And Mrs. Merryweather sang, to the funniest little languishing tune:
"Meess Nancy said unto me one day, "Vill you play on my leetle guitar?"
Meess Nancy said unto me one day, "Vill you play on my leetle guitar?
Vich goes "tinky-tink-ting!"
Vich goes "tanky-tank-tang!"
Vich goes "ting,"
Vich goes "tang,"
Vich goes "ta!"""
"Exactly!" said the Colonel. "Precisely! tanky-tank-tang! that is the essence of half the drawing-room music one hears; and the other half is apt to be the kind of cacophonous folderol that my nephew Jack tortures the inoffensive air with. By the way, Hildegarde,--hum, ha! nothing of the sort!"
"I beg your pardon, Colonel Ferrers!" said Hildegarde, somewhat perplexed, as was no wonder.
"Nothing of the slightest consequence," said the Colonel, looking slightly confused. "My absent way, you know. Oblige us with another song, will you, my dear? "Mary of Argyle," if you have no special preference for anything else. My mother was fond of "Mary of Argyle"; used to sing it when I was a lad,--hum, ha! several years ago."
"In one moment, Colonel Ferrers. I just wanted to ask you, since you spoke of Jack,--have you any idea when we shall see the dear fellow? Is there any chance of his getting home in time for Christmas?"
But here the Colonel became quite testy. He vowed that his nephew Jack was the most irresponsible human being that ever lived, with the exception of his father. "My brother Raymond--Jack"s father, you are aware, Mrs. Grahame--never knows, it is my belief, whether it is time to get up or to go to bed. As to eating his meals--it is a marvel that the man is alive to-day. Never sits down at a Christian table when he is alone. Housekeeper has to follow him round with plates of victuals, and put them under his nose wherever he happens to stand still. Never sits down, my brother Raymond. Like Sh.e.l.ley the poet in that respect--"
"Did Sh.e.l.ley never sit down?" asked Bell, innocently. "I never heard--"
"I--hum, ha!--alluded to the other peculiarity," said the Colonel.
"Sh.e.l.ley would stand--or sit--for hours, I have been told, with his dinner under his nose, entirely unconscious of it. I have never believed the story that he wrote a sonnet with a stalk of asparagus one day, taking it for a pen. Was surprised, you understand, at finding nothing on the paper. Ha!"
"Colonel Ferrers," said Hildegarde, gravely, "it is my belief that you made up that story this very instant."
"Quite possible, my dear," said the Colonel, cheerfully. "Absence of mind, you know--"
"Or presence!" said the girl, significantly. "I wonder why we are not to hear about our Jack."
"Possibly, my love, because I do not intend to tell you," said the Colonel, with his most beaming smile. "Did you say you would be so very obliging as to sing "Mary of Argyle" for me?"
And Hildegarde sang.
CHAPTER X.
_DIE EDLE MUSICA._
BELL MERRYWEATHER was sitting alone in the parlour at Braeside. She was waiting for Hildegarde to finish some piece of work up-stairs before going for a twilight walk. So waiting, she naturally drifted to the piano, and, opening it, began to play.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DIE EDLE MUSICA.]
Bell might love her Greek and her botany, might delight, too, in rowing and riding, and in all the out-door life that kept her strong, young body in such perfect condition; but, after all, these things filled the second and third place only in her life; her music was first, once and always. All through school and college she had kept it up steadily, seeking always the best instruction, loving always the best music; till now, at eighteen, she was at once mistress and faithful servant of her beloved art. Hildegarde played with taste and feeling, but she never cared to touch the piano when she might listen to Bell instead; there was all the difference in the world, and she knew it far better than modest Bell herself. So when Hildegarde now, up-stairs, heard the firm, light touch on the keys below, she nodded to herself, well pleased, and went on with her work. "Such a treat for Mammina!" she said. "And I do want to finish this, and the dear girl will not know whether she plays five minutes or an hour."
Hildegarde was right. Bell played on and on, one lovely thing after another; and forgot her friend up-stairs, and her walk, and everything else in the world, save herself and _die edle Musica_.
Now, it happened about this time,--or it may have been half an hour after,--that some one else stood and listened to the music that filled the early December twilight with warmth and beauty and sweetness. A young man had come running lightly up the steps of the veranda, with a tread that spoke familiarity, and eagerness, too; had hastened towards the door, but paused there, at the sound of the piano. A young man, not more than twenty at the most, very tall, with a loose-jointed spring to his gait, that might have been awkwardness a year or two ago, but sat not ungracefully on him now. He had curly brown hair, and bright blue eyes, set rather far apart under a broad, white forehead; not a handsome face, but one so honest and so kindly that people liked to look at it, and felt more cheerful for doing so.
The blue eyes wore a look of surprise just now; surprise which rapidly deepened into amazement.
"Oh, I say!" he murmured. "That can"t be,--and yet it must, of course.
How on earth has she learned to play like this?" He listened again. The notes of Schumann"s "_Faschingsschw.a.n.k_" sounded full and clear. The bright scene of the Vienna carnival rose as in a magic vision; the flower-hung balconies, the gardens and fountains, the bands of dancers, like long garlands, swinging hand in hand through the white streets. The young man saw it all, almost as clearly as his bodily eyes had seen it a year before. And the playing! so sure and clear and brilliant, so full of fire and tenderness--
"But she cannot have learned all this in two years!" said Jack Ferrers.
"It"s incredible! She must have worked at nothing else; and she has never said a word-- Ah! but, my dear girl, you must have the violin for that!"
The player had struck the opening chords of the great Mendelssohn Concerto for piano and violin.
The youth lifted something that he had laid down on the veranda seat,--an oblong black box; lifted it as tenderly as a mother lifts her sleeping child. Then he stepped quietly into the twilight hall.
So it came to pa.s.s that Bell, who was very near the gate of heaven already, heard suddenly, as it seemed to her, the music of angels; a tone mingling with her own, pure, thrilling, ecstatic; lifting her on wings of lofty harmony, up, up,--far from earth and its uncertain voices, nearer and ever nearer to where love and light and music were blended in one calm blessedness. It never occurred to her to stop; hardly even to wonder what it meant, or who was doing her this service of heavenly comradeship. She played on and on, as she had never played before; only dreading the end, when the spirit would leave her, and she must sink to earth again, alone.
When the end did come, there was silence in the room. It was nearly dark. Any form that she should see on turning round would needs be vague and shadowy, yet she dreaded to turn; and she found herself saying aloud, unconsciously:
"Oh! I thought I was in heaven!"
"I _knew_ I was!" said Jack Ferrers. "Oh, Hilda, how have you done it?
How was it possible for you to do it? My dear--"
He was stepping forward eagerly; but two voices cried out suddenly, one in terror, it seemed, the other,--was it joy or pain? The girl at the piano turned round; even in the dark, Jack knew instantly that it was not his cousin. He looked helplessly towards the door, and there stood another shadowy figure; what did it all mean? But now, after that pause of an instant, this second figure came forward with outstretched arms.
"My dear, dearest old Jack! I have been listening; I could not speak at first. Oh, welcome, dear old fellow! Welcome home a hundred thousand times!"
Ah! now Jack knew where he was. This was the welcome he had thought of, dreamed of, all the way home across the ocean. This was the surprise that he had planned, and carried out so perfectly. This was Hilda herself, in flesh and blood; his best friend, better than any sister could be. These were her kind, tender eyes, this was her sweet, cordial voice, in which you felt the heart beating true and steady,--all was just as he had pictured it in many a lonely hour during the past two years. Only,--only, who was it he had gone to heaven with just now? A stranger!
Before his bewildered mind could grasp anything more, Hildegarde had put out her hand, and caught the silent shape that was flitting past her through the doorway.
"No!" she cried. "You shall not go! It is absurd for you two to pretend to be strangers, after you have been playing together like that; absurd, and you both know it. Bell, of course you know this is my cousin Jack, whom I have so wanted you to meet. Jack, I have written you of my friend Isabel Merryweather. Oh, oh, my dears! It was so beautiful! So beautiful! And I am so happy,--I really think I am going to cry!"
"Oh, don"t!" cried Bell and Jack together; and the sheer terror in their voices made Hildegarde laugh instead.
"And you thought it was I!" she cried, still a little hysterical. "Jack, how could you? I thought better of you!"
"I--I didn"t see how it could be," said honest Jack. "I didn"t see how you could possibly have done it in two years, or,--or in a lifetime, for that matter; but how could I suppose,--how could I know--"
"You couldn"t, of course. Oh, and to think of all the delight you are going to give us, the two of you! Jack, your playing is--I can"t tell you what it is. My dear, I am afraid to light the lamp. Shall I see a totally different Jack from the old one? You have learned such an infinity, haven"t you?"
"I should be a most hopeless m.u.f.f if I hadn"t learned something!" said her cousin. "But you needn"t be afraid to light the lamp, Hilda. You will see the ostrich, or the giraffe, or the kangaroo, whichever you prefer. But first I must thank Miss Merryweather for playing so delightfully. You have played with the violin before, of course? I felt that instantly."
There was no reply; for Bell, feeling simply, desperately, that she must get away, must relieve the two cousins of her presence, since it could not by any possibility be welcome, had seen her moment, and slipped quietly out while Hildegarde was busy with the lamp.
The light sprang up, and both looked eagerly round.
"Why, she is gone!" cried Jack. "I say! And I never thanked her. What an idiot she must think me!"