Next time we met we began the anthem after our first exercise.
Laura[8]--by this time she was always Laura in my own world--nodded at
me. She had on a green silk frock to-night; and surely no color could
have so enhanced the clarified brightness of her strange eyes. Davy
was pleased with us, but not with our enunciation of certain
syllables. He requested us as a favor to practise between that meeting
and the next. There were a great many assents, and Laura was very open
in her "yes." Miss Benette whispered to herself, "Of course." And I,
unable to resist the opportunity, whispered to her, "Does he mean that
we are to practise alone, or one by one?"
"Mr. Davy will lend us our parts, and I daresay will copy them on
purpose," she replied. "It will be better to practise alone, or at
least one or two together, than a great many, or even a few. We can
more easily detect our faults."
"How well she speaks!" I thought,--"quite as prettily as Millicent;
her accent is very good, I am sure;" and I again addressed her. "I do
not think you have any faults at all,--your voice seems able to do
anything."
"I do nothing at all with it, it seems to me, and that I have very
little voice at present. I think we had better not talk, because it
seems so careless."
"Talk to me," broke in Laura from beyond Miss Benette; but I would
not,--I steadily looked in front, full of a new plan of mine. I must
explain that we proceeded slowly, because Davy's instructions were
complete,--perhaps too ideal for the majority; but for some and for me
there was an ineffaceable conviction in every novel utterance.
Just before we separated, I ventured to make my request. "Miss
Benette!" I said, and she almost stared, quite started to find I knew
her name, "Mr. Davy told me who you were,--will you let me come and
practise with you? He will tell you my name if you must know it, but I
should so like to sing with you,--I do so admire your voice." I spoke
with the most perfect innocence, at the same time quite madly wishing
to know her; I did not mean to be overheard, but on the instant Laura
looked over.
"You don't ask _me_."
"Because I don't care about your voice," I answered, bluntly. She
again gazed at me brightly, her eyes swimming.
"Oh, hush!" whispered Miss Benette; "you have hurt her, poor little
thing."
"How very good you are!" I returned, scarcely knowing what to say. "I
always speak the truth."
"Yes, I should think so; but it is not good taste to dislike Laura's
voice, for it is very pretty."
"Come, Miss Benette, do make haste and tell me whether you will let me
sing with you to-morrow."
"I do not mind if your friends will not object."
"Tell me where you live, then."
"In St. Anthony's Lane, just by the new foundation. There is a tree in
front, but no garden. You must not come, if you please, until after
one o'clock, because I have to practise for my other lessons."
"Good-night."
She ran off, having bowed a little courtesy. Laura had left while we
were talking.
"Now," thought I, "I shall have it all out, who she is and what she
does, and I will make Millicent go to see her." Davy here joined me.
"So you have made friends with Miss Benette."
"Yes, sir;" but I did not tell him I was going to practise with her,
for fear anything should prevent my going.
"She is an excellent young person, and will be a true artist.
Nevertheless, remember my injunction,--rather too few friends than too
many."
"I mean to keep friends with her, and to make my sister friends with
her."
"Your sister does not want friends, I should think."
"Oh, sir, did you ever find out who the conductor was?"
"Nobody knows. It is very singular," and he raised his voice, "that he
has never been heard of since, and had not been seen before by anybody
present, though so many foreign professors were in the hall. In London
they persist it was Milans-Andre, though Andre has himself
contradicted the assertion."
"I should like to hear Milans-Andre."
"You will some day, no doubt."
"Do you think I shall?"
"I feel in myself quite sure. Now, good-night to you."
"Do come in, sir, and have some supper, please."
But Davy was off in the moonlight before the door could be opened into
our house.
When I told Millicent I was going to practise with one of the class,
she thought fit to tell my mother. My mother made various inquiries;
but I satisfied her by assuring her it was one of Davy's own pupils,
and his favorite, and I contrived not to be asked whether it was a
young lady,--I let them think just at that time it was a young
gentleman about my own standing. The only direct injunction laid upon
me was that I should be home for tea at five o'clock,--and as I did
not leave our house until after our one o'clock dinner, this did not
give me very much time; but I ran the whole way.
I forgot to mention that Davy had lent each of us our parts
beautifully copied,--at least he had lent them to all who engaged to
practise, and I was one. I had rolled it up very neatly.
I soon found the house, but I was certainly astonished when I did find
it. I could not believe such a creature as Miss Benette could remain,
so bright, buried down there. It was the last house of a very dull
row, all let out in lodgings,--the meanest in the town except the very
poor.
It was no absurd notion of relative inferiority with which I surveyed
it, I was pained at the positive fact that the person to whom I had
taken such a fancy should be obliged to remain where I felt as if I
should never be able to breathe. I lingered but a moment though, and
then I touched a little heavy, distorted knocker that hung nearly at
the bottom of the door,--how unlike, I thought, to Lenhart Davy's tiny
castle under lock and key! Presently the door was opened by a person,
the like of whom I had never seen in all my small experience,--a
universal servant, required to be ubiquitous; let this description
suffice. I asked for Miss Benette. "The first door to the right,
upstairs," was the reply; and passing along a dark entry, I began to
ascend them, steep and carpetless. I seemed, however, to revive when I
perceived how lately the wooden steps had been washed; there was not a
foot-mark all the way up to the top, and they smelt of soap and water.
I found several doors to embarrass me on the landing, all painted
black; but I heard tones in one direction that decided me to knock. A
voice as soft as Millicent's responded, "Come in."
Oh, how strange I felt when I entered! to the full as strange as when
I first saw Davy's sanctum. No less a sanctum this, I remember
thinking, to the eyes that behold the pure in heart. It was so
exquisitely tidy, I felt at once that my selfish sensibilities had
nothing to fear. The room was indeed small, but no book walls darkened
gloriously the daylight; the fireplace was hideous, the carpet coarse
and glaring, the paper was crude green,--I hate crude greens more than
yellow blues,--and the chairs were rush-bottomed, every one. But she
for whom I came was seated at the window, singing; she held some piece
of work in her hand, which she laid upon the table when I entered.
Pardon my reverting to the table; I could not keep my eyes from it. It
was covered with specimens of work,--such work as I had never seen, as
I shall never see again, though all my sisters could embroider, could
stitch, could sew with the very best. She did not like me to look at
it though, I thought, for she drew me to the window by showing me a
chair she had set for me close beside her own. The only luxury amidst
the furniture was a mahogany music-stand, which was placed before our
two seats. One part lay upon the stand, but it was not in Lenhart
Davy's autography.
"Did you copy that part yourself, Miss Benette?" said I, unable to
restrain the question.
"Yes; I thought it too much that Mr. Davy should copy all the parts
himself for us."
"Does he?"
"Oh, yes; did you not know it? But we must not talk, we must work. Let
us be very careful."
"You show me how; please to sing it once alone."
She struck the tuning-fork upon the desk, and without the slightest
hesitation, flush, or effort, she began. One would not have deemed it
an incomplete fragment of score; it resounded in my very brain like
perfect harmony, so strangely did my own ear infer the intermediate
sounds.
"Oh, how lovely! how exquisite it must be to feel you can do so much!"
I exclaimed, as her unfaltering accent thrilled the last amen.
"I seem never to have done anything, as I told you before; it is
necessary to do _so_ much. Now sing it alone once all through, and I
will correct you as Mr. Davy corrects me."
I complied instantly, feeling her very presence would be instruction,
forgetting, or not conscious, how young she was. She corrected me a
great deal, though with the utmost simplicity. I was astonished at the
depth of her remarks, though too ignorant to conceive that they broke
as mere ripples from the soundless deeps of genius. Then we sang
together, and she wandered into the soprano part. I was transported; I
was eager to retain her good opinion, and took immense pains. But it
never struck me all the time that it was strange she should be
alone,--apparently alone, I mean. I was too purely happy in her
society. She sat as serenely as at the class, and criticised as
severely as our master.
"It is getting late," she said at last, "and I think you had better
go. Besides, I must go on with my work. If you are so kind as to come
and practise with me again, I must work while I sing, as I do when I
am alone."
"Oh, why did you not to-day?"
"I thought it would not be polite the first time," answered she, as
gravely as a judge; and I never felt so delighted with anything in all
my life. I looked up at her eyes, but the lashes were so long I could
not see them, for _she_ was looking down.
"Will you think me rude if I ask to look at your work?"
"You may look at what I am going to send to the shop."
"Oh, what shop?"
She got out of her chair and moved to the table. There was no smile
upon her baby-mouth. She pointed to the articles I had noticed but had
not dared to examine. They were, indeed, sights to see, one and all.
Such delicate frock-bodies and sprigged caps for infants; such
toilet-cushions rich with patterns, like ingrained pearls; such rolls
of lace, with running gossamer leaves, or edges fine as the pinked
carnations in Davy's garden. There were also collars with broad white
leaves and peeping buds, or wreathing embroidery like sea-weed, or
blanched moss, or magnified snow, or whatever you can think of as most
unlike work. Then there was a central basket, lined with white satin,
in which lay six cambric handkerchiefs, with all the folded corners
outwards, each corner of which shone as if dead-silvered with the
exquisitely wrought crest and motto of an ancient coroneted family.
"Oh, I never did see anything like them!" was all I could get out,
after peering into everything till the excelling whiteness pained my
sight. "Do tell me where you send them?"
"I used to send them to Madame Varneckel's, in High Street; but she
cheated me, and I send them now to the Quaker's, in Albemarle Square."
"You sell them, then?"
"Yes, of course; I should not work else. I do not love it."
"They ought to give you a hundred guineas for those."
"I have a hundred guineas already."
"You have!" I quite startled her by the start I gave. I very nearly
said, "Then why do you live up here?" but I felt, in time, that it
would be rude.
"Oh! I must get four hundred more, and that will take me two years, or
perhaps three, unless my voice comes out like a flower." Here her
baby-mouth burst into a smile most radiant,--a rose of light!
"Oh, Miss Benette, everything you say is like one of the German
stories,--a _Maerchen_,[9] you know."
"Oh, do you talk German? I love it. I always spoke it till I came to
this city."
"What a pity you came!--at least, I should have been very sorry if you
had not come; but I mean, I should have thought you would like Germany
best."
"So I should, but I could not help coming; I was a baby when I came.
Mr. Davy brought me over in his arms, and he was just as old then as I
am now."
"How very odd! Mr. Davy never told me he had brought you here."
"Oh, no! he would not tell you all the good things he has done."
"He has done me good,--quite as much good as he can have done to you;
but I should so like to hear all about it."
"You must not stay,--you _shall_ go," she answered, with her grave
sweetness of voice and manner; "and if you are not in time to-day, we
shall never practise again. I shall be very sorry, for I like to sing
with you."
I was not in time, and I got the nearest thing to a scolding from my
mother, and a long reproof from Clo. She questioned me as to where I
had been, and I was obliged to answer. The locality did not satisfy
her; she said it was a low neighborhood, and one in which I might
catch all sorts of diseases. I persisted that it was as high and dry
as we were, and possessed an advantage over us in that it had better
air, being, as it was, all but out in the fields. My mother was rather
puzzled about the whole matter, but she declared her confidence in me,
and I was contented, as she ever contents me. I was very grateful to
her, and assured them all how superior was Miss Benette to all the
members of the class. I also supplicated Millicent to accompany me the
next time I should be allowed to go, that she might see the beautiful
work.
"I cannot go, my dear Charles," she returned. "If this young lady be
what you yourself make her out to be, it would be taking a great
liberty; and besides, she could not want me,--I do not sing in the
class."
But she looked very much as if she wished she did.
"I just wish you would ask Mr. Davy about her, that's all."
FOOTNOTES:
[8] The idea that Laura Lemark was intended as a sketch of Taglioni,
the _danseuse_, is altogether fanciful; except the fact that Taglioni
in her old age taught deportment to ladies who desired to be presented
at the English court, and that Laura did the same after she had
retired, there is no resemblance between them.
[9] A tale, or romance.