THE MUSIC-ROOM.
Frank was alone on his second expedition to Richmont, which was a
satisfaction to him. He was full of his scheme, and anxious to see how
the land lay, and what Laurie’s prospects might be should he make up his
mind to ‘go in’ for the fifty thousand pounds. And he was quite willing
to divert himself in the society of his future sister-in-law. The
invitation had a family aspect altogether, he thought; and, instead of
returning to his quarters, he had made his arrangements to go home for
the Sunday, and rouse his mother to such steps as were practicable for
securing Laurie’s advantage. Frank left Royalborough with all the lively
zest of a matchmaker, pleased with himself and his own generosity, and
rather elated on his brother’s account. Fifty thousand pounds!--two
thousand five hundred a-year, and always the prospect of something
coming at the end of the seven years’ probation! For a man who had no
expensive tastes, and whose whole soul was wrapped up in pictures, it
was a fortune! He could dabble in paint as much as he liked, and his
wife could help him; and they could travel about as much as they liked,
and go to all the pretty places that took their fancy. There was no one
to whom he could have said as much in actual words; but the feeling in
his mind was, that if anybody had ever originated a better plan he’d
like to hear of it. Ben had turned up, as Mary Westbury’s letter told
him; and no doubt Ben would make his way in the world. And as for
himself, Frank thought that there was no particular fear; but Laurie was
the feeble one of the family, the one most likely to do little, to spend
his strength for naught, or waste his own life for the advantage of
others. And nothing could be so good for him as to be thus put on a
comfortable shelf out of harm’s way at the very beginning of his career.
He was fond of Laurie, as most people were; and it pleased him as much
in his brotherliness as in his vanity to take Laurie thus in hand and be
the one to provide for him. This time it was to dinner he was going at
Richmont, and he had written to the Manor to beg his mother to send over
the dog-cart for him and his portmanteau. The millionnaire’s house was
beginning to be lit up in all its windows when he drove along the
avenue: the lights in it sparkled like fairy lamps in the blue, spring
twilight; and when he entered the great hall he was informed that nobody
had come down-stairs yet, and that the dinner had been made an hour
later in consequence of some one else who was to arrive by the train.
‘The young ladies is in the music-room, sir,’ the butler said
respectfully, being himself a native of Berks, and feeling that the
advent of a Renton was an honour to the house; ‘and I was to tell you as
tea is served in the drawing-room.’
‘Oh, I’ll join the young ladies,’ said Frank, lightly, thinking of Nelly
only, his sister-in-law that was to be. No doubt some one must be with
her, but that did not matter. Indeed, on the whole, it was so much the
better, for it would not be becoming to flirt, except in the very
mildest way, with a girl who was going to be your brother’s wife. He ran
up-stairs, telling the man he knew the way, and thus making a daring
leap into intimacy such as he would never have dreamed of had he taken
time to think. But his own plan had taken possession of him. Of course
she was going to be his sister-in-law, and it would be absurd to stand
upon ceremony. Thus Frank, being unused to the excitement of so much
thinking, was carried away by it, and took his own imaginations for
granted. As he ran up-stairs, however, his ear was caught by the sound
of the organ, a sound which had not been heard in Beecham so long as he
had known the house, and to which Richmont, according to Nelly’s
description, was as little accustomed. The music seemed to fill the
place, swelling through the stairs and passages, which were full of the
darkness and stillness of the approaching night. Frank stood still to
listen, and then went on with a surprised face, and with a new thrill in
his heart. It was surely the same sonata he had heard softly breathing
out of the dark drawing-room that night he visited Fitzroy Square. Who
could be playing? Could there be two girls in the world who had the same
power, the same feeling for music, the same subtle sentiment, and
expressive strength? But then how did he know at all that it was a girl
who was playing? It might be some old music-master, one of the sort of
people whom Nelly loved. All the same, it had the effect of subduing his
steps, and making his approach much less confident and unembarrassed. He
lingered,--he thought of going back,--he felt himself a coxcomb and
presumptuous animal. And yet he went on, led partly by the force of the
impulse which was still upon him, and partly allured by the dulcet and
harmonious sound to which he was so susceptible. He knocked at the door,
but his summons was unheard in the midst of the music. Then he opened it
softly, and went in. There was no light in the room except the pale
twilight, which marked out every line of the windows, and the glimmering
of the painted glass at the end by which he entered. He seemed to step
out of the real world altogether into an enchanted place when he crossed
that darkling threshold. The gilded organ-pipes caught a certain faint
reflection, and under that dim shimmer sat a shadow, which was playing;
while in the centre window, in the bay, looking out, as it seemed, into
the night, another shadow, light and small as a fairy, stood listening
or musing. The opposite wall of the room, and the picture which was so
bright in the daylight, had retreated altogether into the gloom; and the
painted window hung as if suspended in the air; and all the solid wall
in which it was set, and the dark oak carving under it, had receded into
obscurity. Frank stood with his hand on the door, and held his breath.
He felt at once like a fool and like an intruder, not knowing who they
were whose privacy he was invading, and having no right whatever to be
there even had he been sure it was Nelly who stood in the window. He had
burst into her particular privacy unannounced the second time he had
been in the house! But Frank was bewitched, and stood still, blotting
himself out as small as possible against the door.
But either the door had creaked or her quick ear had caught some sound
of movement, for Nelly Rich turned round suddenly. She was not so
absorbed in the music as the player was, or as Frank would have been had
he been listening in a legitimate and proper way. Her mind was divided
between that and a great many other thoughts, and gave but a partial
attention to the sounds which filled the room. When she saw that another
shadow had intruded into her retirement, Nelly gave a little cry, and
flitted like a ghost towards the door.
‘Who is there?’ she cried with a sharpness which struck in just at a
pianissimo passage, and startled the player as well as the intruder. The
music ceased with a kind of long-drawn wail, and the musician too gave a
little scream. Frank would have been thankful if the old oak floor had
suddenly opened and swallowed him up.
‘A thousand pardons,’ he cried; ‘it is I, Miss Rich; Frank Renton. I
don’t know how to explain my intrusion. Pray forgive me. I was told I
should find you here,--and then the music; I have not a word to say for
myself. Pardon?--that is all.’
‘Was it papa who told you you would find me here?’ said Nelly. ‘It is
just like him. But, Mr. Renton, I am not papa, and I admit nobody but my
friends to this room,--especially in the dark,’ she added, with a quiver
of coming laughter, which reassured Frank. He sank down upon his knee,
as she stood with her arms extended, metaphorically thrusting him away.
‘What can I say for myself?’ said Frank. ‘I am a wretched sinner, not
worthy to be admitted as a friend. Let me come in as a captive, like one
of your Angles; or as a beggar, or---- Don’t be too hard upon me. The
evil is done. The mortal has crossed the threshold of fairyland. Let him
stay.’
‘Alice, advise me,’ cried Nelly, turning to the silent figure at the
piano. ‘Shall we let him stay?’
So it was Alice! Something had told him so the instant he recognised
that sonata. Now he turned his head towards her in the gloom,
breathless, awaiting her answer. Alice, however, made no reply. She only
returned to her organ, and took up her pianissimo passage. I cannot tell
how she intimated her pleasure to the slave on the other side of the
wall who ‘blew;’ but, anyhow, she took it up where she had left off, and
the soft, delicious sounds, the very voice of the darkness and
stillness, whispered over the two darkling, undiscernible figures,--one
standing, one kneeling, in the gloom. A certain soft thrill of
consciousness, half comic, half sentimental, moved Nelly. No doubt it
had been partly in jest that Frank had put himself on his knees; but
might it not be partly in earnest, too? Frank, for his part, had
forgotten Nelly’s very existence. It seemed natural to him to listen
thus to such a strain. He was not intellectual, and could have heard the
finest poetry in the world unmoved. All his pretty sentiments about
fairyland, etcetera, were also the most superficial words; but the music
seized upon, mastered him, put a soul into the young soldier. He turned
half towards the instrument, kneeling, and unconscious that he was
kneeling. To him it was poetry, art, passion, imagination, all in one.
And Alice went on playing softly as in a dream; and the remaining rays
of half light gradually extinguished themselves, till even the two
shadows at the door became scarcely discernible, and the organ-pipes
faded into obscurity. It was a curious situation altogether, but only
Nelly was aware of it. To her the fact was very evident that a handsome
young Guardsman, still kneeling on one knee, as to his sovereign, was
before her; that twilight was settling down into night; that Mr. Frank
Renton was a stranger: and that it was time to dress. Something
prevented her from speaking, and cutting short the music; but her
impatient mind having got over the first charm, began to grow weary, and
long for a change. She could not make out how it was that the musician
went on, unfatigued with all those lingering notes. ‘That’s the same
thing over again,’ Nelly said to herself, not being so fond of music as
she ought to have been, as may easily be perceived. She glided back to
the window, at last; and Frank, roused by her motion, rose from his
reverential attitude. He knew that Alice could not stop till the
movement had come to an end; and was not impatient, but absorbed in the
lovely harmony. But after a while the thought stole into even his mind
that it would be best to get as much into the light as possible, and he
followed Nelly to the window. There was a glimmering of the park visible
outside, and, what was more to the purpose, a great expanse of blue sky
and stars. And in the room there was the painted window, hanging in the
air like a picture worked in jewels, suspended without visible support;
and the music--and the two girls;--even a poet could not have objected
to all the accessories of the scene.
‘Thanks, Alice, it is lovely,’ cried Nelly; ‘but all the same for the
moment, my dear, I am glad it is done; for this is growing very ghostly.
Mr. Renton, I think I can see that you have come in, though you never
got permission. Go before us, please, and let us know if there are
lights in the passages: and if you are good, and do everything you are
told, we will forgive you for coming in. Alice, give me your hand. They
are both intoxicated with the music, these two, cried Nelly, as if to
herself; ‘and I don’t believe they have any eyes to see that window
hanging there all by itself. Come along, you people, who can hear and
can’t see:--let us get into the light.’
‘But I can see, too,’ said Alice, softly, coming to Nelly’s side.
‘Ah, you are a painter’s daughter,’ said Nelly: ‘but you would need to
be a cat to see anything now. Thanks, Mr. Renton. Now wait a moment till
our eyes are used to the light.’
‘Coming down to the common world again,’ said Frank, ‘is hard. No one
can feel it more than I do. Take care of that step,--even painters
themselves cannot always see.’
‘I wish the common world were not down so many stairs,’ said Nelly; and
then they emerged into the light. They were still in their morning
dresses; and Frank’s eyes, once more out of the darkness fell upon the
fresh, girlish face, the mass of shining hair,--all those tints of rose
and lily which belonged to Alice Severn and her sixteen years. There was
a great deal more expression in Nelly’s little brown, sparkling
countenance. She had lived a year or two longer in reality, a hundred
years or so longer in experience. Alice’s face lay like an inland lake
moved from above, from without, by soft, kissing breezes, by beams of
sunshine, but not by any movements from within. There were no volcanoes
underneath, nor quicksands, nor sunken rocks. She was very young, and
ignorant as a child. That want of definite expression which was a
trouble to some of her friends, to Frank was a beauty. She looked like a
saint, or an angel, to his eyes. In his worldly-mindedness and curious
calculations of what he called practical matters, this face disturbed
him, experienced man of the world as he was. What would she think of his
scheme for Laurie? The first effect of her presence had been to drive
Laurie and all his schemes out of his mind. And now the very contrast of
her innocence brought them all back with a rush. It was not this
visionary creature concerning whom the plot was laid;--but Nelly, little
sprite, who stood by her, a being manifestly of this world.
‘I wish Laurie had been here,’ cried Frank, abruptly, remembering his
_rôle_. ‘He is the only one of our family who has an eye. He would have
raved about your window, Miss Rich.’
‘That would have been kind of him,’ said Nelly, with a slight touch of
disdain. ‘It was Mr. Laurence Renton you were speaking of, Alice. Did
you say he had gone away?’
‘Gone away!’ cried Frank, with a start, which endangered his footing on
the stair.
‘To Italy,’ said Alice. ‘We were all so sorry. He went yesterday
morning, and the night before he came to bid mamma good-bye. They say it
was quite suddenly that he had made up his mind.’
‘To Italy!’ repeated Frank, in tones of absolute consternation. He
stopped on the stair as he went down, to apostrophise mentally both
heaven and earth. Gone! notwithstanding all the plans that were making
for him. Frank stopped short, so much affected by the news that he
forgot even the odd appearance that he made, standing on the stair.
‘Then how is it to be done,--and who is to do it?’ was the question that
immediately suggested itself to his mind. Nelly Rich stood and looked up
at him through the rails of the stair with bright eyes, full of
mischief, contemplating his puzzled countenance. Who was to do it? By
this time it seemed a matter of conscience to Frank that some Renton
should appropriate Nelly and her fifty thousand pounds. And Ben was
going to America, and Laurie had disappeared into the South. His face
expressed the liveliest perplexity and self-interrogation. Who was to do
it? Laurie being gone, and Nelly’s fortune still unsecured, was it not
necessary that he himself, casting all weaker ideas aside, should go in
himself for the fifty thousand pounds!