It was very strange, or rather it was just natural, that I should feel
so singularly low next day. I was not exactly tired, and I was not
exactly miserable. I was perfectly blank, like a sunless autumn day,
with no wind about. I lay very late in bed, and as I lay there I no
more believed the events of yesterday than if they had been a dream. I
was literally obliged to touch myself, my hair, my face, and the
bed-clothes before I could persuade myself that I was not myself a
dream. The cold bath restored me, into which I daily sprang, summer
and winter alike; but I grew worse again after breakfast.
Yearning to re-excite myself in some fashion, I marched into the
parlor and requested Clo to teach me as usual. There she was, in her
gray-silk gown, peering (with her short-sightedness) into Herodotus;
but though all my books were placed upon the table by her, I could
tell very easily that she had not expected me, and was very much
pleased I should come. Her approbation overcame me, and instead of
blotting my copy with ink, I used my tears. They were tears I could no
more have helped shedding than I could have helped breathing. Clo was
very kind, she looked at me solemnly, not severely, and solemnly
administered the consolation that they were the effect of excitement.
I did not think so; I thought they were the effect of a want of
excitement, but I said nothing to her.
I overcame them, and was quiet for the rest of the day, and for
several days; but imagine what I suffered when I saw no more of
Lenhart Davy. As the world in our house went on just the same as
before the festival, and as I had no hand in keeping the house so
charmingly, nor any part in committees for dinner, nor in pickling
speculations, I was fairly left to myself with my new discovery about
myself; namely, that I must be a musician, or I should perish.
Had I only seen Lenhart Davy, I could have told him all. I believe my
attraction towards him was irresistible, or I should never have
thought of him while he stayed away, it would have hurt me too much;
for I was painfully, may be vainly, sensitive. I was not able to
appreciate his delicacy of judgment, as well as feeling, in abstaining
from any further communication with us until we ourselves reminded him
of us. I had no hope; and the four or five days I have mentioned as
passing without his apparition seemed to annihilate my future. I quite
drooped, I could not help it; and my mother was evidently anxious. She
made me bring out my tongue a dozen times a day, and she continually
sighed, as if reproaching herself with something. How long it seemed!
quite four months, as I used to reckon. I never once alluded to
Lenhart Davy, but others did,--at least not Millicent, but Lydia and
my eldest sister. Lydia made the observation that perhaps he was too
modest to come without a special invitation; but Clo hurt me far more
by saying that he had no doubt better engagements elsewhere. On the
evening of the fifth day I was sitting upon the stool in the parlor by
the window, after tea, endeavoring to gather my wandering fancies to
"Simple Susan," her simple woes, pleasures, and loves (for Clo was
there, and I did not wish to be noticed), when Millicent came into
the room and said my mother wished to speak to me upstairs. I went out
with Millicent. "What does she want--I mean mother?" I inquired, no
doubt rather peevishly.
"She wants to ask you a question you will like to answer, Charles."
"Shall I?--what is it? I don't think I shall like to answer any
question. Oh, Millicent!" and I hid my small face in the folds of her
dark-blue frock.
"Come, Charles! you know I would not deceive you. Darling, you must
not feel so much."
And she stooped to kiss me, smiling, though the tears were in her
eyes. I still persisted in hiding my head, and when we reached the
door of the dressing-room, I went in crying. My mother sat in a great
white chair beside the fire; next her stood a small table covered with
hose,--the hose of the whole household.
"How, Charles! how now! Be a man, or at least a boy, or I am sure I
had better not ask you what I sent for you to answer. Come, say, would
you like to sing in Mr. Davy's class? You must not give up your old
lessons, nor must you forget to take great pains to write, to cipher,
and to read as well; but I think you are very fond of singing since
you found your voice, and Mr. Davy, to whom I wrote, says you can be
of use to him, and that he will be so very good as to teach you what
he teaches the others,--to understand what you sing."
Dear Millicent! I knew I owed it all to her, for there had been that
in her face, her manner, and her kind eyes that told me she had felt
for me in my desolation; and now as she stood apart from my mother and
me, I ran to her and told her so--that I knew it all. I will not dwell
upon the solicitude of Clo, lest I should become unmanageable in the
midst of my satisfaction, nor upon Lydia's amazement at my mother's
allowing me to join the class; but I well recollect how Millicent kept
fast by me, her will, as it were, upon mine, and her reminding
calmness ever possessing me, lest I should by my ecstatic behavior
forfeit my right to my new privileges. I was quite good enough,
though, in the general opinion, to be permitted to go, as arranged, on
the following Tuesday evening.
Lenhart Davy dined with us on Sunday, by special invitation, written
by my mother, conveyed by my Margareth. He told me that I must not
mistake his silence if he spoke not to me nor noticed me when he was
amidst his pupils. I perfectly understood even then how much depended
upon his sagacious self-dependence.
The class assembled from six till eight in the evening, twice a week;
the room Davy convoked it in was one he hired expressly. My mother
sent me with Margareth, who was to fetch me again at the expiration of
two hours,--at least during the winter, which was fast approaching.
And thus, had it not been for the festival, I should have been at once
initiated into "choral life."
Though, indeed, but for that glorious time, and my own fantastic
courage, first-fruit of a musical temperament, I had perhaps never
been taught to give that name where I can now bestow none other, so
completely has choral worship passed into my life.
When Margareth left me at the door of a house I had never
entered,--though I knew it well, for it was let out in auction-rooms,
for committees and the like,--I felt far more wild and lost than when
I attended the grand rehearsal hand in hand with Lenhart Davy. He was
my master, though,--I remembered this, and also that he expected a
great deal of me, for he had told me so, and that he had appointed me
a high place among the altos. I had my numbered ticket in my hand, and
upon it my name, and I showed it to a man who was standing above at
the top of the steep staircase. He looked at it, nodded, and pushed me
in.
The room was tolerably large and high, and lighted by gas-burners,
which fully illustrated the bareness of wall and floor and ceiling.
Accustomed to carpets in every chamber, nay, in every passage, I was
horrified to hear my own footfall upon the boards as I traversed the
backs of those raised forms, one above the other, full of people. Boys
and men, and women and girls, seemed all mixed up together, and all
watching me; for I was late, and quite dreamy with walking through the
twilight town. Several beckoning hands were raised as I inquired for
the place of the altos, and I took my seat just where a number, nailed
to the form, answered to the number on my ticket.