EXCHANGES.
Just as Frank Lavender went down stairs to meet Ingram, a letter which
had been forwarded from London was brought to Sheila. It bore the
Lewis postmark, and she guessed it was from Duncan, for she had told
Mairi to ask the tall keeper to write, and she knew he would hasten
to obey her request at any sacrifice of comfort to himself. Sheila
sat down to read the letter in a happy frame of mind. She had every
confidence that all her troubles were about to be removed now that her
good friend Ingram had come to her husband; and here was a message to
her from her home that seemed, even before she read it, to beg of her
to come thither light-hearted and joyous. This was what she read:
"BORVABOST, THE ISLAND OF LEWS,
"_the third Aug_., 18----.
"HONORED MRS. LAVENDER,--It waz Mairi waz sayin that you will want me
to write to you, bit I am not good at the writen whatever, and it was
2 years since I was writen to Amerika, to John Ferkason that kept the
tea-shop in Stornoway, and was trooned in coming home the verra last
year before this. It waz Mairi will say you will like a letter as well
as any one that waz goin to Amerika, for the news and the things, and
you will be as far away from us as if you waz living in Amerika or
Glaska. But there is not much news, for the lads they hev all pulled
up the boats, and they are away to Wick, and Sandy McDougal that waz
living by Loch Langavat, he will be going too, for he was up at the
sheilings when Mrs. Paterson's lasses waz there with the cows, and
it waz Jeanie the youngest and him made it up, and he haz twenty-five
pounds in the bank, which is a good thing too mirover for the young
couple. It was many a one waz sayin when the cows and the sheep waz
come home from the sheilings that never afore waz Miss Sheila away
from Loch Roag when the cattle would be swimmin across the loch to the
island; and I will say to many of them verra well you will wait and
you will see Miss Sheila back again in the Lews, and it wazna allwas
you would lif away from your own home where you was born and the
people will know you from the one year to the next. John McNicol of
Habost he will be verra bad three months or two months ago, and we waz
thinkin he will die, and him with a wife and five bairns too, and four
cows and a cart, but the doctor took a great dale of blood from him,
and he is now verra well whatever, though wakely on the legs. It would
hev been a bad thing if Mr. McNicol waz dead, for he will be verra
good at pentin a door, and he haz between fifteen pounds and ten
pounds in the bank at Stornoway, and four cows too and a cart, and he
is a ferra religious man, and has great skill o' the psalm-tunes, and
he toesna get trunk now more as twice or as three times in the two
weeks. It was his dochter Betsy, a verra fine lass, that waz come to
Borvabost, and it waz the talk among many that Alister-nan-Each he waz
thinkin of makin up to her, but there will be a great laugh all over
the island, and she will be verra angry and say she will not have him
no if his house had a door of silfer to it for she will have no one
that toesna go to the Caithness fishins wi the other lads. It waz blew
verra hard here the last night or two or three. There is a great deal
of salmon in the rivers; and Mr. Mackenzie he will be going across to
Grimersta, the day after to-morrow, or the next day before that, and
the English gentlemen have been there more as two or three weeks,
and they will be getting verra good sport whatever. Mairi she will be
writen a letter to you to-morrow, Miss Sheila, and she will be telling
you all the news of the house. Mairi waz sayin she will be goin to
London when the harvest was got in, and Scarlett will say to her that
no one will let her land on the island again if she toesna bring you
back with her to the island and to your own house. If it waz not too
much trouble, Miss Sheila, it would be a proud day for Scarlett if you
waz send me a line or two lines to say if you will be coming to the
Lews this summer or before the winter is over whatever. I remain,
Honored Mrs. Lavender, your obedient servant,
"DUNCAN MACDONALD."
"This summer or winter," said Sheila to herself, with a happy light
on her face: "why not now?" Why should she not go down stairs to the
coffee-room of the hotel and place this invitation in the hand of her
husband and his friend? Would not its garrulous simplicity recall to
both of them the island they used to find so pleasant? Would not they
suddenly resolve to leave behind them London and its ways and people,
even this monotonous sea out there, and speed away northwardly till
they came in sight of the great and rolling Minch, with its majestic
breadth of sky and its pale blue islands lying far away at the
horizon? Then the happy landing at Stornoway--her father and Duncan
and Mairi all on the quay--the rapid drive over to Loch Roag, and the
first glimpse of the rocky bays and clear water and white sand about
Borva and Borvabost! And Sheila would once more--having cast aside
this cumbrous attire that she had to change so often, and having
got out that neat and simple costume that was so good for walking or
driving or sailing--be proud to wait upon her guests, and help Mairi
in her household ways, and have a pretty table ready for the gentlemen
when they returned from the shooting.
Her husband came up the hotel stairs and entered the room. She rose to
meet him, with the open letter in her hand.
"Sheila," he said (and the light slowly died away from her face), "I
have something to ask of you."
She knew by the sound of his voice that she had nothing to hope: it
was not the first time she had been disappointed, and yet this time it
seemed especially bitter somehow. The awakening from these illusions
was sudden.
She did not answer, so he said in the same measured voice, "I have to
ask that you will have henceforth no communication with Mr. Ingram: I
do not wish him to come to the house."
She stood for a moment, apparently not understanding the meaning of
what he said. Then, when the full force of this decision and request
came upon her, a quick color sprang to her face, the cause of which,
if it had been revealed to him in words, would have considerably
astonished her husband. But that moment of doubt, of surprise and
of inward indignation was soon over. She cast down her eyes and said
meekly, "Very well, dear."
It was now his turn to be astonished, and mortified as well. He could
not have believed it possible that she should so calmly acquiesce in
the dismissal of one of her dearest friends. He had expected a more or
less angry protest, if not a distinct refusal, which would have given
him an opportunity for displaying the injuries he conceived himself
to have suffered at their hands. Why had she not come to himself? This
man Ingram was presuming on his ancient friendship, and on the part
he had taken in forwarding the marriage up in Borva. He had always,
moreover, been somewhat too much of the schoolmaster, with his severe
judgments, his sententious fashion of criticising and warning people,
and his readiness to prove the whole world wrong in order to show
himself to be right. All these and many other things Lavender meant
to say to Sheila so soon as she had protested against his forbidding
Ingram to come any more to the house. But there was no protest. Sheila
did not even seem surprised. She went back to her seat by the window,
folded up Duncan's letter and put it in her pocket; and then she
turned to look at the sea.
Lavender regarded her for a moment, apparently doubting whether he
should himself prosecute the subject: then he turned and left the
room.
Sheila did not cry or otherwise seek to compassionate and console
herself. Her husband had told her to do a certain thing, and she
would do it. Perhaps she had been imprudent in having confided in Mr.
Ingram, and if so, it was right that she should be punished. But the
regret and pain that lay deep in her heart were that Ingram should
have suffered through her, and that she had no opportunity of telling
him that, though they might not see each other, she would never
forget her friendship for him, or cease to be grateful to him for his
unceasing and generous kindness to her.
Next morning Lavender was summoned to London by a telegram which
announced that his aunt was seriously ill. He and Sheila got ready at
once, left by a forenoon train, had some brief luncheon at home, and
then went down to see the old lady in Kensington Gore. During their
journey Lavender had been rather more courteous and kindly toward
Sheila than was his wont. Was he pleased that she had so readily
obeyed him in this matter of giving up about the only friend she had
in London? or was he moved by some visitation of compunction? Sheila
tried to show that she was grateful for his kindness, but there was
that between them which could not be removed by chance phrases or
attentions.
Mrs. Lavender was in her own room. Paterson brought word that she
wanted to see Sheila first and alone; so Lavender sat down in the
gloomy drawing-room by the window, and watched the people riding and
driving past, and the sunshine on the dusty green trees in the Park.
"Is Frank Lavender below?" said the thin old woman, who was propped
up in bed, with some scarlet garment around her that made her resemble
more than ever the cockatoo of which Sheila had thought on first
seeing her. "Yes," said Sheila. "I want to see you alone: I can't bear
him dawdling about a room, and staring at things, and saying nothing.
Does he speak to you?"
Sheila did not wish to enter into any controversy about the habits
of her husband, so she said, "I hope you will see him before he goes,
Mrs. Lavender. He is very anxious to know how you are, and I am glad
to find you looking so well. You do not look like an invalid at all."
"Oh, I'm not going to die yet," said the little dried old woman with
the harsh voice, the staring eyes and the tightly-twisted gray hair.
"I hope you didn't come to read the Bible to me: you wouldn't find one
about in any case, I should think. If you like to sit down and read
the sayings of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, I should enjoy that;
but I suppose you are too busy thinking what dress you'll wear at my
funeral."
"Indeed, I was thinking of no such thing," said Sheila indignantly,
but feeling all the same that the hard, glittering, expressionless
eyes were watching her.
"Do you think I believe you?" said Mrs. Lavender. "Bah! I hope I
am able to recognize the facts of life. If you were to die this
afternoon, I should get a black silk trimmed with crape the moment I
got on my feet again, and go to your funeral in the ordinary way. I
hope you will pay me the same respect. Do you think I am afraid to
speak of these things?"
"Why should you speak of them?" said Sheila despairingly.
"Because it does you good to contemplate the worst that can befall
you, and if it does not happen you may rejoice. And it will happen.
I know I shall be lying in this bed, with half a dozen of you round
about trying to cry, and wondering which will have the courage to turn
and go out of the room first. Then there will be the funeral day, and
Paterson will be careful about the blinds, and go about the house on
her tiptoes, as if I were likely to hear! Then there will be a pretty
service up in the cemetery, and a man who never saw me will speak of
his dear sister departed; and then you'll all go home and have your
dinner. Am I afraid of it?"
"Why should you talk like that?" said Sheila piteously. "You are not
going to die. You distress yourself and others by thinking of these
horrible things."
"My dear child, there is nothing horrible in nature. Everything is
part of the universal system which you should recognize and accept. If
you had but trained yourself now, by the study of philosophical works,
to know how helpless you are to alter the facts of life, and how it is
the best wisdom to be prepared for the worst, you would find nothing
horrible in thinking of your own funeral. You are not looking well."
Sheila was startled by the suddenness of the announcement: "Perhaps I
am a little tired with the traveling we have done to-day."
"Is Frank Lavender kind to you?" What was she to say with those two
eyes scanning her face? "It is too soon to expect him to be anything
else," she said with an effort at a smile.
"Ah! So you are beginning to talk in that way? I thought you were full
of sentimental notions of life when you came to London. It is not a
good place for nurturing such things."
"It is not," said Sheila, surprised into a sigh.
"Come nearer. Don't be afraid I shall bite you. I am not so ferocious
as I look."
Sheila rose and went closer to the bedside, and the old woman
stretched out a lean and withered hand to her: "If I thought that that
silly fellow wasn't behaving well to you--"
"I will not listen to you," said Sheila, suddenly withdrawing her
hand, while a quick color leapt to her face--"I will not listen to you
if you speak of my husband in that way."
"I will speak of him any way I like. Don't get into a rage. I have
known Frank Lavender a good deal longer than you have. What I was
going to say is this--that if I thought that he was not behaving well
to you, I would play him a trick. I would leave my money, which is all
he has got to live on, to you; and when I died he would find himself
dependent on you for every farthing he wanted to spend."
And the old woman laughed, with very little of the weakness of an
invalid in the look of her face. But Sheila, when she had mastered
her surprise and resolved not be angry, said calmly, "Whatever I have,
whatever I might have, that belongs to my husband, not to me."
"Now you speak like a sensible girl," said Mrs. Lavender. "That is the
misfortune of a wife, that she cannot keep her own money to herself.
But there are means by which the law may be defeated, my dear. I have
been thinking it over--I have been speaking of it to Mr. Ingram; for
I have suspected for some time that my nephew, Mr. Frank, was not
behaving himself."
"Mrs. Lavender," said Sheila, with a face too proud and indignant
for tears, "you do not understand me. No one has the right to imagine
anything against my husband and to seek to punish him through me. And
when I said that everything I have belongs to him, I was not thinking
of the law--no--but only this: that everything I have, or might have,
would belong to him, as I myself belong to him of my own free will and
gift; and I would have no money or anything else that was not entirely
his."
"You are a fool."
"Perhaps," said Sheila, struggling to repress her tears.
"What if I were to leave every farthing of my property to a hospital?
Where would Frank Lavender be then?"
"He could earn his own living without any such help," said Sheila
proudly; for she had never yet given up the hope that her husband
would fulfill the fair promise of an earlier time, and win great
renown for himself in striving to please her, as he had many a time
vowed he would do.
"He has taken great care to conceal his powers in that way," said the
old woman with a sneer.
"And if he has, whose fault is it?" the girl said warmly. "Who has
kept him in idleness but yourself? And now you blame him for it. I
wish he had never had any of your money--I wish he were never to have
any more of it."
And then Sheila stopped, with a terrible dread falling over her. What
had she not said? The pride of her race had carried her so far, and
she had given expression to all the tumult of her heart; but had
she not betrayed her duty as a wife, and grievously compromised the
interests of her husband? And yet the indignation in her bosom was
too strong to admit of her retracting those fatal phrases and begging
forgiveness. She stood for a moment irresolute, and she knew that
the invalid was regarding her curiously, as though she were some wild
animal, and not an ordinary resident in Bayswater.
"You are a little mad, but you are a good girl, and I want to
be friends with you. You have in you the spirit of a dozen Frank
Lavenders."
"You will never make friends with me by speaking ill of my husband,"
said Sheila with the same proud and indignant look.
"Not when he ill uses you?" "He does not ill use me. What has Mr.
Ingram been saying to you?"
The sudden question would certainly have brought about a disclosure if
any were to have been made; but Mrs. Lavender assured Sheila that
Mr. Ingram had told her nothing, that she had been forming her own
conclusions, and that she still doubted that they were right.
"Now sit down and read to me. You will find Marcus Antoninus on the
top of those books."
"Frank is in the drawing-room," observed Sheila mildly.
"He can wait," said the old woman sharply.
"Yes, but you cannot expect me to keep him waiting," with a smile
which did not conceal her very definite purpose.
"Then ring, and bid him come up. You will soon get rid of those absurd
sentiments."
Sheila rang the bell, and sent Mrs. Paterson down for Lavender, but
she did not betake herself to Marcus Antoninus. She waited a few
minutes, and then her husband made his appearance, whereupon she sat
down and left to him the agreeable duty of talking with this toothless
old heathen about funerals and lingering death.
"Well, Aunt Lavender, I am sorry to hear you have been ill, but I
suppose you are getting all right again, to judge by your looks."
"I am not nearly as ill as you expected."
"I wonder you did not say 'hoped,'" remarked Lavender carelessly.
"You are always attributing the most charitable feelings to your
fellow-creatures."
"Frank Lavender," said the old lady, who was a little pleased by this
bit of flattery, "if you came here to make yourself impertinent and
disagreeable, you can go down stairs again. Your wife and I get on
very well without you."
"I am glad to hear it," he said: "I suppose you have been telling her
what is the matter with you."
"I have not. I don't know. I have had a pain in the head and two fits,
and I dare say the next will carry me off. The doctors won't tell me
anything about it, so I suppose it is serious."
"Nonsense!" cried Lavender. "Serious! To look at you, one would say
you never had been ill in your life."
"Don't tell stories, Frank Lavender. I know I look like a corpse, but
I don't mind it, for I avoid the looking-glass and keep the spectacle
for my friends. I expect the next fit will kill me."
"I'll tell you what it is, Aunt Lavender: if you would only get up and
come with us for a drive in the Park, you would find there was nothing
of an invalid about you; and we should take you home to a quiet dinner
at Notting Hill, and Sheila would sing to you all the evening,
and to-morrow you would receive the doctors in state in your
drawing-rooms, and tell them you were going for a month to Malvern."
"Your husband has a fine imagination, my dear," said Mrs. Lavender to
Sheila. "It is a pity he puts it to no use. Now I shall let both of
you go. Three breathing in this room are too many for the cubic feet
of air it contains. Frank, bring over those scales and put them on the
table, and send Paterson to me as you go out."
And so they went down stairs and out of the house. Just as they stood
on the steps, looking for a hansom, a young lad came forward and shook
hands with Lavender, glancing rather nervously at Sheila.
"Well, Mosenberg," said Lavender, "you've come back from Leipsic at
last? We got your card when we came home this morning from Brighton.
Let me introduce you to my wife."
The boy looked at the beautiful face before him with something of
distant wonder and reverence in his regard. Sheila had heard of
the lad before--of the Mendelssohn that was to be--and liked his
appearance at first sight. He was a rather handsome boy of fourteen or
fifteen, of the fair Jew type, with large, dark, expressive eyes, and
long, wavy, light-brown hair. He spoke English fluently and well: his
slight German accent was, indeed, scarcely so distinct as Sheila's
Highland one, the chief peculiarity of his speaking being a preference
for short sentences, as if he were afraid to adventure upon elaborate
English. He had not addressed a dozen sentences to Sheila before she
had begun to have a liking for the lad, perhaps on account of his soft
and musical voice, perhaps on account of the respectful and almost
wondering admiration that dwelt in his eyes. He spoke to her as if she
were some saint, who had but to smile to charm and bewilder the humble
worshiper at her shrine.
"I was intending to call upon Mrs. Lavender, madame," he said. "I
heard that she was ill. Perhaps you can tell me if she is better."
"She seems to be very well to-day, and in very good spirits," Sheila
answered.
"Then I will not go in. Did you propose to take a walk in the Park,
madame?"
Lavender inwardly laughed at the magnificent audacity of the lad, and,
seeing that Sheila hesitated, humored him by saying, "Well, we were
thinking of calling on one or two people before going home to dinner.
But I haven't seen you for a long time, Mosenberg, and I want you to
tell me how you succeeded at the Conservatoire. If you like to walk
with us for a bit, we can give you something to eat at seven."
"That would be very pleasant for me," said the boy, blushing somewhat,
"if it does not incommode you, madame."
"Oh no: I hope you will come," said Sheila most heartily; and so they
set out for a walk through Kensington Gardens northward.
Precious little did Lavender learn about Leipsic during that walk. The
boy devoted himself wholly to Sheila. He had heard frequently of her,
and he knew of her coming from the wild and romantic Hebrides; and he
began to tell her of all the experiments that composers had made in
representing the sound of seas and storms and winds howling through
caverns washed by the waves. Lavender liked music well enough, and
could himself play and sing a little, but this enthusiasm rather bored
him. He wanted to know if the yellow wine was still as cool and clear
as ever down in the twilight of Auerbach's cellar, what burlesques
had lately been played at the theatre, and whether such and such a
beer-garden was still to the fore; whereas he heard only analyses
of overtures, and descriptions of the uses of particular musical
instruments, and a wild rhapsody about moonlit seas, the sweetness of
French horns, the King of Thule, and a dozen other matters.
"Mosenberg," he said, "before you go calling on people you ought to
visit an English tailor. People will think you belong to a German
band."
"I have been to a tailor," said the lad with a frank laugh. "My
parents, madame, wish me to be quite English: that is why I am sent
to live in London, while they are in Frankfort. I stay with some very
good friends of mine, who are very musical, and they are not annoyed
by my practicing, as other people would be."
"I hope you will sing something to us this evening," said Sheila.
"I will sing and play for you all the evening," he said lightly,
"until you are tired. But you must tell me when you are tired, for who
can tell how much music will be enough? Sometimes two or three songs
are more than enough to make people wish you away."
"You need have no fear of tiring me," said Sheila. "But when you are
tired I will sing for you."
"Yes, of course you sing, madame," he said, casting down his eyes: "I
knew that when I saw you."
Sheila had got a sweetheart, and Lavender saw it and smiled
good-naturedly. The awe and reverence with which this lad regarded the
beautiful woman beside him were something new and odd in Kensington
Gardens. Yet it was the way of those boys. He had himself had his
imaginative fits of worship, in which some very ordinary young woman,
who ate a good breakfast and spent an hour and a half in arranging her
hair before going out, was regarded as some beautiful goddess fresh
risen from the sea or descended from the clouds. Young Mosenberg was
just at the proper age for these foolish dreams. He would sing songs
to Sheila, and reveal to her in that way a passion of which he dared
not otherwise speak. He would compose pieces of music for her, and
dedicate them to her, and spend half his quarterly allowance in having
them printed. He would grow to consider him, Lavender, a heartless
brute, and cherish dark notions of poisoning him, but for the pain it
might cause to her.
"I don't remember whether you smoke, Mosenberg," Lavender said after
dinner.
"Yes--a cigarette sometimes," said the lad; "but if Mrs. Lavender is
going away perhaps she will let me go into the drawing-room with her.
There is that sonata of Muzio Clementi, madame, which I will try to
remember for you if you please."
"All right," said Lavender: "you'll find me in the next room on the
left when you get tired of your music and want a cigar. I think you
used to beat me at chess, didn't you?"
"I do not know. We will try once more to-night."
Then Sheila and he went into the drawing-room by themselves, and while
she took a seat near the brightly-lit fire-place, he opened the piano
at once and sat down. He turned up his cuffs, he took a look at the
pedals, he threw back his head, shaking his long brown hair; and
then, with a crash like thunder, his two hands struck the keys. He had
forgotten all about that sonata: it was a fantasia of his own, based
on the airs in _Der Freischütz_, that he played; and as he played
Sheila's poor little piano suffered somewhat. Never before had it been
so battered about, and she wished the small chamber were a great hall,
to temper the voluminous noise of this opening passage. But presently
the music softened. The white, lithe fingers ran lightly over the
keys, so that the notes seemed to ripple out like the prattling of a
stream, and then again some stately and majestic air or some joyous
burst of song would break upon this light accompaniment, and lead up
to another roar and rumble of noise. It was a very fine performance,
doubtless, but what Sheila remarked most was the enthusiasm of the
lad. She was to see more of that.
"Now," he said, "that is nothing. It is to get one's fingers
accustomed to the keys you play anything that is loud and rapid. But
if you please, madame, shall I sing you something?"
"Yes, do," said Sheila.
"I will sing for you a little German song which I believe Jenny Lind
used to sing, but I never heard her sing. You know German?"
"Very little indeed."
"This is only the cry of some one who is far away about his
sweetheart. It is very simple, both in the words and the music."
And he began to sing, in a voice so rich, so tender and expressive
that Sheila sat amazed and bewildered to hear him. Where had this boy
caught such a trick of passion, or was it really a trick that threw
into his voice all the pathos of a strong man's love and grief? He had
a powerful baritone, of unusual compass and rare sweetness; but it
was not the finely-trained art of his singing, but the passionate
abandonment of it, that thrilled Sheila, and indeed brought tears to
her eyes. How had this mere lad learned all the yearning and despair
of love, that he sang,
Dir bebt die Brust,
Dir schlägt dies Herz,
Du meine Lust!
O du, mein Schmerz!
Nur an den Winden, den Sternen der Höh,
Muss ich verkünden mein süsses Weh!--
as though his heart were breaking? When he had finished he paused for
a moment or two before leaving the piano, and then he came over to
where Sheila sat. She fancied there was a strange look on his face, as
of one who had been really experiencing the wild emotions of which he
sang; but he said, in his ordinary careful way of speaking, "Madame,
I am sorry I cannot translate the words for you into English. They
are too simple; and they have, what is common in many German songs, a
mingling of the pleasure and the sadness of being in love that would
not read natural perhaps in English. When he says to her that she is
his greatest delight and also his greatest grief, it is quite right in
the German, but not in the English."
"But where have you learned all these things?" she said to him,
talking to him as if he were a mere child, and looking without fear
into his handsome boyish face and fine eyes. "Sit down and tell me.
That is the song of some one whose sweetheart is far away, you said.
But you sang it as if you yourself had some sweetheart far away."
"So I have, madame," he said, seriously: "when I sing the song, I
think of her then, so that I almost cry for her."
"And who is she?" said Sheila gently. "Is she very far away?"
"I do not know," said the lad absently. "I do not know who she is.
Sometimes I think she is a beautiful woman away at St. Petersburg,
singing in the opera-house there. Or I think she has sailed away in a
ship from me."
"But you do not sing about any particular person?" said Sheila, with
an innocent wonder appearing in her eyes.
"Oh no, not at all," said the boy; and then he added, with some
suddenness, "Do you think, madame, any fine songs like that, or any
fine words that go to the heart of people, are written about any one
person? Oh no! The man has a great desire in him to say something
beautiful or sad, and he says it--not to one person, but to all the
world; and all the world takes it from him as a gift. Sometimes, yes,
he will think of one woman, or he will dedicate the music to her, or
he will compose it for her wedding, but the feeling in his heart is
greater than any that he has for her. Can you believe, madame, that
Mendelssohn wrote the Hochzeitm--the Wedding March--for any one
wedding? No. It was all the marriage joy of all the world he put into
his music, and every one knows that. And you hear it at this wedding,
at that wedding, but you know it belongs to something far away and
more beautiful than the marriage of any one bride with her sweetheart.
And if you will pardon me, madame, for speaking about myself, it is
about some one I I never knew, who is far more beautiful and precious
to me than any one I ever knew, that I try to think when I sing these
sad songs, and then I think of her far away, and not likely ever to
see me again."
"But some day you will find that you have met her in real life,"
Sheila said. "And you will find her far more beautiful and kind to you
than anything you dreamed about; and you will try to write your best
music to give to her. And then, if you should be unhappy, you will
find how much worse is the real unhappiness about one you love than
the sentiment of a song you can lay aside at any moment."
The lad looked at her. "What can you know about unhappiness, madame?"
he said with a frank and gentle simplicity that she liked.
"I?" said Sheila. "When people get married and begin to experience the
cares of the world, they must expect to be unhappy sometimes."
"But not you," he said with some touch of protest in his voice, as
if it were impossible the world should deal harshly with so young and
beautiful and tender a creature. "You can have nothing but enjoyment
around you. Every one must try to please you. You need only condescend
to speak to people, and they are grateful to you for a great favor.
Perhaps, madame, you think I am impertinent?"
He stopped and blushed, while Sheila, herself with a little touch of
color, answered him that she hoped he would always speak to her quite
frankly, and then suggested that he might sing once more for her.
"Very well," he said as he sat down to the piano: "this is not
any more a sad song. It is about a young lady who will not let
her sweetheart kiss her, except on conditions. You shall hear the
conditions, and what he says."
Sheila began to wonder whether this innocent-eyed lad had been
imposing on her. The song was acted as well as sung. It consisted
chiefly of a dialogue between the two lovers; and the boy, with a
wonderful ease and grace and skill, mimicked the shy coquetries of
the girl, her fits of petulance and dictation, and the pathetic
remonstrances of her companion, his humble entreaties and his final
sullenness, which is only conquered by her sudden and ample consent.
"What a rare faculty of artistic representation this precocious boy
must have," she thought, "if he really exhibits all those moods and
whims and tricks of manner without having himself been in the position
of the despairing and imploring lover!"
"You were not thinking of the beautiful lady in St. Petersburg when
you were singing just now," Sheila said on his coming back to her.
"Oh no," he said carelessly: "that is nothing. You have not to imagine
anything. These people, you see them on every stage in the comedies
and farces."
"But that might happen in actual life," said Sheila, still not quite
sure about him. "Do you know that many people would think you must
have yourself been teased in that way, or you could not imitate it so
naturally?"
"I! Oh no, madame," he said seriously: "I should not act that way if I
were in love with a woman. If I found her a comedy-actress, liking
to make her amusement out of our relations, I should say to her,
'Good-evening, mademoiselle: we have both made a little mistake.'"
"But you might be so much in love with her that you could not leave
her without being very miserable."
"I might be very much in love with her, yes; but I would rather go
away and be miserable than be humiliated by such a girl. Why do you
smile, madame? Do you think I am vain, or that I am too young to
know anything about that? Perhaps both are true, but one cannot help
thinking."
"Well," said Sheila, with a grandly maternal air of sympathy and
interest, "you must always remember this--that you have something
more important to attend to than merely looking out for a beautiful
sweetheart. That is the fancy of a foolish girl. You have your
profession, and you must become great and famous in that; and then
some day, when you meet this beautiful woman and ask her to be your
wife, she will be bound to do that, and you will confer honor on her
as well as secure happiness to yourself. Now, if you were to fall in
love with some coquettish girl like her you were singing about, you
would have no more ambition to become famous, you would lose all
interest in everything except her, and she would be able to make you
miserable by a single word. When you have made a name for yourself,
and got a good many more years, you will be better able to bear
anything that happens to you in your love or in your marriage."
"You are very kind to take so much trouble," said young Mosenberg,
looking up with big, grateful eyes. "Perhaps, madame, if you are not
very busy during the day, you will let me call in sometimes, and if
there is no one here I will tell you about what I am doing, and play
for you or sing for you, if you please."
"In the afternoons I am always free," she said.
"Do you never go out?" he asked.
"Not often. My husband is at his studio most of the day."
The boy looked at her, hesitated for a moment, and then, with a sudden
rush of color to his face, "You should not stay so much in the house.
Will you sometimes go for a little walk with me, madame, to Kensington
Gardens, if you are not busy in the afternoon?"
"Oh, certainly," said Sheila, without a moment's embarrassment. "Do
you live near them?"
"No: I live in Sloane street, but the underground railway brings me
here in a very short time."
That mention of Sloane street gave a twinge to Sheila's heart. Ought
she to have been so ready to accept offers of new friendship just as
her old friend had been banished from her?
"In Sloane street? Do you know Mr. Ingram?"
"Oh yes, very well. Do you?"
"He is one of my oldest friends," said Sheila bravely: she would not
acknowledge that their intimacy was a thing of the past.
"He is a very good friend to me--I know that," said young Mosenberg,
with a laugh. "He hired a piano merely because I used to go into his
rooms at night; and now he makes me play over all my most difficult
music when I go in, and he sits and smokes a pipe and pretends to like
it. I do not think he does, but I have got to do it all the same; and
then afterward I sing for him some songs that I know he likes. Madame,
I think I can surprise you."
He went suddenly to the piano and began to sing, in a very quiet way,
Oh soft be thy slumbers by Tigh-na-linne's waters:
Thy late-wake was sung by MacDiarmid's fair daughters;
But far in Lochaber the true heart was weeping
Whose hopes are entombed in the grave where thou'rt sleeping.
It was the lament of the young girl whose lover had been separated
from her by false reports, and who died before he could get back to
Lochaber when the deception was discovered. And the wild, sad air that
the girl is supposed to sing seemed so strange with those new chords
that this boy-musician gave it that Sheila sat and listened to it as
though it were the sound of the seas about Borva coming to her with a
new voice and finding her altered and a stranger.
"I know nearly all of those Highland songs that Mr. Ingram has got,"
said the lad.
"I did not know he had any," Sheila said.
"Sometimes he tries to sing one himself," said the boy with a smile,
"but he does not sing very well, and he gets vexed with himself in
fun, and flings things about the room. But you will sing some of those
songs, madame, and let me hear how they are sung in the North?"
"Some time," said Sheila. "I would rather listen just now to all you
can tell me about Mr. Ingram--he is such a very old friend of mine,
and I do not know how he lives."
The lad speedily discovered that there was at least one way of keeping
his new and beautiful friend profoundly interested; and indeed he went
on talking until Lavender came into the room in evening dress. It
was eleven o'clock, and young Mosenberg started up with a thousand
apologies and hopes that he had not detained Mrs. Lavender. No, Mrs.
Lavender was not going out: her husband was going round for an hour
to a ball that Mrs. Kavanagh was giving, but she preferred to stay at
home.
"May I call upon you to-morrow afternoon, madame?" said the boy as he
was leaving.
"I shall be very glad if you will," Sheila answered.
And as he went along the pavement young Mosenberg observed to his
companion that Mrs. Lavender did not seem to have gone out much,
and that it was very good of her to have promised to go with him
occasionally into Kensington Gardens.
"Oh, has she?" said Lavender.
"Yes," said the lad with some surprise.
"You are lucky to be able to get her to leave the house," her husband
said: "I can't."
Perhaps he had not tried so much as the words seemed to imply.