The next morning there were many “tra-las” and “tum-te-turns” over the
family breakfast-table; a constant humming and crying, “I have it”;
and after two or three bars, baffled pauses and confusion of mind. Mr.
Pericles was almost abusive at the impotent efforts of the sisters to
revive in his memory that particular delicious melody, the composition
of the fair singer herself. At last he grew so impatient as to
arrest their opening notes, and even to interrupt their unmusical
consultations, with “No: it is no use; it is no use: no, no, I say!” But
instantly he would plunge his forehead into the palm of his hand, and
rub it red, and work his eyebrows frightfully, until tender humanity
led the sisters to resume. Adela's, “I'm sure it began low down--tum!”
Cornelia's: “The key-note, I am positive, was B flat--ta!” and
Arabella's putting of these two assertions together, and promise to
combine them at the piano when breakfast was at an end, though it was
Sunday morning, were exasperating to the exquisite lover of music. Mr.
Pericles was really suffering torments. Do you know what it is to pursue
the sylph, and touch her flying skirts, think you have caught her, and
are sure of her--that she is yours, the rapturous evanescent darling!
when some well-meaning earthly wretch interposes and trips you, and off
she flies and leaves you floundering? A lovely melody nearly grasped and
lost in this fashion, tries the temper. Apollo chasing Daphne could have
been barely polite to the wood-nymphs in his path, and Mr. Pericles was
rude to the daughters of his host. Smoothing his clean square chin and
thick moustache hastily, with outspread thumb and fingers, he implored
them to spare his nerves. Smiling rigidly, he trusted they would be
merciful to a sensitive ear. Mr. Pole--who, as an Englishman, could not
understand anyone being so serious in the pursuit of a tune--laughed,
and asked questions, and almost drove Mr. Pericles mad. On a sudden the
Greek's sallow visage lightened. “It is to you! it is to you!” he cried,
stretching his finger at Wilfrid. The young officer, having apparently
waited till he had finished with his knife and fork, was leaning his
cheek on his fist, looking at nobody, and quietly humming a part of the
air. Mr. Pericles complimented and thanked him.
“But you have ear for music extraordinaire!” he said.
Adela patted her brother fondly, remarking--“Yes, when his feelings are
concerned.”
“Will you repeat zat?” asked the Greek. “'To-to-ri:' hein? I lose it.
'To-to-ru:' bah! I lose it; 'To-ri:--to--ru--ri ro:' it is no use: I
lose it.”
Neither his persuasions, nor his sneer, “Because it is Sunday, perhaps!”
would induce Wilfrid to be guilty of another attempt. The ladies tried
sisterly cajoleries on him fruitlessly, until Mr. Pole, seeing the
desperation of his guest, said: “Why not have her up here, toon and all,
some week-day? Sunday birds won't suit us, you know. We've got a
piano for her that's good enough for the first of 'em, if money means
anything.”
The ladies murmured meekly: “Yes, papa.”
“I shall find her for you while you go to your charch,” said Mr.
Pericles. And here Wilfrid was seized with a yawn, and rose, and asked
his eldest sister if she meant to attend the service that morning.
“Undoubtedly,” she answered; and Mr. Pole took it up: “That's our
discipline, my boy. Must set an example: do our duty. All the house goes
to worship in the country.”
“Why, in ze country?” queried Mr. Pericles.
“Because”--Cornelia came to the rescue of her sire; but her impetuosity
was either unsupported by a reason, or she stooped to fit one to the
comprehension of the interrogator: “Oh, because--do you know, we have
very select music at our church?”
“We have a highly-paid organist,” added Arabella.
“Recently elected,” said Adela.
“Ah! mon Dieu!” Mr. Pericles ejaculated. “Some music sound well at
afar--mellow, you say. I prefer your charch music mellow.”
“Won't you come?” cried Wilfrid, with wonderful briskness.
“No. Mellow for me!”
The Greek's grinders flashed, and Wilfrid turned off from him sulkily.
He saw in fancy the robber-Greek prowling about Wilson's farm, setting
snares for the marvellous night-bird, and it was with more than his
customary inattention to his sisters' refined conversation that he
formed part of their male escort to the place of worship.
Mr. Pericles met the church-goers on their return in one of the green
bowery lanes leading up to Brookfield. Cold as he was to English scenes
and sentiments, his alien ideas were not unimpressed by the picture of
those daintily-clad young women demurely stepping homeward, while the
air held a revel of skylarks, and the scented hedgeways quickened with
sunshine.
“You have missed a treat!” Arabella greeted him.
“A sermon?” said he.
The ladies would not tell him, until his complacent cynicism at the
notion of his having missed a sermon, spurred them to reveal that the
organ had been handled in a masterly manner; and that the voluntary
played at the close of the service was most exquisite.
“Even papa was in raptures.”
“Very good indeed,” said Mr. Pole. “I'm no judge; but you might listen
to that sort of playing after dinner.”
Mr. Pericles seemed to think that was scarcely a critical period, but he
merely grimaced, and inquired: “Did you see ze player?”
“Oh, no: they are hidden,” Arabella explained to him, “behind a
curtain.”
“But, what!” shouted the impetuous Greek: “have you no curiosity? A
woman! And zen, you saw not her?”
“No,” remarked Cornelia, in the same aggravating sing-song voice of
utter indifference: “we don't know whether it was not a man. Our usual
organist is a man, I believe.”
The eyes of the Greek whitened savagely, and he relapsed into frigid
politeness.
Wilfrid was not present to point their apprehensions. He had loitered
behind; but when he joined them in the house subsequently, he was
cheerful, and had a look of triumph about him which made his sisters
say, “So, you have been with the Copleys:” and he allowed them to
suppose it, if they pleased; the Copleys being young ladies of position
in the neighbourhood, of much higher standing than the Tinleys, who,
though very wealthy, could not have given their brother such an air, the
sisters imagined.
At lunch, Wilfrid remarked carelessly: “By the way, I met that little
girl we saw last night.”
“The singer! where?” asked his sisters, with one voice.
“Coming out of church.”
“She goes to church, then!”
This exclamation showed the heathen they took her to be.
“Why, she played the organ,” said Wilfrid.
“And how does she look by day? How does she dress?”
“Oh! very jolly little woman! Dresses quiet enough.”
“She played the organ! It was she, then! An organist! Is there anything
approaching to gentility in her appearance?”
“I--really I'm no judge,” said Wilfrid. “You had better ask Laura
Tinley. She was talking to her when I went up.”
The sisters exchanged looks. Presently they stood together in
consultation. Then they spoke with their aunt, Mrs. Lupin, and went to
their papa. The rapacity of those Tinleys for anything extraordinary
was known to them, but they would not have conceived that their own
discovery, their own treasure, could have been caught up so quickly. If
the Tinleys got possession of her, the defection of Mr. Pericles might
be counted on, and the display of a phenomenon would be lost to them.
They decided to go down to Wilson's farm that very day, and forestall
their rivals by having her up to Brookfield. The idea of doing this had
been in a corner of their minds all the morning: it seemed now the most
sensible plan in the world. It was patronage, in its right sense. And
they might be of great service to her, by giving a proper elevation and
tone to her genius; while she might amuse them, and their guests, and be
let off, in fact, as a firework for the nonce. Among the queenly cases
of women who are designing to become the heads of a circle (if I may
use the term), an accurate admeasurement of reciprocal advantages can
scarcely be expected to rank; but the knowledge that an act, depending
upon us for execution, is capable of benefiting both sides, will make
the proceeding appear so unselfish, that its wisdom is overlooked as
well as its motives. The sisters felt they were the patronesses of the
little obscure genius whom they longed for to illumine their household,
before they knew her name. Cornet Wilfrid Pole must have chuckled
mightily to see them depart on their mission. These ladies, who managed
everybody, had themselves been very cleverly managed. It is doubtful
whether the scheme to surprise and delight Mr. Pericles would have
actuated the step they took, but for the dread of seeing the rapacious
Tinleys snatch up their lawful prey. The Tinleys were known to be
quite capable of doing so. They had, on a particular occasion, made
transparent overtures to a celebrity belonging to the Poles, whom they
had first met at Brookfield: could never have hoped to have seen had
they not met him at Brookfield; and girls who behaved in this way would
do anything. The resolution was taken to steal a march on them; nor did
it seem at all odd to people naturally so hospitable as the denizens
of Brookfield, that the stranger of yesterday should be the guest of
to-day. Kindness of heart, combined with a great scheme in the brain,
easily put aside conventional rules.
“But we don't know her name,” they said, when they had taken the advice
of the gentlemen on what they had already decided to do: all excepting
Mr. Pericles, for whom the surprise was in store.
“Belloni--Miss Belloni,” said Wilfrid.
“Are you sure? How do you know--?”
“She told Laura Tinley.”
Within five minutes of the receipt of this intelligence the ladies were
on their way to Wilson's farm.