PIPPA PASSES.
When the ladies adjourned to the drawing-room, which was so littered
with costly knick-knacks that, as Nora afterwards averred, "it looked
like a bazaar," that young lady gravitated by a natural attraction to
Miss Harley's side, eager to ask her more questions about matters which
had begun to interest her deeply. From Flanders, their talk soon drifted
onwards to Germany and Italy. Nora, strange to say, had never yet been
abroad, and cherished a most fresh and unsophisticated interest about
those far countries which she had as yet seen only in books, pictures
and dreams. Then they went on to talk of art; and, as a book of
illustrations of Italian art lay conveniently at hand, they looked over
a number of the engravings of old pictures together. They were lingering
over the tragic face of Beatrice Cenci, with the mystic sorrow-laden
eyes, which so attract and haunt the beholder; and Miss Harley was
giving Nora an outline of her story, as you hear it in Rome, when the
door opened, and Mr. Chillingworth entered, speedily finding his way to
Miss Blanchard's side.
"I got tired of the politics in there," he said, smiling slightly, "so I
thought I would set a good example. Ah! you're looking at the Cenci.
What a tragedy lies sealed up in those dark eyes! What a type of the
thousand tragedies that lie sealed up in many a ruin of those terrible
old days!"
"And do you think we have no tragedies about us now?" asked Miss Harley,
looking up at the tall figure above her.
"Oh yes, undoubtedly! But not so many, or so grim, I hope! And then, you
know, we don't see present things quite so effectively, or in such good
perspective as we do the past! We need a little distance, you see, in
order to take things in as a whole."
"I suppose you are right, artistically speaking," replied Miss Harley,
doubtfully. "But for myself, I must say, the sorrows of the real people
about me always interest me more than the most romantic stories of the
past."
"Now, don't try to persuade me that you are quite such a realist, Miss
Harley, when you have shown what an idealist you are on social topics.
What a noble man that father of yours must have been! I should like to
know more of him. But come, Miss Blanchard, I see you are trying to make
up your mind whether you're on Miss Harley's side or mine, and I don't
want you to give judgment against me! Suppose you give us a little
music, you and Miss Farrell. Can't we have a few airs from the
_Messiah_, now? It would be such a good finish to the week's work--just
what I need to put me in tune for to-morrow's duty!"
Nora colored a little at his thought-reading, but at once rose to comply
with the request, which Miss Harley warmly endorsed. She had heard of
Miss Blanchard's singing, and would be charmed to hear it for herself.
There was a parlor-organ in a corner of the large room, in addition to
the piano, and as they all agreed that this accompaniment would be much
the more suitable for the music, Mr. Chillingworth gave his services as
accompanist, playing with great taste and feeling. Nora sang the air,
"He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd," and the other "He Was
Despised and Rejected," with clear sweetness and pathetic expression,
while a subdued stillness gradually stole over the little group of
talkers at the other end of the room. Then, to check the little buzz of
admiring comment, she insisted on Kitty's following at once with the
air, "Come Unto Him All Ye That Are Weary and Heavy Laden:" Mr.
Chillingworth took his turn in rendering, "Every Valley Shall Be
Exalted," playing the beautiful undulating accompaniment for himself.
Miss Pomeroy wanted to hear some of the choruses they had been
practising, and they were just trying the angel's song, "Peace on Earth
and Good Will to Men," when the other gentlemen entered the room.
The old gentleman, whose appearance and words had interested Nora a good
deal, did not appear with the others, and she presently asked Mr.
Archer, who came up to join her at the piano, what had become of him,
and who and what he was.
"Oh, Dunlop always likes to slip away early," he said. "He's a queer old
party! He's made a good deal of money in one way or other, so he's
considered worth cultivating, and he knows it. He lives very quietly,
they say; he's been a widower for years. He goes across the sea now and
then, but always comes back 'to look after things.' He's got some ideas
of his own, too, and he seems to take a great interest in this new paper
of Graeme's--that 'crank' they were talking about. Now, I hope, since I
have so amiably gratified your curiosity, you will gratify me by a song.
I could catch distant echoes, tantalizingly remote, and now I want to
hear the reality."
But Nora would sing only in the chorus they were just about to begin.
She would not sing songs after the oratorio music.
When the chorus was over, Mrs. Pomeroy suggested that Mr. Chillingworth
should give them a short poetical reading before the party broke up. "I
know," she said, "that you'll give us something very nice, to dream on.
Suppose you give us something from Browning. I just love to hear you
read him! Clara, dear, won't you bring Mr. Chillingworth a volume of
Browning?"
Miss Pomeroy, who belonged to a "Browning Club," speedily produced a
volume which she knew contained a favorite reading of Mr.
Chillingworth's. That gentleman seated himself where the soft light of a
silver reading-lamp could fall most pleasantly on the book, while the
rest of the company disposed themselves in various attitudes of
luxurious repose, as people are apt to do after a sumptuous repast.
Young Pomeroy threw himself on a sofa beside Kitty, where he could make
whispered comments _ad libitum_. Nora found a place near Miss Harley,
while Mr. Wharton lay back in an easy-chair with an expression of
complaisant and critical expectancy.
It was the beautiful opening of the poem "Pippa Passes," that Mr.
Chillingworth read, in a voice of musical quality and with a finished
elocution, for he had paid special attention to that art. Perhaps it
might have been objected that the reading suggested too much of the
artist, and too little of the man. But Nora listened with keen and
absorbed pleasure, as, through the music of the poet's lines and the
reader's voice, one scene after another rose before her "inward eye."
The glorious Italian morning just breaking over a sleeping country; the
sunrise reddening, flickering, then "pure gold overflowing the world";
the little mill girl springing up, eager to lose not one minute of the
long, lovely day, appealing to it, with its "long, blue solemn hours,
serenely flowing" to "treat her well," and not spoil her one precious
holiday by such gloom or showers as would not mar the pleasure of people
richer in holidays and joys--the haughty beauty, the happy bride and
groom, the boy and his mother, or Monsignore, in his dead brother's
palace, the grandees of her little world:
"But Pippa--just one such mischance would spoil
Her day that lightens the next twelve months' toil
At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil!"
Nora's thoughts went back with a bound to poor Lizzie Mason, her sad,
tired face and shabby dress, and wondered if such thoughts and fancies
ever flitted vaguely through her brain on a holiday. But the little girl
is dreaming now of what or whom she shall please to be to-day:
"To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk,
The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk:
But, this one day, I have leave to go,
And to play out my fancy's fullest games."
Ah, poor Lizzie! far too heavily weighed down by serious and pressing
cares, to have any wish to "play out fancy's games!" She glanced at Mrs.
Pomeroy, who sat with clasped hands and attitude all attent, and at Miss
Pomeroy, reclining with her cheek resting on her hand and an unusually
softened expression in the lines of the somewhat hard face. She wondered
if it occurred to them, how many _real_ dramas might be going on about
them, as worthy of their sympathy as this one, idealized by the power of
the poet. She began to think how it would be, if she were, there and
then, to go to Mr. Pomeroy with a petition to restore to his toiling
maidens their full measure of wages. Strange that people should feel so
much more for a girl in a book, than for the real flesh-and-blood ones,
in daily life! But Mr. Pomeroy had apparently gone to sleep, and his son
was whispering to Kitty, instead of listening. Ah, what was that? Was
not this Kitty--to the life!
"For are not such
Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature,
As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature?
A soft and easy life these ladies lead:
Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed."
Was that how their protected happy life looked to those who saw them _de
bas en haut_? Was it any wonder that girls like Nelly were pert and
discontented? With such thoughts drifting through her mind, she
listened, swayed by the magic power of poetry over the souls that are
open to its charm, to Pippa's pathetic yearning for the love which,
after all, is the blessing of blessings--the warm, cherishing love of
the brooding bird, the love of the mother for the child, ending in the
cry,
"If I only knew
What was my mother's face--my father's, too!"
But what are these lines that follow? Nora listens with caught breath to
the passage which closes the reading, given in Mr. Chillingworth's most
impressive manner.
"Nay, if you come to that, best love of all
Is God's; then why not have God's love befall
Myself as, in the palace by the Dome,
Monsignor?--who to-night will bless the home
Of his dead brother; and God bless in turn
That heart which beats, those eyes which mildly burn
With love for all men! I, to-night at least,
Would be that holy and beloved priest.
"Now wait!--even I already seem to share
In God's love; what does New-year's hymn declare?
What other meaning do these verses bear?
"All service ranks the same with God:
If now, as formerly he trod
Paradise, his presence fills
Our earth, each only as God wills
Can work--God's puppets, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first.
"Say not 'a small event.' Why 'small'?
Costs it more pain that this, ye call
A 'great event,' should come to pass,
Than that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!"
And so poor Pippa passes on, consoled for the wearisome silk-winding,
the scant food, scant raiment, scant human love.
"Oh yes--
I will pass each, and see their happiness,
And envy none--being just as great, no doubt,
_Useful to men, and dear to God, as they!_"
Yes, that was the best thing after all. Surely poor self-denying Lizzie
had this best blessing of loving service. Nora scarcely heard the
finishing lines of the passage, so engrossed was she with that thought.
Mr. Chillingworth closed the volume, and a chorus of thanks and
admiration followed.
It was Nora's first introduction to Pippa. She was familiar with most of
the poets of the century--Tennyson, Whittier, Wordsworth, Longfellow;
but with Browning she had scarcely got beyond the outer husk which
repels so many, and really knew only one or two of his minor Lyrics. But
the new, strenuous, heart-searching note took her captive. And often as
she afterwards read the poem, she never did so without seeming to see
the pathetic picture of Lizzie Mason, side by side with the little
dreaming Italian silk-winder.
After the guests took leave, Kitty asked her if she would not come to
church with her on the following evening, to hear Mr. Chillingworth
preach, as she was occasionally in the habit of doing--Mr. Alden's
church being the one her brother regularly attended. Nora willingly
promised, and a little meaning smile passed between Kitty and her
_fiancé_, as well-informed people now considered Harold Pomeroy to be.