Of all the events of that market-day, none moved me more enjoyably
than the sight of the countenances, quite petrified with amazement, of
my friends in the parlor. They were my three sisters. Clo came forward
in her bonnet, all but ready for a sortie; and though she bowed
demurely enough, she began at me very gravely,--
"Charles, I was just about to set out and search for you. My mother
has already sent a servant. She herself is quite alarmed, and has gone
upstairs."
Before I could manage a reply, or introduce Lenhart Davy, he had drawn
out his card. He gave it to the "beautiful Jewess." Millicent took it
calmly, though she blushed, as she always did when face to face with
strangers, and she motioned him to the sofa. At this very instant my
mother opened the door.
It would not be possible for me to recover that conversation, but I
remember how very refined was the manner, and how amiably deferential
the explanation of my guide, as he brought out everything smooth and
apparent even to my mother's ken. Lydia almost laughed in his
presence, she was so pleased with him, and Millicent examined him
steadfastly with her usually shrinking gray eyes. My mother, I knew,
was displeased with me, but she even forgave me before he had done
speaking. His voice had in it a quality (if I may so name it) of
brightness,--a metallic purity when raised; and the heroic particles
in his blood seemed to start up and animate every gesture as he spoke.
To be more explicit as to my possibilities, he told us that he was in
fact a musical professor, though with little patronage in our town,
where he had only a few months settled; that for the most part he
taught, and preferred to teach, in classes, though he had but just
succeeded in organizing the first. That his residence and connection
in our town were authorized by his desire to discover the maximum
moral influence of music upon so many selected from the operative
ranks as should enable him by inference to judge of its moral power
over those same ranks in the aggregate. I learned this afterwards, of
course, as I could not apprehend it then; but I well recall that his
language, even at that time, bound me as by a spell of conviction, and
I even appreciated his philanthropy in exact proportion to his
personal gifts.
He said a great deal more, and considerably enlarged upon several
points of stirring musical interest, before he returned to the article
of the festival. Then he told us that his class would not form any
section of the chorus, being a private affair of his own, but that he
himself should sing among the basses, and that it being chiefly
amateur, any accumulation of the choral force was of consequence. He
glanced expressly at my mother when he said,--
"I think your little boy's voice and training would render him a very
valuable vote for the altos, and if you will permit me to take charge
of him at the rehearsals, and to exercise him once or twice alone, I
am certain Mr. St. Michel will receive him gladly."
"Is Mr. St. Michel the conductor, Mr. Davy, then?" replied my mother
with kindness. "I remember seeing him in Germany when a little
theatre was opened in our village. I was a girl then, and he very
young."
"Yes, madam. Application was made to the wonderful Milans-Andre, who
has been delighting Europe with his own compositions interpreted by
himself; but he could not visit England at present, so St. Michel will
be with us, as on former occasions. And he is a good conductor, very
steady, and understands rehearsal."
Let me here anticipate and obviate a question. Was not my mother
afraid to trust me in such a mixed multitude, with men and women her
inferiors in culture and position? My mother had never trusted me
before with a stranger, but I am certain, at this distance of time,
she could not resist the pure truthfulness and perfect breeding of
Lenhart Davy, and was forced into desiring such an acquaintance for
me. Perhaps, too, she was a little foolish over her last-born, for she
certainly did indulge me in a quiet way, and with a great show of
strictness.
As Lenhart Davy paused, she first thanked him, then rang the bell, was
silent until she had ordered refreshments, sat still even then a few
minutes, and presently uttered a deliberate consent. I could not bear
it. I stood on one foot for an instant behind Clo's chair, and then
flung myself into the passage. Once upstairs, I capered and danced
about my mother's bed-room until fairly exhausted, and then I lay down
on my own bed, positively in my coat and boots, and kicked the clothes
into a heap, until I cried. This brought me to, and I remembered with
awe the premises I had invaded. I darted to my feet, and was occupied
in restoring calm as far as possible to the tumbled coverlid, when I
was horrified at hearing a step. It was only Millicent, with tears in
her good eyes.
"I am so glad for you, Charles," she said; "I hope you will do
everything in your power to show how grateful you are."
"I will be grateful to everybody," I answered. "But do tell me, is he
gone?"
"Dear Charles, do not say '_he_' of such a man as Mr. Davy."
Now, Millicent was but seventeen; still, she had her ideas, girlishly
chaste and charming, of what men ought to be.
"I think he is lovely," I replied, dancing round and round her, till
she seized my hands.
"Yes, Mr. Davy is gone; but he is kindly coming to fetch you
to-morrow, to drink tea with him, and mother has asked him to dine
here on Sunday. He showed her a letter he has from the great John
Andernach, because mother said she knew him, and she says Mr. Davy
must be very good, as well as very clever, from what Mr. Andernach has
written."
"I know he is good! Think of his noticing _me_! I knew I should go! I
said I would go!" and I pulled my hands away to leap again.
The old windows rattled, the walls shook, and in came Clo.
"Charles, my mother says if you do not keep yourself still, she will
send a note after Mr. Davy. My dear boy, you must come and be put to
rights. How rough your head is! What have you been doing to make it
so?" and she marched me off. I was quelled directly, and it was indeed
very kind of them to scold me, or I should have ecstasized myself ill.
It was hard work to get through that day, I was so impatient for the
next; but Millicent took me to sing a little in the evening, and I
believe it sent me to sleep. I must mention that the festival was to
last three days. There were to be three grand morning performances and
three evening concerts; but my mother informed me she had said she did
not like my being out at night, and that Lenhart Davy had answered,
the evening concerts were not free of entrance to him, as there was to
be no chorus, so he could not take me. I did not care; for now a new
excitement, child of the first and very like its parent, sprang within
my breast. To sing myself,--it was something too grand; the veins
glowed in my temples as I thought of my voice, so small and thin,
swelling in the cloud of song to heaven: my side throbbed and
fluttered. To go was more than I dared to expect; but to be necessary
to go was more than I deserved,--it was glory.
I gathered a few very nice flowers to give Lenhart Davy, for we had a
pretty garden behind the house, and also a bit of a greenhouse, in
which Millicent kept our geraniums all the winter. She was tying up
the flowers for me with green silk when he knocked at the door, and
would not come in, but waited for me outside. Amiable readers,
everybody was old-fashioned twenty years ago,[6] and many somebodies
took tea at five o'clock. Admirable economy of social life, to eat
when you hunger, and to drink when you thirst! But it is polite to
invent an appetite for made-dishes, so we complain not that we dine at
eight nowadays; and it is politic too, for complexions are not what
they used to be, and maiden heiresses, with all their thousands,
cannot purchase Beauty Sleep! Pardon my digression while Davy is
waiting at the door. I did not keep him so long, be certain. We set
out. He was very much pleased with my flowers, and as it was rather a
chilly afternoon, he challenged me to a race. We ran together, he
striding after me like a child himself in play, and snapping at my
coat; I screamed all the while with exquisite sensation of pleasurable
fun. Then I sped away like a hound, and still again he caught me and
lifted me high into the air. Such buoyancy of spirits I never met
with, such fluency of attitude; I cannot call them or their effect
animal. It was rather as if the bright wit pervaded the bilious
temperament, almost misleading the physiologist to name it nervous. I
have never described Lenhart Davy, nor can I; but to use the keener
words of my friend Dumas, he was one of the men the most "significant"
I ever knew.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] This would make the romance open in the year 1833.