My mother, besides being essentially an unworldly person, had, I
think, given up the cherished idea of my becoming a great mercantile
character, and even the expectation that I should take kindly to the
prospective partnership with Fred; for certainly she allowed me to
devote more time to my music tasks with Millicent than to any others.
I owe a great deal to that sister of mine, and particularly the early
acquaintance I made with intervals, scales, and chords. Already she
had taught me to play from figured basses a little, to read elementary
books, and to write upon a ruled slate simple studies in harmony.
Hardly conscious who helped me on, I was helped very far indeed. Other
musicians, before whom I bow, have been guided in the first toneless
symbols and effects of tone by the hand, the voice, the brain of
women; but they have generally been famous women. My sister was a
quiet girl. Never mind; she had a fame of her own at last. Davy,
considering I was in progress, said no more about teaching me himself,
and indeed it was unnecessary. I was certainly rather surprised at my
mother's permission for me to accompany him to the Redferns', first
and chiefly because I had never visited any house she did not frequent
herself, and she had never been even introduced to this family, though
we had seen them in their large pew at church, and I was rather fond
of watching them,--they being about our choicest gentry. For all the
while I conceived I should be a visitor, and that each of us would be
on the same footing.
Had I not been going to accompany Davy, I should have become nervous
at the notion of attending a great party met at a fashionable house;
but as it was, it did but conceal for me a glorious unknown, and I
exulted while I trembled a little at my secret heart.
But I went to my master as he had requested, and he let me into his
shell. I smelt again that delicious tea, and it exhilarated me as on
the first occasion. Upstairs, in the little room, was Miss Benette.
She was dressed as usual, but I thought she had never worn anything
yet so becoming as that plain black silk frock. The beautiful china
was upon the table, now placed for three; and child as I was, I could
not but feel most exquisitely the loveliness of that simplicity which
rendered so charming and so convenient the association of three ages
so incongruous.
There are few girls of fourteen who are women enough to comport
themselves with the inbred dignity that appertains to woman in her
highest development, and there are few women who retain the perfume
and essence of infancy. _These_ were flung around Clara in every
movement, at each smile or glance; and _those_ adorned her as with
regality,--a regality to which one is born, not with which one has
been invested. She did not make tea for Davy, nor did she interfere
with his little arrangements; but she sat by me and talked to me
spontaneously, while she only spoke when he questioned, or listened
while he spoke.
There was perfect serenity upon her face,--yes! just the serenity of a
cloudless heaven; and had I been older, I should have whispered to
myself that her peace of soul was all safe, so far as he was
concerned. But I did not think about it, though I might naturally have
done so, for I was romantic to intensity, even as a boy.
"How is Miss Lemark?" I suddenly inquired, while Davy was in the other
little room. I forgot to mention that my surmise was well founded,--he
_had_ no servant.
"She is much better, thank you, or I should not have come here. The
flowers look very fresh to-day, and she lies where she can see them."
"When will she get up?"
"I have persuaded her to remain in bed even longer than she needs; for
the moment she gets up they will make her dance, and she is not strong
enough for that yet."
Davy here returned, and we began to sing. We had a delicious hour. In
that small room Clara's voice was no more too powerfully perceptible
than is the sunlight in its entrance to a tiny cell,--that glory which
itself is the day of heaven. She sang with the most rarefied softness,
and I quite realized how infinitely she was my superior in art no less
than by nature.
What we chiefly worked upon were glees, single quartet pieces, and an
anthem; but last of all, Davy produced two duets for soprano and
alto,--one from Purcell, the other from a very old opera, the hundred
and something one of the Hamburg Kaiser, which our master had himself
copied from a copy.
"Shall you sing with us in all the four-parted pieces, sir?" I
ventured to ask during the symphony of this last.
"Yes, certainly; and I shall accompany you both invariably. But of all
things do not be afraid, nor trouble yourselves the least about
singing in company: nothing is so easy as to sing in a high room like
that of the Redferns', and nothing is so difficult as to sing in a
small room like this."
"I do not find it so difficult, sir," said Clara, gravely.
"That is because, Miss Benette, you have already had your voice under
perfect control for months. You have been accustomed to practise nine
hours a day without an instrument, and nothing is so self-supporting
as such necessity."
"Yes, sir, it is very good, but not so charming as to sing with your
sweet piano."
"Do you really practise nine hours a day, Miss Benette?"
"Yes, Master Auchester, always; and I find it not enough."
"But do you practise without a piano?"
"Yes, it is best for me; but when I come to my lessons and hear the
delightful keys, I feel as if music had come out of heaven to talk
with me."
"Ah, Miss Benette!" said Davy, with a kind of exultation, "what will
it be when you are singing _in_ the heart of a grand orchestra?"
"I never heard one, sir, you know; but I should think that it was like
going into heaven after music and remaining there."
"But were you not at the festival, Miss Benette?"
"Oh, no!"
"How very odd, when I was there!"
Davy looked suddenly at her; but though his quick, bright glance might
have startled away her answer, that came as calmly as all her
words,--like a breeze awakening from the south.
"I did not desire to go; Mr. Davy had the kindness to propose I
should, but I knew it would make me idle afterwards, and I cannot
afford to waste my time. I am growing old."
"Now, Miss Benette, there is our servant or your nurse," for I heard a
knock. "Will you let me come to-morrow?"
"Just for half an hour only, because I want to sit with Laura."
"I thank you; thank you!"
"How did you get home last night?" I asked, on the promised meeting.
She was sitting at the window, where the light was strongest, for her
delicate work was in her hand; and as the beams of a paler sun came in
upon her, I thought I had seen something like her somewhere before in
a picture as it were framed in a dusky corner, but itself making for
its own loveliness a shrine of light. Had I travelled among studios
and galleries, I must have been struck by her likeness to those
rich-hued but fairest ideals of the sacred schools of painting which
have consecrated the old masters as worshippers of the highest in
woman; but I had never seen anything of the kind except in cold
prints. That strange reminiscence of what we never have really seen,
in what we at present behold, appertains to a certain temperament
only,--that temperament in which the ideal notion is so definite that
all the realities the least approximating thereunto strike as its
semblances, and all that it finds beautiful it compares so as to
combine with the beautiful itself. I do not suppose I had this
consciousness that afternoon, but I perfectly remember saying, before
Clara rose to welcome me as she always did, "You look exactly like a
picture."
"Do I? But no people in pictures are made at work. Oh, it is very
unpicturesque!" and she smiled.
"I am not going to sing, Miss Benette; there is no time in just half
an hour."
"I _must_ practise, Master Auchester; I cannot afford to lose my half
hours and half hours."
"But I want to ask you some questions. Now do answer me, please."
"You shall make long questions, then, and I short answers."
She began to sing her florid exercises, a paper of which lay open upon
the desk, in Davy's hand.
"Well, first I want to know why are they unkind to Laura, and what
they do to her which is unkind."
"It would not be unkind if Laura were altogether like her father, as
she is in some respects, because then she would have no feeling; but
she has the feeling of which her mother died."
"That is a longer answer than I expected, but not half enough; I want
to know so much more. How pretty your hands are,--so pink!" I remarked
admiringly, as I watched the dimples in them, and the infantinely
rounded fingers, as they spread so softly amidst the delicate cambric.
"So are yours very pretty hands, Master Auchester, and they are very
white too. But never mind the hands now. I should like to tell you
about Laura, because if you become a great musician you will perhaps
be able to do her a kindness."
"What sort of kindness?"
"Oh, I cannot say, my thoughts do not tell me; but any kindness is
great to her. She has a clever father, but he has no more heart than
this needle, though he is as sharp and has as clear an eye. He made
his poor little wife dance even when she was ill; but that was before
I knew Laura. When I came here from London with Mr. Davy, I knew
nobody; but one evening I was singing and working while Thone (that is
my nurse) was gone out to buy me food, when I suddenly heard a great
crying in the street. I went downstairs and opened the door, and there
I found a little girl, with no bonnet upon her head, who wore a gay
frock all covered with artificial flowers. My nurse was there too.
Thone can't talk much English, but she said to me, 'Make her speak. I
found her sitting down in the gutter, all bathed in tears.'
"Then I said, in my English, 'Do tell me why you were in the streets,
pretty one, and why you wear these fine clothes in the mud.'
"'Oh, I cannot dance,' she cried, and sobbed; 'my feet are stiff with
standing all this morning, and if I try to begin before those lamps on
that slippery floor, I shall tumble down.'
"'You have run away from the theatre,' I said; and then I took her
upstairs in my arms (for she was very light and small), and gave her
some warm milk. Then, when she was hushed, I said, 'Were you to dance,
then? It is very pretty to dance: why were you frightened?'
"'I was so tired. Oh, I wish I could go to my mamma!'
"'I asked her where she was; and she began to shake her head and to
tell me her mamma was dead. But in the midst there was a great
knocking at the door downstairs. Laura was dreadfully alarmed, and
screamed; and while she was screaming, in came a great man, his face
all bedecked with paint. I could not speak to him, he would not hear
me, nor could we save the child then; for he snatched her up (all on
the floor as she was), and carried her downstairs in his arms. He was
very big, certainly, and had a fierce look, but did not hurt her; and
as I ran after him, and Thone after me, we saw him put her into a
close coach and get in after her, and then they drove away. I was very
miserable that night, for I could not do anything for the poor child;
but I went the first thing the next morning to the theatre that had
been open the evening before. Thone was with me, and took care of me
in that wild place. At last I made out who the little dancing-girl was
and where she lived, and then I went to that house. Oh, Master
Auchester! I thought my house so still, so happy after it. It was full
of noise and smells, and had a look that makes me very low,--a look of
discomfort all about. I said I wanted the manager, and half a dozen
smart, dirty people would have shown me the way; but I said, 'Only
one, if you please.'
"Then some young man conducted me upstairs into a greasy drawing-room.
Thone did not like my staying, but I would stay, although I did not
once sit down. The carpet was gay, and there were muslin curtains; but
you, Master Auchester, could not have breathed there. I felt ready to
cry; but that would not have helped me, so I looked at the sky out of
the window till I heard some one coming in. It was the great man. He
was selfish-looking and vulgar, but very polite to me, and wanted me
to sit upon his sofa. 'No,' I said, 'I am come to speak about the
little girl who came to my house last night, and whom I was caring for
when you fetched her away. And I want to know why she was so afraid to
dance, and so afraid of you?'
"The man looked ready to eat me, but Thone (who is a sort of gypsy,
Master Auchester) kept him down with her grand looks, and he turned
off into a laugh,--'I suppose I may do as I please with my own child!'
"'No, sir!' I said, 'not if you are an unnatural father, for in this
good land the law will protect her; and if you do not promise to
treat her well, I am going to the magistrate about it. I suppose she
has no mother; now, I have none myself, and I never see anybody
ill-treated who has no mother without trying to get them righted.'
"'You are a fine young lady to talk to me so. Why, you are a child
yourself! Who said I was unkind to my Laura? She must get her living,
and she can't do better than dance, as her mother danced before her. I
will send for her, and you shall hear what she will say for herself
this morning.'
"He shouted out upon the landing, and presently the child came down. I
was surprised to see that she looked happy, though very tired. I said,
'Are you better to-day?'
"'It was very nice,' she answered, 'and they gave me such pretty
flowers!'
"Then we talked a long time. I shall tire you, Master Auchester, if I
tell you all; but I found myself not knowing what to do, for though the
child had been made to go through a great deal of suffering--almost
all dancers must--yet she did so love the art that it was useless to
try and coax her out of her services for it. All I could do, then, was
to entreat her papa not to be severe with her, if even he was obliged
to be strict; and then (for he had told me she danced the night
before, the first time in public) I added to herself, 'You must try to
deserve the flowers they give you, and dance your very best And if you
practise well when you are learning in the mornings, it will become so
easy that you will not find it any pain at all, and very little
fatigue.'
"Her papa, I could see, was not ill-humored, but very selfish, and
would make the most of his clever little daughter; so I would not stay
any longer, lest he should forget what I had said. He was rather more
polite again before I went away, and in a day or two I sent Thone with
a note to Laura, in which I asked her to tea--and, for a wonder, she
came. I am tiring you, Master Auchester?"
"Oh! do please, for pity's sake, go on, Miss Benette!"
"Well, when she came with Thone, she was dressed much as she dresses
at the class, and I have not been able yet to persuade her to leave
off that ugly necklace. She talked to me a great deal. She was not
made to suffer until after her mother's death, for her mother was so
tender of her that she would allow no one to touch her but herself.
She taught her to dance, though; and little Laura told me so
innocently how she used to practise by the side of her mother's sick
bed, for she lay ill for many months. She had caught a cold--as Laura
did the other night--after a great dance, in which she grew very warm;
and at last she died of consumption. She had brought her husband a
good deal of money, and he determined to make the most of it as soon
as she was dead; for he brought Laura on very fast by teaching her all
day, and torturing her too, though I really believe he thought it was
necessary."
"Miss Benette!"
"Yes; for such persons as he have not sensations fine enough to let
them understand how some can be made to suffer delicately."
"Oh, go on!"
"Well, she was just ready to be brought out in a kind of fairy ballet,
in which children are required, the night the theatre opened this
season."
"And it was then she ran away?"
"Yes; when she got into the theatre she took fright."
"Did she dance that night, after all?"
"Oh, yes! and she liked it very much, for she is very excitable and
very fond of praise. Besides, she has a very bright soul, and she was
pleased with the sparkling scenery. As she described it, 'It was all
roses, and crystal, and beautiful music going round and round.' She is
a sweet little child when you really know her, and as innocent as the
two little daughters of the clergyman at St. Anthony's who go every
day past hand in hand, with their white foreheads and blue eyes, and
whose mamma sleeps by Laura's, in the same churchyard. Well, she came
to me several times, and at last I persuaded her papa to let her drink
tea with me, and it saves him trouble, so he is very glad she should.
It is the end of the season now, so I hope he will give her a real
holiday, and she will get quite strong."
"He fetches her, then, to go to the theatre?"
"Yes; it is not any trouble to him, for he calls on another person in
this lane, and they all go together."
"Do you know that person?"
"Oh, no! and Laura does not like her. But as Laura is obliged to see a
good deal of low people, I like her sometimes to see high people, that
her higher nature may not want food."
"I understand. Was that the reason she joined the class?"
"I persuaded her papa to allow her, by assuring him it would improve
her voice for singing in the chorus; and now he comes himself, though
I rather suspect it is because he likes to know all that is going on
in the town."
"She goes home with him, then?"
"Yes. The reason you saw Laura in her dancing-dress was that you might
like her. I bade her bring it, and put it on her myself. I did not
tell her why, but I wished you to see her too."
"But why did you wish me to like her, Miss Benette?"
"As I told you before,--that you may be kind to her; and also that she
might see some one very gentle, I wished her to be here with you."
"Am I gentle, do you consider?"
"I think you are a young gentleman," she answered, with her sweet
gravity.
"But I do not see how it could do her good exactly to see gentle
persons."
"Do not you? I do; I believe she will never become ungentle by living
with ungentle persons, as she does and must, if she once knows what
gentle persons are. I may be all wrong, but this is what I believe;
and when Laura grows up, I shall find out whether I am right. Oh! it
is good to love the beautiful; and if we once really love it, we can
surely not do harm."
"Miss Benette!" I exclaimed suddenly,--I really could not help it,--"I
think you are an angel."
She raised her blue eyes from the shadowy length of their lashes, and
fixed them upon the dim gray autumn heaven, then without a smile; but
her bright face shining even with the light of which smiles are born,
she replied in the words of Mignon, but with how apart a significance!
"I wish I were one!" then going on, "because then I shall be all
beautiful without and within me. But yet, no! I would not be an angel,
for I could not then sing in our class!"
I laughed out, with the most perfect sympathy in her sentiment; and
then she laughed, and looked at me exactly as an infant does in
mirthful play.
"Now, Miss Benette, one more question. Mr. Davy told me the other
night that you had done him good. What did he mean?"
"I do not think I can tell you what I believe he meant, because you
might mention it to him; and if he did not mean that, he would think
me silly, and I would not seem silly to him."
"Now, do pray tell me! Do you suppose I can go home unless you will?
You have made me so dreadfully curious. I should not think of telling
him you had told me. Now, what did you do for him that made him say
so?"
She replied, with an innocence the sister of which I have never seen
through all my dreams of woman,--
"Mr. Davy was so condescending as to ask me one day whether I would be
his wife,--sometime when I am grown up. And I said, No. I think that
was the good I did him."
I shall never forget the peculiar startled sensation that struck
through me. I had never entertained such a notion, or any notion of
the kind about anybody; and about her it was indeed new, and to me
almost an awe.
"The good you did him, Miss Benette!" I cried in such a scared tone
that she dropped her work into her lap. "I should have thought it
would have done him more good if you had said, Yes."
"You are very kind to think so," she replied, in a tone like a
confiding child's to a superior in age,--far from like an elder's to
one so young as myself,--"but I know better, Master Auchester. It was
the only thing I could do to show my gratitude."
"Were you sorry to say No, Miss Benette?"
"No; very glad and very pleased."
"But it is rather odd. I should have thought you would have liked to
say, Yes. You do not love him, then?"
"Oh! yes, I do, well. But I do not wish to belong to him, nor to any
one,--only to music now; and besides, I should not have had his love.
He wished to marry me that he might take care of me. But when he said
so, I answered, 'Sir, I can take care of myself.'"
"But, Miss Benette, how much should one love, and how, then, if one is
to marry? For I do not think all people marry for love!"
"You are not old enough to understand, and I am not old enough to tell
you," she said sweetly, with her eyes upon her work as usual, "nor do
I wish to know. If some people marry not for love, what is that to me?
I am not even sorry for them,--not so sorry as I am for those who know
not music, and whom music does not know."
"Oh! they are worse off!" I involuntarily exclaimed. "Do you think I
am 'known of music,' Miss Benette?"
"I daresay; for you love it, and will serve it. I cannot tell further,
I am not wise. Would you like to have your fortune told?"
"Miss Benette! what do you mean? You cannot tell fortunes!"
"But Thone can. She is a gypsy,--a real gypsy, Master Auchester,
though she was naughty, and married out of her tribe."
"What tribe?"
"Hush!" said Clara, whisperingly; "she is in my other room at work,
and she would be wroth if she thought I was talking about her."
"But you said she cannot speak English."
"Yes; but she always has a feeling when I am speaking about her. Such
people have,--their sympathies are so strong."
Now, it happened we had often talked over gypsies and their
pretensions in our house, and various had been the utterances of our
circle. Lydia doomed them all as imposters; my mother, who had but an
ideal notion of them, considered, as many do, that they somehow
pertained to Israel. Clo presumed they were Egyptian, because of their
contour and their skill in pottery,--though, by the way, she had never
read upon the subject, as she always averred. But Millicent was
sufficient for me at once, when she had said one day, "At least they
are a distinct race, and possess in an eminent degree the faculty of
enforcing faith in the supernatural by the exercise of physical and
spiritual gifts that only act upon the marvellous."
I always understood Millicent, whatever she said, and I had often
talked with her about them. I rather suspect she believed them in her
heart to be Chaldean. I must confess, notwithstanding, that I was
rather nervous when Miss Benette announced, with such child-like
assurance, her intuitive credence in their especial ability to discern
and decipher destiny.
I said, "Do you think she can, then?"
"Perhaps it is vulgar to say 'tell fortunes,' but what I mean is, that
she could tell, by casting her eyes over you, and looking into your
eyes, and examining your brow, what kind of life you are most fit for,
and what you would make out of it."
"Oh, how I should like her to tell me!"
"She shall, then, if she may come in. But your half-hour has passed."
"Oh, do just let me stay a little!"
"You shall, of course, if you please, sir; only do not feel obliged."
She arose and walked out of the room, closing the door. I could catch
her tones through the wall, and she returned in less than a minute.
There was something startling, almost to appall, in the countenance
of the companion she ushered, coming close behind her. I can say that
that countenance was all eye,--a vivid and burning intelligence
concentred in orbs whose darkness was really light, flashing from
thence over every feature. Thone was neither a gaunt nor a great
woman, though tall; her hands were beautifully small and slender, and
though she was as brunette as her eye was dark, she was clear as that
darkness was itself light. The white cap she wore contrasted strangely
with that rich hue, like sun-gilt bronze. She was old, but modelled
like a statue, and her lips were keen, severe, and something scornful.
It was amazing to me to see how easily Miss Benette looked and worked
before this prodigy; I was speechless. Thone took my hand in hers, and
feeling I trembled, she said some quick words to Clara in a species of
Low German, whose accent I could not understand, and Clara replied in
the same. I would have withdrawn my hand, for I was beginning to fear
something dreadful in the way of an oracle, but Thone led me with
irrepressible authority to the window. Once there, she fastened upon
me an almost feeling glance, and having scanned me a while, drew out
all my fingers one by one with a pressure that cracked every sinew of
my hand and arm. At last she looked into my palm, but made no
muttering, and did not appear trying to make out anything but the
streaks and texture of the skin. It could not have been ten minutes
that had passed when she let fall my hand, and addressing Clara in a
curt, still manner, without smile or comment, uttered in a voice whose
echoes haunt me still,--for the words were rare as music,--"Tonkunst
und Arzenei."[10]
I knew enough of German to interpret these, at all events, and as I
stood they passed into my being by conviction, they being indeed
truth.
Clara approached me. "Are you satisfied? Music _is_ medicine, though,
I think; do not you?"
She smiled with sweet mischief.
"Oh, Miss Benette, thank you a thousand times! for whether it is to be
true or not, I think it is a very good fortune to be told. Has she
told you yours?"
"Yes, often; at least as much as she told you about yourself, she has
revealed to me."
"Can she tell all people their fortunes?"
"I will ask her."
She turned to our bright Fate and spoke. On receiving a short, low
reply, as Thone left the room, she again addressed me. "She says, 'I
cannot prophesy for the pure English, if there be any, because the
letters of their characters are not distinct. All I know in all, is
how much there is of ours in each.'"
"I don't know what she means."
"No more do I."
"Oh, Miss Benette, you do!" For her arch smile fluttered over her
lips.
"So I do; but, Master Auchester, it is getting very late,--you must
go, unless I may give you some tea. And your mother would like you to
be home. Therefore, go now."
I wanted to shake hands with her, but she made no show of willingness,
so I did not dare, and instantly I departed. What a wonderful spell it
was that bound me to the dull lane at the end of the town! Certainly
it is out of English life in England one must go for the mysteries and
realities of existence. I was just in time for our tea. As I walked
into the parlor the fire shone, and so did the kettle, singing to
itself; for in our English life we eschewed urns. Clo was reading,
Lydia at the board, Millicent was cutting great slices of homemade
bread. I thought to myself, "How differently we all manage here! If
Millicent did but dare, I know she would behave and talk like Miss
Benette."
"How is the young lady this afternoon, Charles? I wish you to ask her
to come and drink tea with us on Sunday after service."
"Yes, mother; is Mr. Davy coming?"
"He promised the other night."
"And Charles," added Clo, "do not forget that you must go with me
to-morrow and be measured for a jacket."
"I am to wear one at last, then?"
"Yes, for now you are really growing too tall for frocks."
I was very glad; for I abjured those braided garments, compassing
about my very heels with bondage, with utter satisfaction. Still, I
was amused. "I suppose it is for this party I am going to," thought I.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] Music and Medicine.