THE VEIL IS LIFTED
"MISS CHAMPION! Oh, here you are! Your turn next, please. The last item
of the local programme is in course of performance, after which the
duchess explains Velma's laryngitis--let us hope she will not call it
'appendicitis'--and then I usher you up. Are you ready?"
Garth Dalmain, as master of ceremonies, had sought Jane Champion on the
terrace, and stood before her in the soft light of the hanging Chinese
lanterns. The crimson rambler in his button-hole, and his red silk
socks, which matched it, lent an artistic touch of colour to the
conventional black and white of his evening clothes.
Jane looked up from the comfortable depths of her wicker chair; then
smiled at his anxious face.
"I am ready," she said, and rising, walked beside him. "Has it gone
well?" she asked. "Is it a good audience?"
"Packed," replied Garth, "and the duchess has enjoyed herself. It has
been funnier than usual. But now comes the event of the evening. I say,
where is your score?"
"Thanks," said Jane. "I shall play it from memory. It obviates the
bother of turning over."
They passed into the concert-room and stood behind screens and a
curtain, close to the half-dozen steps leading, from the side, up on to
the platform.
"Oh, hark to the duchess!" whispered Garth. "My NIECE, JANE CHAMPION,
HAS KINDLY CONSENTED TO STEP INTO THE BREACH--' Which means that you
will have to step up on to that platform in another half-minute. Really
it would be kinder to you if she said less about Velma. But never mind;
they are prepared to like anything. There! APPENDICITIS! I told you so.
Poor Madame Velma! Let us hope it won't get into the local papers. Oh,
goodness! She is going to enlarge on new-fangled diseases. Well, it
gives us a moment's breathing space.... I say, Miss Champion, I was
chaffing this afternoon about sharps and flats. I can play that
accompaniment for you if you like. No? Well, just as you think best.
But remember, it takes a lot of voice to make much effect in this
concert-room, and the place is crowded. Now--the duchess has done. Come
on. Mind the bottom step. Hang it all! How dark it is behind this
curtain!"
Garth gave her his hand, and Jane mounted the steps and passed into
view of the large audience assembled in the Overdene concert-room. Her
tall figure seemed taller than usual as she walked alone across the
rather high platform. She wore a black evening gown of soft material,
with old lace at her bosom and one string of pearls round her neck.
When she appeared, the audience gazed at her and applauded doubtfully.
Velma's name on the programme had raised great expectations; and here
was Miss Champion, who certainly played very nicely, but was not
supposed to be able to sing, volunteering to sing Velma's song. A more
kindly audience would have cheered her to the echo, voicing its
generous appreciation of her effort, and sanguine expectation of her
success. This audience expressed its astonishment, in the dubiousness
of its faint applause.
Jane smiled at them good-naturedly; sat down at the piano, a Bechstein
grand; glanced at the festoons of white roses and the cross of crimson
ramblers; then, without further preliminaries, struck the opening chord
and commenced to sing.
The deep, perfect voice thrilled through the room.
A sudden breathless hush fell upon the audience.
Each syllable penetrated the silence, borne on a tone so tender and so
amazingly sweet, that casual hearts stood still and marvelled at their
own emotion; and those who felt deeply already, responded with a yet
deeper thrill to the magic of that music.
"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me;
I count them over, ev'ry one apart,
My rosary,--my rosary."
Softly, thoughtfully, tenderly, the last two words were breathed into
the silence, holding a world of reminiscence--a large-hearted woman's
faithful remembrance of tender moments in the past.
The listening crowd held its breath. This was not a song. This was the
throbbing of a heart; and it throbbed in tones of such sweetness, that
tears started unbidden.
Then the voice, which had rendered the opening lines so quietly, rose
in a rapid crescendo of quivering pain.
"Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung;
I tell each bead unto the end, and there--
A cross is hung!"
The last four words were given with a sudden power and passion which
electrified the assembly. In the pause which followed, could be heard
the tension of feeling produced. But in another moment the quiet voice
fell soothingly, expressing a strength of endurance which would fail in
no crisis, nor fear to face any depths of pain; yet gathering to itself
a poignancy of sweetness, rendered richer by the discipline of
suffering.
"O memories that bless and burn!
O barren gain and bitter loss!
I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross ... to kiss the cross."
Only those who have heard Jane sing THE ROSARY can possibly realise how
she sang "I KISS EACH BEAD." The lingering retrospection in each word;
breathed out a love so womanly, so beautiful, so tender, that her
identity was forgotten--even by those in the audience who knew her
best--in the magic of her rendering of the song.
The accompaniment, which opens with a single chord, closes with a
single note.
Jane struck it softly, lingeringly; then rose, turned from the piano,
and was leaving the platform, when a sudden burst of wild applause
broke from the audience. Jane hesitated, paused, looked at her aunt's
guests as if almost surprised to find them there. Then the slow smile
dawned in her eyes and passed to her lips. She stood in the centre of
the platform for a moment, awkwardly, almost shyly; then moved on as
men's voices began to shout "Encore! 'core!" and left the platform by
the side staircase.
But there, behind the scenes, in the semi-darkness of screens and
curtains, a fresh surprise awaited Jane, more startling than the
enthusiastic tumult of her audience.
At the foot of the staircase stood Garth Dalmain. His face was
absolutely colourless, and his eyes shone out from it like burning
stars. He remained motionless until she stepped from the last stair and
stood close to him. Then with a sudden movement he caught her by the
shoulders and turned her round.
"Go back!" he said, and the overmastering need quivering in his voice
drew Jane's eyes to his in mute astonishment. "Go back at once and sing
it all over again, note for note, word for word, just as before. Ah,
don't stand here waiting! Go back now! Go back at once! Don't you know
that you MUST?"
Jane looked into those shining eyes. Something she saw in them excused
the brusque command of his tone. Without a word, she quietly mounted
the steps and walked across the platform to the piano. People were
still applauding, and redoubled their demonstrations of delight as she
appeared; but Jane took her seat at the instrument without giving them
a thought.
She was experiencing a very curious and unusual sensation. Never before
in her whole life had she obeyed a peremptory command. In her
childhood's days, Fraulein and Miss Jebb soon found out that they could
only obtain their desires by means of carefully worded requests, or
pathetic appeals to her good feelings and sense of right. An
unreasonable order, or a reasonable one unexplained, promptly met with
a point-blank refusal. And this characteristic still obtained, though
modified by time; and even the duchess, as a rule, said "please" to
Jane.
But now a young man with a white face and blazing eyes had
unceremoniously swung her round, ordered her up the stairs, and
commanded her to sing a song over again, note for note, word for word,
and she was meekly going to obey.
As she took her seat, Jane suddenly made up her mind not to sing The
Rosary again. She had many finer songs in her repertoire. The audience
expected another. Why should she disappoint those expectations because
of the imperious demands of a very highly excited boy?
She commenced the magnificent prelude to Handel's "Where'er you walk,"
but, as she played it, her sense of truth and justice intervened. She
had not come back to sing again at the bidding of a highly excited boy,
but of a deeply moved man; and his emotion was of no ordinary kind.
That Garth Dalmain should have been so moved as to forget even
momentarily his punctilious courtesy of manner, was the highest
possible tribute to her art and to her song. While she played the
Handel theme--and played it so that a whole orchestra seemed marshalled
upon the key-board under those strong, firm finger--she suddenly
realised, though scarcely understanding it, the MUST of which Garth had
spoken, and made up her mind to yield to its necessity. So; when the
opening bars were ended, instead of singing the grand song from Semele
she paused for a moment; struck once more The Rosary's; opening chord;
and did as Garth had bidden her to do.
"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me;
I count them over, ev'ry one apart,
My rosary,--my rosary.
"Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung;
I tell each bead unto the end, and there--
A cross is hung!
"O memories that bless and burn!
O barren gain and bitter loss!
I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross ... to kiss the cross."
When Jane left the platform, Garth was still standing motionless at the
foot of the stairs. His face was just as white as before, but his eyes
had lost that terrible look of unshed tears, which had sent her back,
at his bidding, without a word of question or remonstrance. A wonderful
light now shone in them; a light of adoration, which touched Jane's
heart because she had never before seen anything quite like it. She
smiled as she came slowly down the steps, and held out both hands to
him with an unconscious movement of gracious friendliness. Garth
stepped close to the bottom of the staircase and took them in his,
while she was still on the step above him.
For a moment he did not speak. Then in a low voice, vibrant with
emotion: "My God!" he said, "Oh, my God!"
"Hush," said Jane; "I never like to hear that name spoken lightly, Dal."
"Spoken lightly!" he exclaimed. "No speaking lightly would be possible
for me to-night. 'Every perfect gift is from above.' When words fail me
to speak of the gift, can you wonder if I apostrophise the Giver?"
Jane looked steadily into his shining eyes, and a smile of pleasure
illumined her own. "So you liked my song?" she said.
"Liked--liked your song?" repeated Garth, a shade of perplexity
crossing his face. "I do not know whether I liked your song."
"Then why this flattering demonstration?" inquired Jane, laughing.
"Because," said Garth, very low, "you lifted the veil, and I--I passed
within."
He was still holding her hands in his; and, as he spoke the last two
words, he turned them gently over and, bending, kissed each palm with
an indescribably tender reverence; then, loosing them, stood on one
side, and Jane went out on to the terrace alone.