BEYOND THESE VOICES.
“I didn’t quite catch what you said!” were the next words that reached
my ear, but certainly _not_ in the voice either of Sylvie or of Bruno,
whom I could just see, through the crowd of guests, standing by the
piano, and listening to the Count’s song. Mein Herr was the speaker. “I
didn’t quite catch what you said!” he repeated. “But I’ve no doubt you
take _my_ view of it. Thank you _very_ much for your kind attention.
There is only but _one_ verse left to be sung!” These last words were
not in the gentle voice of Mein Herr, but in the deep bass of the French
Count. And, in the silence that followed, the final stanza of ‘Tottles’
rang through the room.
[Illustration: ‘NEVER!’ YELLED TOTTLES]
See now this couple settled down
In quiet lodgings, out of town:
Submissively the tearful wife
Accepts a plain and humble life:
Yet begs one boon on bended knee:
‘My ducky-darling, don’t resent it!
Mamma might come for two or three——’
‘NEVER!’ yelled Tottles. And he meant it.
The conclusion of the song was followed by quite a chorus of thanks and
compliments from all parts of the room, which the gratified singer
responded to by bowing low in all directions. “It is to me a great
privilege,” he said to Lady Muriel, “to have met with this so marvellous
a song. The accompaniment to him is so strange, so mysterious: it is as
if a new music were to be invented! I will play him once again so as
that to show you what I mean.” He returned to the piano, but the song
had vanished.
The bewildered singer searched through the heap of music lying on an
adjoining table, but it was not there, either. Lady Muriel helped in the
search: others soon joined: the excitement grew. “What _can_ have become
of it?” exclaimed Lady Muriel. Nobody knew: one thing only was certain,
that no one had been near the piano since the Count had sung the last
verse of the song.
“Nevare mind him!” he said, most good-naturedly. “I shall give it you
with memory alone!” He sat down, and began vaguely fingering the notes;
but nothing resembling the tune came out. Then he, too, grew excited.
“But what oddness! How much of singularity! That I might lose, not the
words alone, but the tune also—that is quite curious, I suppose?”
We all supposed it, heartily.
“It was that sweet little boy, who found it for me,” the Count
suggested. “Quite perhaps _he_ is the thief?”
“Of course he is!” cried Lady Muriel. “Bruno! Where are you, my
darling?”
But no Bruno replied: it seemed that the two children had vanished as
suddenly, and as mysteriously, as the song.
“They are playing us a trick!” Lady Muriel gaily exclaimed. “This is
only an _ex tempore_ game of Hide-and-Seek! That little Bruno is an
embodied Mischief!”
The suggestion was a welcome one to most of us, for some of the guests
were beginning to look decidedly uneasy. A general search was set on
foot with much enthusiasm: curtains were thrown back and shaken,
cupboards opened, and ottomans turned over; but the number of possible
hiding-places proved to be strictly limited; and the search came to an
end almost as soon as it had begun.
“They must have run out, while we were wrapped up in the song,” Lady
Muriel said, addressing herself to the Count, who seemed more agitated
than the others; “and no doubt they’ve found their way back to the
housekeeper’s room.”
“Not by _this_ door!” was the earnest protest of a knot of two or three
gentlemen, who had been grouped round the door (one of them actually
leaning against it) for the last half-hour, as they declared. “_This_
door has not been opened since the song began!”
An uncomfortable silence followed this announcement. Lady Muriel
ventured no further conjectures, but quietly examined the fastenings of
the windows, which opened as doors. They all proved to be well fastened,
_inside_.
Not yet at the end of her resources, Lady Muriel rang the bell. “Ask the
housekeeper to step here,” she said, “and to bring the children’s
walking-things with her.”
“I’ve brought them, my Lady,” said the obsequious housekeeper, entering
after another minute of silence. “I thought the young lady would have
come to my room to put on her boots. Here’s your boots, my love!” she
added cheerfully, looking in all directions for the children. There was
no answer, and she turned to Lady Muriel with a puzzled smile. “Have the
little darlings hid themselves?”
“I don’t see them, just now,” Lady Muriel replied, rather evasively.
“You can leave their things here, Wilson. _I’ll_ dress them, when
they’re ready to go.”
The two little hats, and Sylvie’s walking-jacket, were handed round
among the ladies, with many exclamations of delight. There certainly was
a sort of witchery of beauty about them. Even the little boots did not
miss their share of favorable criticism. “Such natty little things!” the
musical young lady exclaimed, almost fondling them as she spoke. “And
what tiny tiny feet they must have!”
Finally, the things were piled together on the centre-ottoman, and the
guests, despairing of seeing the children again, began to wish
good-night and leave the house.
There were only some eight or nine left—to whom the Count was
explaining, for the twentieth time, how he had had his eye on the
children during the last verse of the song; how he had then glanced
round the room, to see what effect “de great chest-note” had had upon
his audience; and how, when he looked back again, they had both
disappeared—when exclamations of dismay began to be heard on all sides,
the Count hastily bringing his story to an end to join in the outcry.
The walking-things had all disappeared!
After the utter failure of the search for the _children_, there was a
very half-hearted search made for their _apparel_. The remaining guests
seemed only too glad to get away, leaving only the Count and our four
selves.
The Count sank into an easy-chair, and panted a little.
“Who then _are_ these dear children, I pray you?” he said. “Why come
they, why go they, in this so little ordinary a fashion? That the music
should make itself to vanish—that the hats, the boots, should make
themselves to vanish—how is it, I pray you?”
“I’ve no idea where they are!” was all I could say, on finding myself
appealed to, by general consent, for an explanation.
The Count seemed about to ask further questions, but checked himself.
“The hour makes himself to become late,” he said. “I wish to you a very
good night, my Lady. I betake myself to my bed—to dream—if that indeed I
be not dreaming now!” And he hastily left the room.
“Stay awhile, stay awhile!” said the Earl, as I was about to follow the
Count. “_You_ are not a guest, you know! Arthur’s friend is at _home_
here!”
“Thanks!” I said, as, with true English instincts, we drew our chairs
together round the fire-place, though no fire was burning—Lady Muriel
having taken the heap of music on her knee, to have one more search for
the strangely-vanished song.
“Don’t you sometimes feel a wild longing,” she said, addressing herself
to me, “to have something more to do with your hands, while you talk,
than just holding a cigar, and now and then knocking off the ash? Oh, I
know all that you’re going to say!” (This was to Arthur, who appeared
about to interrupt her.) “The Majesty of Thought supersedes the work of
the fingers. A Man’s severe thinking, _plus_ the shaking-off a
cigar-ash, comes to the same total as a Woman’s trivial fancies, _plus_
the most elaborate embroidery. _That’s_ your sentiment, isn’t it, only
better expressed?”
Arthur looked into the radiant, mischievous face, with a grave and very
tender smile. “Yes,” he said resignedly: “that is my sentiment,
exactly.”
“Rest of body, and activity of mind,” I put in. “Some writer tells us
_that_ is the acme of human happiness.”
“Plenty of _bodily_ rest, at any rate!” Lady Muriel replied, glancing at
the three recumbent figures around her. “But what you call activity of
_mind_——”
“—is the privilege of young Physicians _only_,” said the Earl. “We old
men have no claim to be active! _What can an old man do but die?_”
“A good many other things, I should _hope_,” Arthur said earnestly.
“Well, maybe. Still you have the advantage of me in many ways, dear boy!
Not only that _your_ day is dawning while _mine_ is setting, but your
_interest_ in Life—somehow I ca’n’t help envying you _that_. It will be
many a year before you lose your hold of _that_.”
“Yet surely many human interests _survive_ human Life?” I said.
“Many do, no doubt. And _some_ forms of Science; but only _some_, I
think. Mathematics, for instance: _that_ seems to possess an endless
interest: one ca’n’t imagine _any_ form of Life, or _any_ race of
intelligent beings, where Mathematical truth would lose its meaning. But
I fear _Medicine_ stands on a different footing. Suppose you discover a
remedy for some disease hitherto supposed to be incurable. Well, it is
delightful for the moment, no doubt—full of interest—perhaps it brings
you fame and fortune. But what then? Look on, a few years, into a life
where disease has no existence. What is your discovery worth, _then_?
Milton makes Jove promise too much. ‘_Of so much fame in heaven expect
thy meed._’ Poor comfort, when one’s ‘fame’ concerns matters that will
have ceased to have a meaning!”
“At any rate, one wouldn’t care to make any _fresh_ medical
discoveries,” said Arthur. “I see no help for _that_—though I shall be
sorry to give up my favorite studies. Still, medicine, disease, pain,
sorrow, sin—I fear they’re all linked together. Banish sin, and you
banish them all!”
“_Military_ science is a yet stronger instance,” said the Earl. “Without
sin, _war_ would surely be impossible. Still any mind, that has had in
this life any keen interest, not in _itself_ sinful, will surely find
itself _some_ congenial line of work hereafter. Wellington may have no
more _battles_ to fight—and yet—
‘We doubt not that, for one so true,
There must be other, nobler work to do,
Than when he fought at Waterloo,
And Victor he must ever be!’”
He lingered over the beautiful words, as if he loved them: and his
voice, like distant music, died away into silence.
After a minute or two he began again. “If I’m not wearying you, I would
like to tell you an idea of the future Life which has haunted me for
years, like a sort of waking nightmare—I ca’n’t reason myself out of
it.”
“Pray do,” Arthur and I replied, almost in a breath. Lady Muriel put
aside the heap of music, and folded her hands together.
“The one idea,” the Earl resumed, “that has seemed to me to overshadow
all the rest, is that of _Eternity_—involving, as it seems to do, the
necessary _exhaustion_ of all subjects of human interest. Take Pure
Mathematics, for instance—a Science independent of our present
surroundings. I have studied it, myself, a little. Take the subject of
circles and ellipses—what we call ‘curves of the second degree.’ In a
future Life, it would only be a question of so many years (or _hundreds_
of years, if you like), for a man to work out _all_ their properties.
Then he _might_ go to curves of the third degree. Say _that_ took ten
times as long (you see we have _unlimited_ time to deal with). I can
hardly imagine his _interest_ in the subject holding out even for those;
and, though there is no limit to the _degree_ of the curves he might
study, yet surely the time, needed to exhaust _all_ the novelty and
interest of the subject, would be absolutely _finite_? And so of all
other branches of Science. And, when I transport myself, in thought,
through some thousands or millions of years, and fancy myself possessed
of as much Science as one created reason can carry, I ask myself ‘What
then? With nothing more to learn, can one rest content on _knowledge_,
for the eternity yet to be lived through?’ It has been a very wearying
thought to me. I have sometimes fancied one _might_, in that event, say
‘It is better _not_ to be,’ and pray for personal _annihilation_—the
Nirvana of the Buddhists.”
“But that is only half the picture,” I said. “Besides working for
_oneself_, may there not be the helping of _others_?”
“Surely, surely!” Lady Muriel exclaimed in a tone of relief, looking at
her father with sparkling eyes.
“Yes,” said the Earl, “so long as there _were_ any others needing help.
But, given ages and ages more, surely all created reasons would at
length reach the same dead level of _satiety_. And _then_ what is there
to look forward to?”
“I know that weary feeling,” said the young Doctor. “I have gone through
it all, more than once. Now let me tell you how I have put it to myself.
I have imagined a little child, playing with toys on his nursery-floor,
and yet able to _reason_, and to look on, thirty years ahead. Might he
not say to himself ‘By that time I shall have had enough of bricks and
ninepins. How weary Life will be!’ Yet, if we look forward through those
thirty years, we find him a great statesman, full of interests and joys
far more intense than his baby-life could give—joys wholly inconceivable
to his baby-mind—joys such as no baby-language could in the faintest
degree describe. Now, may not our life, a million years hence, have the
same relation, to our life now, that the man’s life has to the child’s?
And, just as one might try, all in vain, to express to that child, in
the language of bricks and ninepins, the meaning of ‘politics,’ so
perhaps all those descriptions of Heaven, with its music, and its
feasts, and its streets of gold, may be only attempts to describe, in
_our_ words, things for which we _really_ have no words at all. Don’t
you think that, in _your_ picture of another life, you are in fact
transplanting that child into political life, without making any
allowance for his growing up?”
“I think I understand you,” said the Earl. “The music of Heaven _may_ be
something beyond our powers of thought. Yet the music of Earth is sweet!
Muriel, my child, sing us something before we go to bed!”
“Do,” said Arthur, as he rose and lit the candles on the cottage-piano,
lately banished from the drawing-room to make room for a ‘semi-grand.’
“There is a song here, that I have never heard you sing.
‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart!’”
he read from the page he had spread open before her.
“And our little life here,” the Earl went on, “is, to that grand time,
like a child’s summer-day! One gets tired as night draws on,” he added,
with a touch of sadness in his voice, “and one gets to long for bed! For
those welcome words ‘Come, child, ’tis bed-time!’”