MUSIC HATH CHARMS.
To Mrs. Abercarne’s surprise and disappointment, but very much to the
relief of Chris, the ladies saw but little of Mr. Bradfield in the
first days of their sojourn at Wyngham House. Apart from this, which
she considered rather disrespectful and decidedly unappreciative,
the elder lady had little to complain of. She found herself absolute
mistress of the establishment, with no one to interfere with her, no
one to dispute her orders. The word had evidently gone forth that her
will was to be law, and her power in every department of the household
was unlimited. The only thing she ever wanted in vain was an interview
with the master of the house. If she knocked at the door of the study,
he answered politely from within that he was busy, and requested her
to let him know what she wanted by letter. Then she would write an
elaborately courteous note concerning the dismissal of a servant, or a
necessary outlay in repairs. His answer was always short, and always
to the same effect: she was to do exactly what she pleased, and the
expense was immaterial.
With her complaints to Chris that they had very little of his society,
her daughter had no sympathy whatever. She did not care for Mr.
Bradfield; she was rather afraid of him, and to enjoy his house without
his presence was, to her thinking, an absolutely perfect condition of
things. It was not to continue indefinitely, however.
Mrs. Abercarne, whose respect for the old china about the house was at
least as great as that of its possessor, had assigned to her daughter
the duty of dusting and taking care of it. The sight of old Dresden in
the hands of the common domestic parlour-maid made her shiver, she said.
So every morning it was the task of Chris to make what she called
the grand tour, armed with a pair of dust-bellows and a duster, and
provided with an old pair of gloves to keep her hands, as her mother
said, “like those of a gentlewoman.”
One morning when she had got as far as the drawing-room, and was
blowing the dust from a Sèvres cup and saucer, her eye was caught by
a canterbury full of music which stood beside the piano. Mother was
busy in the basement; Mr. Bradfield was never anywhere near. So Chris
slipped off her gloves and went down on her knees and turned over the
music to see what it was like. She had the carpet about her well strewn
before she found anything to her liking. Then, having come upon a book
of ancient dance music, she opened the piano and began, very softly,
to try an old waltz tune. She had played very few bars when the door
opened and Mr. Bradfield looked in.
Chris started up crimson, feeling that she had done something very
dreadful. She thought he would burst out into some rude remark about
the strumming disturbing him; but he only strolled as far as the
fireplace, which was half-way towards her, put his hands behind his
back, nodded, and said:
“Go on.”
As he did not smile or speak very kindly, Chris found it impossible to
obey. She thought, indeed, that the command was given ironically.
“I--I was only trying a few bars. I--I am very sorry I disturbed you.
But I didn’t know you could hear. I thought you were deaf,” stammered
Chris.
Mr. Bradfield looked up at her with a slight frown. No man approaching
fifty cares to be reminded, especially by a pretty young woman, of the
infirmities which must inevitably overtake him before many years are
over.
“Deaf! Thought I was deaf? Pray what made you think that?”
“Well,” said Chris, “mother and I both thought you must be, because she
so often knocks at your study door, and you don’t hear her.”
Mr. Bradfield’s countenance cleared, and a twinkle appeared in his eyes.
“Oh! ah! No; very likely not.” Then he chuckled to himself, and added
good-humouredly, “Your mother’s a joke, isn’t she?”
Chris was taken aback, and for the first moment she could make no
answer. So Mr. Bradfield went on:
“Of course, I don’t mean anything at all disrespectful to the old lady.
She makes a splendid head of a household; servants say she’s a regular
tar--er--er--a regular darling. But, well, she’s a trifle chilling,
now, isn’t she?”
“My mother is not very effusive in her manners towards people she
doesn’t know very well,” answered Chris, with some constraint.
“That’s just what I meant,” said Mr. Bradfield, looking up at the
ceiling. “And not knowing me very well, she’s not very effusive to me.”
Chris, who had seated herself on the music-stool, drew herself up
primly. She could not allow her mother to be laughed at.
“I think it’s better for people to improve upon acquaintance, instead
of making themselves so very sweet and charming at first, that they
can’t even keep it up.”
Mr. Bradfield raised his eyebrows.
“Have I been so sweet and charming, then, that you’re afraid that I
can’t keep it up?”
“No, indeed you haven’t,” replied Chris promptly, with an irrepressible
little laugh.
“That’s all right. What were you doing in here?” he went on, looking
at the gloves she was drawing on her hands, and at the duster and
dust-bellows she had picked up again.
“I was dusting the ornaments.”
“What on earth did you want to do that for? Isn’t there a houseful of
servants to do all that sort of thing?”
“My mother says the care of old china is a lady’s work, not a
servant’s. She would think it wicked to leave such a duty to the maids.”
“Well, I don’t like to see you do it. It looks as if you were expected
to do parlour-maids’ work, which you’re not.”
Chris, with a little flush of curiosity and excitement, rose from her
seat, and drummed softly with her gloved finger-tips on the top of the
piano. She saw the opportunity to satisfy herself on a point which had
been occupying her mind.
“What am I expected to do, then, Mr. Bradfield? That’s just what I want
to know.”
Mr. Bradfield looked rather amused, and did not at once reply.
“That’s what you want to know, is it?” said he at last.
“Yes. Why did you advertise for a ‘mother and daughter,’ unless you had
something for the daughter to do?”
There was a short pause, during which Mr. Bradfield looked at her, and
chuckled quietly, as if she amused him.
“Upon my soul, I hardly know. I think I had some sort of a notion
that a woman with a daughter would settle down more contentedly,
and--and wouldn’t be so likely to--to give way to bad habits.” Here Mr.
Bradfield pulled himself up suddenly, recollecting that what he had
really feared was an undue predilection for his old port. “You see,” he
went on hastily, “I had no idea that I should have the luck to get such
a--such a--well, such a magnificent person as your mother to condescend
to keep house for me in my humble little home. When I advertised, I had
no idea of getting my advertisement answered by a--a----”
Chris nodded intelligently.
“I see,” said she cheerfully. “What mamma calls a ‘gentlewoman.’”
“That’s it exactly. And it means a woman who is not gentle to anybody
out of her own ‘set,’ doesn’t it?”
Poor Chris wanted to laugh, but was too loyal to her mother to indulge
the inclination. But Mr. Bradfield caught the little convulsive sound
which intimated that she was amused, and he beamed upon her more
benignantly than he had done yet.
“I see, then,” she began, in the preternaturally solemn tone of one
who has been caught in unseemly hilarity, “that I am here on false
pretences, as it were. If I had not been a--a ‘gentlewoman’”--again she
suppressed a giggle--“you would have had no scruple about my making
myself useful.”
Mr. Bradfield, evidently delighted by the view the girl took of things,
came a little nearer to the piano.
“You _are_ a sensible girl,” he said, with admiration. “Now, if your
mother were like you----” he went on regretfully, and stopped.
“If she were, you wouldn’t have your house kept so well,” said Chris,
merrily. “I’m no use at all in a house, everybody always says. They
used to make me play dance music, because there was nothing else I
could do.”
“Dance music!” echoed Mr. Bradfield hopefully. “I thought you young
ladies never condescended to anything beneath a sonata?”
Chris laughed.
“I don’t, if my mother can help it,” she confessed. “She says a correct
taste in music is one of the signs of a gentlewoman, and she makes me
study Beethoven and Brahms until I have cultivated a splendid taste
for--Sullivan and Lecocq.”
“Does she like the sonatas herself?”
“She _says_ so; but, then, all ladies with grown-up daughters say
that. And she takes me to very dull concerts, of nothing but severely
classical music. And she pretends she isn’t bored; but, oh! the relief
which appears in her poor, dear face when they drop into a stray little
bit of tune!”
Mr. Bradfield put his head back and roared with laughter.
“I suppose,” he said at last, wistfully, “she wouldn’t let you come
down here sometimes in the evening and play something frivolous,
something lively?”
Chris hesitated.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Of course, we would have her down here too,” he explained. “And when
she felt that she couldn’t get on any longer without a dose of Bach,
you might indulge her, you know.”
Chris, who looked pleased at the prospect, suddenly thought of a
difficulty.
“But, Mr. Bradfield,” she suggested diffidently, “this music you have
here, of course it’s very nice, very nice indeed, but it’s not quite
the latest. ‘The Mabel Waltz’ and ‘Les Cloches du Monastère’ are not
new, you know.”
“We’ll soon set that right,” said Mr. Bradfield, as he looked at the
clock and then at his watch. “I’ll wire up to some of the big music
shops, and by to-morrow or the day after we’ll have all the latest
things.”
He disappeared with his usual nod, leaving Chris in a state of high
excitement. She rushed upstairs to see whether her mother, who had
forbidden her to visit her during her morning work in the housekeeper’s
room, had come up yet.
As she passed the door of the study it opened suddenly, and Mr.
Bradfield appeared. He was much struck by the change in her appearance
which had taken place in a few minutes since he had left her in the
drawing-room. The restraint of his presence once removed, she had given
herself up to the wildest excitement, and her face was aglow. She
looked so pretty that Mr. Bradfield stared at her with fresh interest.
She was trying to run away when he stopped her by saying:
“Where are you going to in such a hurry?”
“Upstairs to tell my mother about the music,” she answered shyly.
Still he detained her, finding her much more attractive than his
accounts.
“Did you ever have a sweetheart?” he asked, after a little pause.
Chris burst out laughing at this ridiculously ingenuous question. Mr.
Bradfield repeated it, and this time she answered with delightful
frankness.
“Why, I have had a dozen.”
It was his turn to be taken aback.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, with new diffidence, “we must try to find you one
here, then.”
Chris shot at him one merry glance, and then looked demurely at the
floor.
“You needn’t trouble yourself to do that, Mr. Bradfield, thank you. I
can find one for myself if I want one, I daresay.”
And, refusing to be detained any longer, she went upstairs, meeting her
mother in the corridor above.