CHAPTER XVI.
The next being _our_ night, after dinner the next day I went to my garden. It was growing latest autumn, but still we had had no frosts.
My monthly roses were in full bloom, my fuchsias flower-laden. Then I had a geranium or two, labelled with my name, in the little greenhouse. I gathered as many as I could hold in both my hands, and carried them into the parlor.
"You have some flowers there," said Clo, with condescension.
"It is a pity to gather them when there are so few out," remarked Lydia, without lifting her eyes from her work.
I took no notice of them. Millicent beckoned me out of the parlor.
"I will give you some ribbon, Charles, if you will come to my room."
So she did, and she arranged my flowers so as to infuse into their autumnal aspect the glow of summer, so skilfully she grouped the crimson of the geraniums against the pale roses and purple stocks. I set forth, holding them in my hand. For the first time, I met Davy before I went in. He shook hands, and asked me to come to tea with him on the morrow.
Clara was there alone. She greeted me gravely, and yet I thought she would have smiled, had there not been something to make her grave.
"Miss Benette!" I whispered, but she would not answer.
Davy had just emerged below. We were making rapid progress. I always made way, not only because my ear was true and my voice pure, but because I was sustained by the purest voice and the truest ear in the cla.s.s. But now the other voices grew able to support themselves, and nothing can be imagined more perfect in its way than the communion of the parts as they exactly balanced each other,--the separate voices toned down and blended into a full effect that extinguished any sensible difference between one and another.
I am very matter of fact, I know; but that is better than to be commonplace,--and not the same thing, though they are often confounded. If the real be the ideal, then is the matter of fact the true. This ghost of an aphorism stalked forth from my brain, whose chambers are unfraught with book-lore as with worldly knowledge; and to lay its phantomship, I am compelled to submit it to paper.
I could not make Clara attend to me until all was over. Then she said to me of her own accord,--
"Little Laura is ill; she caught cold after she danced the other evening, and has been in bed since."
"Will you have these flowers, then? I am afraid they are half faded, though my hand is very cold."
"I will take them to Laura,--she has no flowers."
"I am very sorry; I hope it was not my fault,--I mean, I hope it did not tire her to dance before me first."
"Oh, no! it was her papa"s fault for letting her come into the cold air without being well wrapped up. She had a shawl to put on, and a cloak besides, of mine; but her papa gave them to somebody else."
"How dreadfully unkind! Is it her papa who did such a thing?"
"Her own father. But look, Master Auchester, there is Mr. Davy beckoning to you. And I must go,--my nurse is waiting for me."
"So is mine, downstairs. Have you a nurse too?"
"I call her so; she came from Germany to find me, and now I take care of her."
I was very anxious to see how Davy would address his adopted child, who numbered half his years, and I still detained her, hoping that he would join us. I was not mistaken; for Davy, smiling to himself at my obstinate disregard of his salute, stepped up through the intervening forms. "So you would not come down, Charles! I wanted to ask you to come early, as I wish to try your voice with Miss Benette"s. Come at least by five o"clock."
He looked at Clara, and I looked at her. Without a smile upon her sweet face (but in the plenitude of that infantine gravity which so enchanted the _not_ youngest part of myself), she bowed to him and answered, "If you please, sir. Then I am not to come in the morning?"
"Oh, yes, in the morning also, if you can spare time. You know why I wish to hear you sing together?"
"Yes, sir,--you told me. Good night, Master Auchester, and, sir, to you."
And she ran out, having replaced her black bonnet and long veil. Davy spoke a few words of gratified commendation in reference to our universal progress, and then, as the room was nearly empty, brought me downstairs. I asked him about Laura.
"Oh! she is not dangerously ill."
"But I suppose she may be suffering," I added, in a sharp tone, for which I had been reproved times without number at home.
"Why, as to that, we must all instruct ourselves to suffer. I am very sorry for my little pupil. She has had an attack of inflammation, but is only now kept still by weakness, Miss Benette tells me."
"Miss Benette is very good to her, I think."
"Miss Benette is very good to everybody," said Davy, earnestly, with a strange, bright meaning in his accent I looked up at him, but it was too dark to see his expressive face, for now we were in the street.
"She is good to me, but could hardly be so to you, sir. She says you have done everything for her, and do still."
"I try to do my duty by her; but I owe to her more than I can ever repay."
How curious, to be sure! I thought, but I did not say so, there was a preventive hush in his tone and manner.
"I should so like to know what we shall sing to-morrow."
"So you shall, _to-morrow_; but to-night I scarcely know myself. I will come in with you, that I may obtain your mother"s permission to run away with you again,--but not to another festival just yet; I could almost say, "Would that it were!""
"I could quite, sir."
"But we must make a musical feast ourselves, you and I."
"Oh, sir! pray let me be a side-dish."
"That you shall be. But here we are."
Supper was spread in our parlor, and my sisters looked a perfect picture of health, comfort, and interest--three beat.i.tudes of domestic existence. Lydia answered to the first, Clo to the second (she having fallen asleep in her chair by the charmingly brilliant fire), and dear Millicent, on our entrance, to the third; for she looked half up and glowed, the firelight played upon her brow, but there was a gleam, more like moonlight, upon her lips as she smiled to welcome us. My mother, fresh from a doze, sympathetic with Clo, extended her hand with all her friendliness to Davy, and forced him to sit down and begin upon the plate she had filled, before she would suffer him to speak. It was too tormenting, but so it was, that she thought proper to send me to bed after I had eaten a slice of bread and marmalade, before he had finished eating. I gave Millicent a look into her eyes, however, which I knew she understood, and I therefore kept awake, expecting her after Margareth had put out my candle. My fear was lest my mother, dear creature, should come up first, for I still slept in a corner of her room; but I knew Davy could not leave without my knowing it, as every sound pa.s.sed into my brain from below. At last I listened for the steps, for which I was always obliged to listen, soft as her touch and gentle eyes, and I felt Millicent enter all in the dark.
"Well, Charles!" she began, as she put aside my curtain and leaned against my mattress, "it is another treat for you, though not so great a one as your first glory, and you will have to sustain your own credit rather more specially. Do you know the Priory, on the Lawborough Road, not a great way from Mr. Hargreave"s factory?"
"Yes, I know it; what of that?"
"The Redferns live there, and the young ladies are Mr. Davy"s pupils."
"Not at the cla.s.s, I suppose?"
"No; but Mr. Davy gives them singing lessons, and he says they are rather clever, though perhaps not _too_ really musical. They are very fond of anything new; and now they intend to give a large musical party, as they have been present at one during a stay they made in London lately. It is to be a very select party; some amateur performers are expected, and Mr. Davy is going to sing professionally.
Not only so, the young ladies" pianoforte master will be present, and most likely a truly great player, Charles, an artist,--the violinist Santonio."
"Was he at the festival?"
"Oh, no! Mr. Davy says they have written to him to come from London.
But now I must explain _your_ part. Mr. Davy was requested to bring a vocal quartet from his cla.s.s, as none of the guests can sing in parts.
He is to take Miss Benette as a soprano, for he says her soprano is as superior as her lower voice."