements with a _basso continuo_, or figured bass, for the
harpsichord. The other suites in the book were only distinguished by
numbers, but this one the composer had dignified with the name of
"l'Areopagita." Almost mechanically John put the book on his
music-stand, took his violin from its case, and after a moment's tuning
stood up and played the first movement, a lively _Coranto_. The light of
the single candle burning on the table was scarcely sufficient to
illumine the page; the shadows hung in the creases of the leaves, which
had grown into those wavy folds sometimes observable in books made of
thick paper and remaining long shut; and it was with difficulty that he
could read what he was playing. But he felt the strange impulse of the
old-world music urging him forward, and did not even pause to light the
candles which stood ready in their sconces on either side of the desk.
The _Coranto_ was followed by a _Sarabanda_, and the _Sarabanda_ by a
_Gagliarda_. My brother stood playing, with his face turned to the
window, with the room and the large wicker chair of which I have spoken
behind him. The _Gagliarda_ began with a bold and lively air, and as he
played the opening bars, he heard behind him a creaking of the wicker
chair. The sound was a perfectly familiar one--as of some person placing
a hand on either arm of the chair preparatory to lowering himself into
it, followed by another as of the same person being leisurely seated.
But for the tones of the violin, all was silent, and the creaking of the
chair was strangely distinct. The illusion was so complete that my
brother stopped playing suddenly, and turned round expecting that some
late friend of his had slipped in unawares, being attracted by the sound
of the violin, or that Mr. Gaskell himself had returned. With the
cessation of the music an absolute stillness fell upon all; the light of
the single candle scarcely reached the darker corners of the room, but
fell directly on the wicker chair and showed it to be perfectly empty.
Half amused, half vexed with himself at having without reason
interrupted his music, my brother returned to the _Gagliarda_; but some
impulse induced him to light the candles in the sconces, which gave an
illumination more adequate to the occasion. The _Gagliarda_ and the last
movement, a _Minuetto_, were finished, and John closed the book,
intending, as it was now late, to seek his bed. As he shut the pages a
creaking of the wicker chair again attracted his attention, and he heard
distinctly sounds such as would be made by a person raising himself from
a sitting posture. This time, being less surprised, he could more aptly
consider the probable causes of such a circumstance, and easily arrived
at the conclusion that there must be in the wicker chair osiers
responsive to certain notes of the violin, as panes of glass in church
windows are observed to vibrate in sympathy with certain tones of the
organ. But while this argument approved itself to his reason, his
imagination was but half convinced; and he could not but be impressed
with the fact that the second creaking of the chair had been coincident
with his shutting the music-book; and, unconsciously, pictured to
himself some strange visitor waiting until the termination of the music,
and then taking his departure.
His conjectures did not, however, either rob him of sleep or even
disturb it with dreams, and he woke the next morning with a cooler mind
and one less inclined to fantastic imagination. If the strange episode
of the previous evening had not entirely vanished from his mind, it
seemed at least fully accounted for by the acoustic explanation to which
I have alluded above. Although he saw Mr. Gaskell in the course of the
morning, he did not think it necessary to mention to him so trivial a
circumstance, but made with him an appointment to sup together in his
own rooms that evening, and to amuse themselves afterwards by essaying
some of the Italian music.
It was shortly after nine that night when, supper being finished, Mr.
Gaskell seated himself at the piano and John tuned his violin. The
evening was closing in; there had been heavy thunder-rain in the
afternoon, and the moist air hung now heavy and steaming, while across
it there throbbed the distant vibrations of the tenor bell at Christ
Church. It was tolling the customary 101 strokes, which are rung every
night in term-time as a signal for closing the college gates. The two
young men enjoyed themselves for some while, playing first a suite by
Cesti, and then two early sonatas by Buononcini. Both of them were
sufficiently expert musicians to make reading at sight a pleasure rather
than an effort; and Mr. Gaskell especially was well versed in the theory
of music, and in the correct rendering of the _basso continuo_. After
the Buononcini Mr. Gaskell took up the oblong copy of Graziani, and
turning over its leaves, proposed that they should play the same suite
which John had performed by himself the previous evening. His selection
was apparently perfectly fortuitous, as my brother had purposely
refrained from directing his attention in any way to that piece of
music. They played the _Coranto_ and the _Sarabanda_, and in the
singular fascination of the music John had entirely forgotten the
episode of the previous evening, when, as the bold air of the
_Gagliarda_ commenced, he suddenly became aware of the same strange
creaking of the wicker chair that he had noticed on the first occasion.
The sound was identical, and so exact was its resemblance to that of a
person sitting down that he stared at the chair, almost wondering that
it still appeared empty. Beyond turning his head sharply for a moment to
look round, Mr. Gaskell took no notice of the sound; and my brother,
ashamed to betray any foolish interest or excitement, continued the
_Gagliarda_, with its repeat. At its conclusion Mr. Gaskell stopped
before proceeding to the minuet, and turning the stool on which he was
sitting round towards the room, observed, "How very strange,
Johnnie,"--for these young men were on terms of sufficient intimacy to
address each other in a familiar style,--"How very strange! I thought I
heard some one sit down in that chair when we began the _Gagliarda_. I
looked round quite expecting to see some one had come in. Did you hear
nothing?"
"It was only the chair creaking," my brother answered, feigning an
indifference which he scarcely felt. "Certain parts of the wicker-work
seem to be in accord with musical notes and respond to them; let us
continue with the _Minuetto_."
Thus they finished the suite, Mr. Gaskell demanding a repetition of the
_Gagliarda_, with the air of which he was much pleased. As the clocks
had already struck eleven, they determined not to play more that night;
and Mr. Gaskell rose, blew out the sconces, shut the piano, and put the
music aside. My brother has often assured me that he was quite prepared
for what followed, and had been almost expecting it; for as the books
were put away, a creaking of the wicker chair was audible, exactly
similar to that which he had heard when he stopped playing on the
previous night. There was a moment's silence; the young men looked
involuntarily at one another, and then Mr. Gaskell said, "I cannot
understand the creaking of that chair; it has never done so before, with
all the music we have played. I am perhaps imaginative and excited with
the fine airs we have heard to-night, but I have an impression that I
cannot dispel that something has been sitting listening to us all this
time, and that now when the concert is ended it has got up and gone."
There was a spirit of raillery in his words, but his tone was not so
light as it would ordinarily have been, and he was evidently ill at
ease.
"Let us try the _Gagliarda_ again," said my brother; "it is the
vibration of the opening notes which affects the wicker-work, and we
shall see if the noise is repeated." But Mr. Gaskell excused himself
from trying the experiment, and after some desultory conversation, to
which it was evident that neither was giving any serious attention, he
took his leave and returned to New College.