The Story of a Violin
Mildred Lancaster, with whose history this book is largely concerned,
was an orphan, and had been brought up from her babyhood by an uncle and
aunt who had no children of their own. Her uncle, Dr. Graham, was a busy
man with a large practice, who managed nevertheless to spare a little
leisure to keep up the scientific side of his profession. He was a
prominent member of Health Congresses, Sanitary Commissions, and Medical
Societies, and was full of schemes for the better housing of the
labouring classes, the opening of gardens and pleasure-grounds in
crowded slum districts, the care of cripples and pauper children, or any
question which affected the well-being of the poor people among whom his
work chiefly lay. In all these things Mrs. Graham was his most earnest
right hand.
She had a very strong sense of her responsibility towards those who were
less-well equipped for the world's battles than herself, and she tried
to take some of the light and beauty and culture of her own well-ordered
life into those sad, sordid homes, where no dawn of higher things had
ever shone. It was quiet, unostentatious work, that sometimes seemed to
show small reward for the trouble spent over it, but she went on
patiently all the same, knowing that the result might often be there,
even if she were not able to see it herself.
To both Dr. and Mrs. Graham, Mildred stood in the place of a daughter.
She could remember no other home, and knew no other friends, for her
mother's relations had hitherto ignored the very fact of her existence.
It was a happy little household, with a great deal of love in it, but
the life was plain and simple, with few luxuries or extra indulgences.
The Grahams were not rich people, and everything that they did not need
for absolute necessities was devoted to helping forward the many causes
they had at heart. On Mildred's education, however, they spared no
expense. They sent her to St. Cyprian's College because it was the only
school where she could spend an adequate time on the music which they
hoped might some day prove to be her career, and they were prepared
later on to give her the best possible advantages.
On the very afternoon when Ella Martin and Kitty Fletcher were talking
about her, Mildred, quite unconscious of their concern on her behalf,
was at home, trying to make up some arrears on her practising sheet. The
cosy upstairs sitting-room of the corner house in Meredith Terrace was a
cheerful place, though the carpet was worn and the curtains were faded.
The long rows of shelves on either side of the fire-place were
overflowing with books; on the walls hung prints, etchings, and
water-colour sketches, most of them unframed, and pinned here and there,
without any definite order as to arrangement, so as to secure the best
light available. An unfinished red-chalk drawing stood on an easel by
the open piano, a pot full of tulips made a rich spot of colour against
the old green table-cloth, and a large grey Persian cat slept peacefully
and luxuriously in the arm-chair.
It was a congenial atmosphere for study, and Mildred, who stood with her
violin in the bow-window, had the dreamy, far-away expression in her
eyes which, to those who knew her, meant that her artistic side was
uppermost. Her long, thin, supple fingers were bringing real music from
her instrument. Though her gaze might be fixed upon the piece placed
upon the stand before her, she was paying no heed to it, for the
snatches of melody, now bright and joyful, now soft and sad, which
floated through the room were of her own improvising, a kind of
reflection of the spring sunshine and the twittering of the birds
outside that found its expression in the notes which flowed so richly
and easily that it almost seemed as if her violin were speaking with a
human voice. One cannot live long, however, in a world composed only of
sweet sounds, and Mildred found her day-dream quickly and suddenly
dispelled by the opening of the door and the brisk entrance of her aunt.
"Mildred, dear! Do you call this practising? I thought you had promised
me to keep strictly to your concerto. When I last heard it there were
still a great many mistakes, and I'm afraid Herr Hoffmann will be
anything but satisfied when you go for your next lesson."
Thus brought back to the practical side of life, Mildred put down her
violin with a sigh.
"Such a lovely idea came into my head, Tantie! I just had to try it
over at once, for fear it should go out again. I thought I might enjoy
myself for ten minutes!"
Mrs. Graham did not look approving.
"How many scales and arpeggios have you played?" she enquired gravely.
"Well, not any yet. I can do them after tea."
"And your exercise?"
"Oh! there'll be plenty of time to learn that before next Wednesday.
It's quite an easy one."
"It may be easy, but it will need practice all the same. Have you tried
your new piece?"
"The 'Fruehlingslied'? It's much too difficult. I shall take it back and
tell Herr Hoffmann I can't possibly manage it. It's one of those
terrible things that go with an orchestra. I simply hate them. The
Professor plays to represent the other instruments, and he's always more
than usually fussy and particular. He scolds most abominably if I play a
false note, or happen to come in at the wrong place."
"I'm very glad to hear it. I think you need more scolding than you get
at home."
Mildred screwed up her mouth with a rather humorous expression, then
flung her arms round her aunt's neck and gave her an impulsive hug.
"Sweetest darling little Tantie, you can't scold! So please don't begin
to try. I know I'm horribly bad. I ought to have been grinding away at
that wretched concerto all the time, but it isn't very pretty, and it
has such nasty catchy bits in it. I like making up pieces for myself so
much better than proper practising. The tunes just come into my head,
and then I feel as if I must play them over before I forget them. If I
wait, they're gone, and I never can catch them again."
"I don't blame you, dear child, for liking to compose. What I find fault
with is that you always want to shirk the hard part of the work. Scales
and exercises are not pleasant, I own, but they train your fingers in a
way which nothing else can do. How often has the Professor told you
that, I wonder?"
"About fifteen dozen times, I dare say!" laughed Mildred, cajoling her
aunt into one of the cosy basket-chairs which stood near the hearth, and
installing herself in the other, with Godiva, the Persian cat, on her
knee. "That doesn't make the scales and exercises any more interesting,
though. It's no use, Tantie! I love music, but I detest the drudgery of
it. Why need I spend so much time over the part I don't like? Why can't
I just play my own tunes, and be happy?"
"Because we all hope you are worthy of better things. Simply to amuse
yourself is not the highest ideal, either in music or life. Your violin
was the only possession which your father could leave to you, and you
must think of it as an inheritance, not as a toy."
"I know so little about my father," said Mildred, leaving her seat, and
throwing herself down on the hearth-rug, with her head against her
aunt's knee. "You scarcely ever talk about him."
"Because it's a sad remembrance, dear," said Mrs. Graham, stroking the
golden hair with a gentle hand. "I've shrunk from speaking of it before,
and yet I have often felt lately that you ought to know the story. I
would rather you heard it from me than learnt it from anyone who might
tell it to you with less sympathy than I should."
She paused, with a far-away look in her eyes, as if memories of the past
were living before her. For a moment or two there was silence in the
room, only broken by Godiva's purrs and the twittering of the birds
outside.
"Please go on!" said Mildred impatiently.
"Your violin has a history," began Mrs. Graham. "You know already that
it is a very old and valuable one, made by Stradivarius himself, whose
skill was so marvellous that nobody since has ever been able to equal
the instruments which he turned out from his workshop at Cremona. I
can't tell you who was the earliest owner, or how many hands, long since
dead, have brought sweet music out of it; but when I first made its
acquaintance it was the most cherished possession of a strange old
gentleman who lived in the cathedral city where I was born. No one knew
anything about Monsieur Strelezki, for though he had been an inhabitant
of Dilchester for several years, he remained to the last as great a
mystery as on the day he arrived. His housekeeper, an elderly
Frenchwoman, always alluded to him as 'Monsieur le Comte', and he was
generally believed to be a Polish nobleman, who for some political
reason had been exiled from his native land. He spoke excellent English,
and was apparently well off and accustomed to good society; yet he lived
the life of an absolute recluse, refusing to exchange visits with any of
his neighbours, who, after their first curiosity had worn off, shunned
him with an almost superstitious horror, whispering many tales about him
under their breath.
[Illustration: TANTIE TELLS MILDRED THE HISTORY OF HER VIOLIN, WHICH IS
A VERY OLD AND VALUABLE ONE MADE BY STRADIVARIUS HIMSELF.]
"My brother and I would look with a kind of fascination at the gloomy
old dwelling just outside the precincts which the Comte had bought, and
at once surrounded with such a very high wall that it went in future by
the name of 'The Hidden House'. We used to pass it every day on our way
to school, and I remember how, by a mutual understanding, we always
crossed the road exactly at the corner near the lamp-post, so as to
avoid walking too close to what, in our childish imagination, might be
the abode of an anarchist or worse. Your father was my only brother,
five years younger than myself, my greatest companion, and my special
charge after our mother's death. He had the most charming, lovable,
careless, happy-go-lucky, and irresponsible disposition that I have ever
known. I fear both my father and I spoilt him, for he was very winning,
and when he would ask in his coaxing way it was difficult to refuse him
anything. From a little child he had shown the most wonderful love for
music. He seemed to learn the piano almost by instinct, and his greatest
amusement was to play by ear all the chants and anthems which were sung
by the cathedral choir. An air once heard never escaped his memory, and
he would put such beautiful harmonies to it, and make such elaborate
variations upon it, that I have often listened to him with amazement.
Our father was proud of his boy's talent, and, wishing him to play the
organ, made arrangements that he should take lessons from the cathedral
organist.
"At first Bertram was pleased to have the great instrument respond to
his little fingers, but he found the stops and pedals were troublesome
and confusing to manage, and he did not make the progress we had hoped
for. His one longing was to learn the violin. He used to implore our
dancing-master to allow him to try the small instrument by which we were
taught to regulate the steps of our quadrilles and polkas, and he would
even bribe the blind old street musician who played before our house on
Saturday mornings to lend him his fiddle and bow. There was no one in
the town, however, whom my father considered worthy to teach him, so he
was obliged to content himself with trying to pick out tunes on a guitar
which had belonged to my mother, and which he had found stowed away in
the lumber-room. One day my brother and I were walking down the narrow
paved street on our way home from the cathedral, when, passing by the
mysterious 'Hidden House', we heard the wailing strains of a violin.
Bertram at once stopped to listen, and seeing that the door in the high
wall, which was generally fast locked, to-day stood open, he crept
inside the garden, so that he might hear the better. I followed, to try
and persuade him to return, but I, too, was so attracted by the
enchanting music which flowed through the open window that together we
stood concealed behind a syringa bush, almost holding our breath for
pleasure.
"I know now that it was a composition of Rubenstein's that Monsieur le
Comte was playing, but we had never heard it before. It was a style of
foreign music quite new to us, and the wild romance, the weird beauty
and pathos, the bewitching, haunting ring of the melody, rendered by a
master hand, together with the strangeness of the unusual rhythm, roused
my brother to a degree of excitement I had never seen him show before.
As the last soft notes sank quivering away, he rushed from his
hiding-place, and running up the steps to the French window, dashed
impulsively into the room where Monsieur Strelezki stood with his
violin.
"'Oh, thank you! Thank you!' he cried. 'I've never heard anything so
wonderful in all my life. Will you please tell me what it's called? And
oh! if you would play it over again!'
"To say that the Comte was astonished will very poorly describe the
scene that followed, but finding that the boy was in earnest, he bade us
be seated, and gave us such a bewildering and utterly charming selection
of quaint Polish and Hungarian airs that Bertram was wild with delight.
He sealed a friendship then and there with Monsieur Strelezki, and
whenever he had a half-hour to spare he would hurry away to the 'Hidden
House' to listen to more of the fascinating music.
"It was perhaps only natural that the Comte, seeing my brother's
enthusiasm, should offer to teach him the violin; and though my father
was somewhat doubtful about allowing him to accept so great a favour
from our eccentric neighbour, he could not, in the end, resist Bertram's
pleadings, so the lessons began. I think teacher and pupil enjoyed them
equally, and the boy's progress was simply marvellous. He not only
learned with a rapidity which astonished even his master, but about this
time he began to compose pieces himself, and could hardly contain his
joy in this newly-discovered talent. I would often beg him to write them
down, as he was apt to forget them; but he did not like the trouble of
transcribing music, and would declare with a laugh that it did not
matter, as he always had a new one in his head. His school work suffered
very much. He would spend over his violin hours which ought to have been
given to preparing Greek and Latin, and my father was often angry over
his bad reports. It seemed little use, however, to scold him; he was
full of promises of amendment, but he never kept any of them.
"This had gone on for perhaps three years, when one day my brother went
round early to the 'Hidden House'. He found everything in a state of
confusion and upset. Monsieur Strelezki had died suddenly of heart
failure during the night. The old housekeeper had discovered him, when
she entered the dining-room in the morning, sitting, as she supposed,
writing, with his violin on the table by his side; but the eyes bent
over the paper were sightless, and the fingers that still held the pen
were stiff and cold. On a half-sheet of note-paper he had written in a
shaky hand:
"'TO BERTRAM LANCASTER.
"'Farewell, dear pupil and friend! The King of the Musicians has
called me. We shall meet no more in this world. I bequeath you my
Stradivarius. May it prove for you the key to fame. Remember always
that there is only one secret of true success, and that is....'
"But here the messenger had come for Monsieur le Comte, and he had
obeyed the summons, leaving the secret he had tried to tell for ever
untold.
"As my brother grew older his passion for music seemed only to increase.
My father wished him to study law, so that he might in time give him a
partnership in the steadygoing old-fashioned solicitor's practice which
had been in our family for several generations, but Bertram utterly
refused. He had set his heart on a musical career, and after a bitter
quarrel with his father, he left home altogether, taking with him the
small fortune he had inherited from our mother, and went away with the
avowed intention of devoting himself to his violin.
"'I feel I have a future before me, Alice,' he said, as he bade me
good-bye. 'I shall solve the Comte's secret yet. If it was talent he
referred to' (and he flushed a little) 'I think I've my fair share of
that, so perhaps the Stradivarius may really prove the key to fame, in
spite of everything!'
"It is a very sad part of the story that comes now, but I must tell it
to you all the same. Bertram left us in high hopes, and for a time,
while his enthusiasm was fresh, and the change still new, I believe he
studied hard at his music. But he had a curious lack of any real effort
or steady concentrated purpose. He was always going to do great things,
which somehow were never accomplished. I cannot tell you how many operas
and oratorios he began to compose, which were to take the public by
storm; but none of them was ever finished, though the fragments which I
heard were of so rare a quality that they were fit to rank among the
works of men of genius. Sometimes he would be at the very height of
exaltation, and sometimes in the lowest depths of despair; there were
periods of wild ambition, when he was determined to have the world at
his feet, but they never lasted long enough to carry him through the
whole of an opera.
"A few of his shorter compositions were published, and were very highly
thought of by musicians, and he had splendid opportunities of playing at
concerts and recitals. His appearances in public were always successful;
yet he so often refused to fulfil his engagements, for no apparent
reason except the whim of the moment, that the managers grew tired of
him. He fell under the influence of bad companions, who led him to
neglect his work, and to think of nothing but pleasure, and he had not
the moral courage to say 'No' to them. His little fortune was soon
spent, and as my father refused to help him, he was obliged at last to
earn his bread as a teacher of music. It was in this capacity that he
made the acquaintance of your mother, whose father, Sir John Lorraine,
could not forgive her runaway match with one whom he considered utterly
unworthy of her, and forbade her name to be mentioned again in his
presence. You cannot remember her, Mildred, for she only lived long
enough to put her little golden-haired baby into my arms, and beg me to
be a friend to it--a trust that I have never forgotten, both for your
sake and hers.
"After this matters went from bad to worse. Your father, in his grief,
took no trouble over his teaching, pupils slipped away, and he also lost
the post in an orchestra which for some time had been his chief
resource. I helped him to my uttermost, but it was little enough, after
all, that I could do for him. His health, never robust, seemed suddenly
to fail, and before the year was out he had died, broken-hearted, in the
prime of his youth, the success he had dreamt of still unwon. I was with
him at the last, and as he put his poor worn hand in mine, he said:
"'Alice, I discovered the Comte's secret too late! Give the Stradivarius
to my child. It's the only inheritance I have to leave her. Perhaps my
wasted life may teach her to use hers to better advantage, and some day
she may meet with the fame and success that I always hoped for but never
gained.'"
Mildred sat very silent for a moment or two when Mrs. Graham had
finished her story.
"What was the Comte's secret?" she asked at length, with a break in her
voice.
"Perseverance and hard work. Talent is of very little use without these.
Nothing can be gained in this world without taking pains, and any
success worth having must be at the cost of the best effort that's in
us. Do you see why I've told you this to-day?"
"Yes," replied Mildred thoughtfully. "I didn't know my violin had such a
history. I loved it before, but I shall love it ten thousand times
better now. Tantie, I think I'll tussle with the 'Fruehlingslied' after
all. I believe if I really slave at it I can manage it. It'll be
hateful, but I declare I'll try, if I break every string, and wear my
bow out in the attempt."
"That's my brave girl! Shall we have a resolutions, not only for the
'Fruehlingslied', but for all-round work at school? Miss Cartwright says
you can do so well when you choose. Won't you promise?"
"Honour bright, Tantie! I'll do my best!"