Oh, shame upon me, thus to ramble, when I should be restoring merely!
After the shock I mentioned, the best thing happened to me
possible,--we had to sing again; and Clara's voice arising, like the
souls of flowers, to the sun, became actually to me as the sun unto
those flowery souls. I revived and recovered my warmth; but now the
reaction had come, and I sang through tears. I don't know how my voice
sounded, but I felt it return upon me, and Davy grew rather nervous, I
knew, from his manner of accompanying. And I did not say that while
Miss Lawrence had stood and chatted with Santonio, a noiseless
_rentree_ of footmen had taken place,--they bearing salvers loaded
with ices and what are called "creams" at evening parties.
A sort of interlude this formed, of which the guests availed
themselves to come and stare in upon us; and as they looked in we
peeped out, though nobody ventured on our side beyond the doorway. So
our duet had happened afterwards, and the music was to be resumed
until twelve o'clock, the supper-hour. And after our duet there was
performed this coda, that Miss Redfern requested Miss Lawrence to play
with her, and that Miss Lawrence refused, but consented, at Santonio's
suggestion, to play alone. As soon as she was seen past our
folding-door, the whole male squadron advanced to escort her to the
piano; but as she was removing her gloves leisurely, she waved them
off, and they became of no account whatever in an instant. She sat
down very still and played a brilliant prelude, a more than brilliant
fugue, short and sharp, then a popular air, with variations, few, but
finely fingered; and at last, after a few modulations, startling from
the hand of a female, something altogether new, something fresh and
mystical, that affected me painfully even at its opening notes. It was
a movement of such intense meaning that it was but one sigh of
unblended and unfaltering melody, isolated as the fragrance of a
single flower; and only the perfumes of Nature exhale a bliss as
sweet, how far more unexpressed! This short movement, that in its
oneness was complete, grew, as it were, by fragmentary harmonies
intricate, but most gradual, into another,--a _prestissimo_, so
delicately fitted, that it was like moonlight dancing upon crested
ripples; or for a better similitude, like quivering sprays in a summer
wind. And in less than fifty bars of regularly broken time--how
ravishingly sweet I say not--the first subject in refrain flowed
through the second, and they interwoven even as creepers and flowers
densely tangled, closed together simultaneously. The perfect command
Miss Lawrence possessed over the instrument did not in the least occur
to me; I was possessed but by one idea. Yet too nervous to venture
into that large room, I eagerly watched her, and endeavored to arrest
her eye, that I might beckon her among us again; so resolute was I to
ask her the name of the author. Santonio, as if really excited, had
made a sort of rush to her, and was now addressing her, but I heard
not what they said, though Davy did, for he had followed Santonio. To
my surprise, I saw that Miss Benette had taken herself into a corner,
and when I gazed upon her she was wiping her eyes. I was reminded
then that my own were running over.
Scarcely was I fit to look up again, having retreated to another
corner, when I beheld Miss Lawrence, in her blue brocade, come in and
look about her. She absolutely advanced to me.
"Did you like that little dream? That is my notion of the gentleman at
the festival, do you know."
"Did you compose it?" I asked in a maze.
"No, I believe he did."
"Then you know who he is? Tell me, oh! tell me the name."
She smiled then at me with kindness,--a beneficent sweetness. "Come,
sit down, and I will sit by you and tell you the story."
"May not Miss Benette come too?"
"Oh, certainly, if she is not more comfortable out there. I wish you
would bring her, though, for I want to see her eyes." I slipped over
the carpet. "Come, Miss Benette, and hear what Miss Lawrence is
saying." She looked a little more serious with surprise, but followed
me across the room and took the next chair beyond mine. Santonio came
up too, but Miss Lawrence said, "Go,--you have heard it before;" and
he, having to play again next, retired with careful dignity.
"You must know that once on a time,--which means about three months
ago,"--began Miss Lawrence, as if she were reading the introductory
chapter of a new novel, "I wanted some country air and some hard
practice. I cannot get either in London, where I live, and I
determined to combine the two. So I took a cottage in a lone part of
Scotland,--mountainous Scotland; but no one went with me except my
maid, and we took care together of a grand pianoforte which I hired
in Edinburgh, and carried on with me, van and all.
"It was glorious weather just then, and when I arrived at my cottage I
found it very difficult to practise, though very charming to play; and
I played a great deal,--often all the day until the evening, when I
invariably ascended my nearest hill, and inhaled the purest air in the
whole world. My maid went always with me; and at such seasons I left
my pianoforte sometimes shut, and sometimes open, as it happened, in
my parlor, which had a splendid prospect, and very wide windows
opening to the garden in front. I allowed these windows to remain open
always when I went out, and I have often found Beethoven's sonatas
strewed over the lawn when the wind blew freshly, as very frequently
it did. You may believe I often prolonged my strolls until the sun had
set and the moon arisen. So one time it happened, I had been at work
the whole day upon a crabbed copy of studies by Bach and Handel that
my music-seller had smuggled for me from an old bureau in a Parisian
warehouse,--for you must know such studies are rarely to be found."
"Why not?" asked I, rather abruptly, just as if it had been Millicent
who was speaking.
"Oh! just because they are rare practice, I suppose. But listen, or
our tale will be cut off short, as I see Santonio is about to play."
"Oh, make haste then, pray!"
And she resumed in a vein more lively.
"The whole day I had worked, and at evening I went out. The sunshine
had broken from dark, moist clouds all over those hills. The first
steep I climbed was profusely covered with honeysuckle, and the rosy
gold of the clusters, intermixed with the heather, just there a
perfect surface, pleased me so much that I gathered more than I could
well hold in both my arms. Victorine was just coming out,--that is, my
handmaid,--and I returned past her to leave my flowers at home. It
struck me first to throw them over the palings upon the little lawn,
but second thoughts determined me to carry them in-doors for a sketch,
or something. I got into my parlor by the glass door, and flung them
all, fresh as they were, and glimmering with rain-drops, upon the
music-stand of the pianoforte. I cannot tell you why I did it, but so
it was; and I had a fancy that they would be choice companions for
those quaint studies which yet lay open upon the desk.
"In that lone place, such was its beauty and its virtue, we never
feared to leave the windows open or the doors all night unlocked; and
I think it very possible I may have left the little gate of the front
garden swinging after me, for Victorine always latched it, as she came
last.
"At all events, I found her on the top of the honeysuckle height,
carrying a camp-stool and looking very tired. The camp-stool was for
her, as I always reposed on the grass, wrapped in a veritable tartan.
And this night I reposed a good deal to make a flying sunset sketch.
Then I stayed to find fault with my dry earth and wooden sky, and the
heather with neither gold nor bloom upon it; then to watch the shadows
creep up the hill, and then the moon, and then the lights in the
valley, till it was just nine o'clock. Slowly strolling home, I met
nobody except a shadow,--that is to say, as I was moving no faster
myself than a snail, I suddenly saw a long figure upon the ground flit
by me in the broad moonlight.
"'It was a gentleman in a cloak,' said Victorine. But I had seen no
person, only, as I have said, a shadow, and took no note.
"'He had a sketching-book like Mademoiselle's, and was pale,' added
Victorine. But I bade her be silent, as she was too fond of talking;
still, I replied, 'Everybody looks pale by moonlight,'--a fact to be
ascertained, if anywhere, on a moonlit moor.
"So I came home across the lawn, and got in at my window. I rang for
candles; it was not dark, certainly, but I wanted to play. I stood at
the window till the goodwife of the house, from her little kitchen,
brought them up. She placed them upon the piano, as I had always
ordered her to do, and left the room. After I had watched the
moonlight out of doors for some time, being lazy with that wild air, I
walked absently up to the instrument. What had taken place there?
Behold, the Bach and Handel, discarded, lay behind the desk, having
been removed by some careful hand, and on the desk itself, still
overhung with the honeysuckle and heather I had hastily tossed about
it, I found a sheet of music-paper. I could not believe my eyes for a
long time. It was covered with close, delicate composition, so small
as to fill a double page, and distinct as any printing. It had this
inscription, but no name, no notice else: 'Heather and Honeysuckle; a
Tone-wreath from the Northern Hills."'
"And that is what you played; oh, Miss Lawrence!" I cried, less in
ecstasy at the sum of the story than at my own consciousness of having
anticipated its conclusion.
"Yes, that is what I played, and what I very seldom do play; but I
thought you should hear it!"
"I!" I cried, much too loud under the circumstances; but I could not
have helped it. "It was very kind of you, but I don't know why you
should. But it is by _him_ then?"
"You have said!" answered Miss Lawrence, laughing,--"at least I think
so. And if you and I agree, no doubt we are right."
"No, I don't see that at all," I replied; for it was a thing I could
not allow. "I am only a little boy, and you are a great player, and
grown up. Besides, you saw his shadow."
"Do you think so? Well, I thought so myself, though it may possibly
have been the shadow of somebody else."
Miss Lawrence here stopped, that she might laugh; and as she laughed,
her deep eyes woke up and shone like fire-flies glancing, to and fro.
Very Spanish she seemed then, and very Jewish withal. I had never seen
a Spaniard I suppose then, but I conceive I had met with prints of
Murillo's "Flower-girl;" for her eyes were the only things I could
think of while Miss Lawrence laughed.
"At all events," she at last continued, "the 'Tone-wreath' is no
shadow." I was astonished here to perceive that Clara had raised her
eyes,--indeed, they looked fully into those of the speaker.
"He came from Germany, you can be sure at least."
"Why so, Miss Benette?" replied Miss Lawrence, graciously, but with a
slight deference very touching from one so self-sustained.
"Because it is only in that land they call music 'Tone.'"
"But still he may have visited Germany and listened to the
Tongedicht[11] of Beethoven; for _he_ is not so long dead." And she
sighed so deeply that I felt a deep passion indeed must have exhaled
that sigh. I got out of my chair and ran to Lenhart Davy, for I saw
him yet in the curtain. He detained me, saying, "My dear little boy,
do stay by me and sit a while, that you may grow calm; for verily,
Charles, your eyes are dancing almost out of your head. Besides, I
should like you to _see_ Mr. Santonio while he plays."
"Will he turn his face this way though, Mr. Davy? For he did not
before."
"I particularly requested him to do so, and he agreed, on purpose that
you might look at him." In fact, Santonio had taken up the gilt
music-stand, and very coolly turned it towards us, in the very centre
of the company, who shrank with awe from his immediate presence, and
left a circle round him. Then, as Mirandos, who had to play a trifling
negative accompaniment to the stringed solo, advanced to the piano,
the lord of the violin turned round and nodded at me as he himself
took his seat.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] Tone poem.