"n.o.body," said Ted simply. "I"ve always been able to play."
"He makes it up himself out of his own head, sir," said Jimmy eagerly.
"No, I don"t make it--it makes itself--it just _comes_," said Ted, a dreamy gaze coming into his big black eyes.
The caller looked at him closely. "I know a little about music myself," he said. "My name is Blair Milford and I am a professional violinist. Your playing is wonderful. What is your name?"
"Ted Melvin."
"Well, Ted, I think that you have a great talent, and it ought to be cultivated. You should have competent instruction. Come, you must tell me all about yourself."
Ted told what little he thought there was to tell. Blair Milford listened and nodded, guessing much that Ted didn"t tell and, indeed, didn"t know himself. Then he made Ted play for him again. "Amazing!"
he said softly, under his breath.
Finally he took the violin and played himself. Ted and Jimmy listened breathlessly. "Oh, if I could only play like that!" said Ted wistfully.
Blair Milford smiled. "You will play much better some day if you get the proper training," he said. "You have a wonderful talent, my boy, and you should have it cultivated. It will never in the world do to waste such genius. Yes, that is the right word," he went on musingly, as if talking to himself, ""genius." Nature is always taking us by surprise. This child has what I have never had and would make any sacrifice for. And yet in him it may come to naught for lack of opportunity. But it must not, Ted. You must have a musical training."
"I can"t take lessons, if that is what you mean, sir," said Ted wonderingly. "Mr. Jackson wouldn"t pay for them."
"I think we needn"t worry about the question of payment if you can find time to practise," said Blair Milford. "I am to be at the beach for two months yet. For once I"ll take a music pupil. But will you have time to practise?"
"Yes, sir, I"ll make time," said Ted, as soon as he could speak at all for the wonder of it. "I"ll get up at four in the morning and have an hour"s practising before the time for the cows. But I"m afraid it"ll be too much trouble for you, sir, I"m afraid--"
Blair Milford laughed and put his slim white hand on Ted"s curly head.
"It isn"t much trouble to train an artist. It is a privilege. Ah, Ted, you have what I once hoped I had, what I know now I never can have.
You don"t understand me. You will some day."
"Ain"t he an awful nice man?" said Jimmy, when Blair Milford had gone.
"But what did he mean by all that talk?"
"I don"t know exactly," said Ted dreamily. "That is, I seem to _feel_ what he meant but I can"t quite put it into words. But, oh, Jimmy, I"m so happy. I"m to have lessons--I have always longed to have them."
"I guess you"re glad you didn"t go to the picnic?" said Jimmy.
"Yes, but I was glad before, Jimmy, honest I was."
Blair Milford kept his promise. He interviewed Mr. and Mrs. Jackson and, by means best known to himself, induced them to consent that Ted should take music lessons every Sat.u.r.day afternoon. He was a pupil to delight a teacher"s heart and, after every lesson, Blair Milford looked at him with kindly eyes and murmured, "Amazing," under his breath. Finally he went again to the Jacksons, and the next day he said to Ted, "Ted, would you like to come away with me--live with me--be my boy and have your gift for music thoroughly cultivated?"
"What do you mean, sir?" said Ted tremblingly.
"I mean that I want you--that I must have you, Ted. I"ve talked to Mr.
Jackson, and he has consented to let you come. You shall be educated, you shall have the best masters in your art that the world affords, you shall have the career I once dreamed of. Will you come, Ted?"
Ted drew a long breath. "Yes, sir," he said. "But it isn"t so much because of the music--it"s because I love you, Mr. Milford, and I"m so glad I"m to be always with you."
The Doctor"s Sweetheart
Just because I am an old woman outwardly it doesn"t follow that I am one inwardly. Hearts don"t grow old--or shouldn"t. Mine hasn"t, I am thankful to say. It bounded like a girl"s with delight when I saw Doctor John and Marcella Barry drive past this afternoon. If the doctor had been my own son I couldn"t have felt more real pleasure in his happiness. I"m only an old lady who can do little but sit by her window and knit, but eyes were made for seeing, and I use mine for that purpose. When I see the good and beautiful things--and a body need never look for the other kind, you know--the things G.o.d planned from the beginning and brought about in spite of the counter plans and schemes of men, I feel such a deep joy that I"m glad, even at seventy-five, to be alive in a world where such things come to pa.s.s.
And if ever G.o.d meant and made two people for each other, those people were Doctor John and Marcella Barry; and that is what I always tell folk who come here commenting on the difference in their ages. "Old enough to be her father," sniffed Mrs. Riddell to me the other day. I didn"t say anything to Mrs. Riddell. I just looked at her. I presume my face expressed what I felt pretty clearly. How any woman can live for sixty years in the world, as Mrs. Riddell has, a wife and mother at that, and not get some realization of the beauty and general satisfactoriness of a real and abiding love, is something I cannot understand and never shall be able to.
n.o.body in Bridgeport believed that Marcella would ever come back, except Doctor John and me--not even her Aunt Sara. I"ve heard people laugh at me when I said I knew she would; but n.o.body minds being laughed at when she is sure of a thing and I was sure that Marcella Barry would come back as that the sun rose and set. I hadn"t lived beside her for eight years to know so little about her as to doubt her. Neither had Doctor John.
Marcella was only eight years old when she came to live in Bridgeport.
Her father, Chester Barry, had just died. Her mother, who was a sister of Miss Sara Bryant, my next door neighbor, had been dead for four years. Marcella"s father left her to the guardianship of his brother, Richard Barry; but Miss Sara pleaded so hard to have the little girl that the Barrys consented to let Marcella live with her aunt until she was sixteen. Then, they said, she would have to go back to them, to be properly educated and take the place of her father"s daughter in _his_ world. For, of course, it is a fact that Miss Sara Bryant"s world was and is a very different one from Chester Barry"s world. As to which side the difference favors, that isn"t for me to say. It all depends on your standard of what is really worth while, you know.
So Marcella came to live with us in Bridgeport. I say "us" advisedly.
She slept and ate in her aunt"s house, but every house in the village was a home to her; for, with all our little disagreements and diverse opinions, we are really all one big family, and everybody feels an interest in and a good working affection for everybody else. Besides, Marcella was one of those children whom everybody loves at sight, and keeps on loving. One long, steady gaze from those big grayish-blue black-lashed eyes of hers went right into your heart and stayed there.
She was a pretty child and as good as she was pretty. It was the right sort of goodness, too, with just enough spice of original sin in it to keep it from spoiling by reason of over-sweetness. She was a frank, loyal, brave little thing, even at eight, and wouldn"t have said or done a mean or false thing to save her life.
She and I were right good friends from the beginning. She loved me and she loved her Aunt Sara; but from the very first her best and deepest affection went out to Doctor John Haven, who lived in the big brick house on the other side of Miss Sara"s.
Doctor John was a Bridgeport boy, and when he got through college he came right home and settled down here, with his widowed mother. The Bridgeport girls were fluttered, for eligible young men were scarce in our village; there was considerable setting of caps, I must say that, although I despise ill-natured gossip; but neither the caps nor the wearers thereof seemed to make any impression on Doctor John. Mrs.
Riddell said that he was a born old bachelor; I suppose she based her opinion on the fact that Doctor John was always a quiet, bookish fellow, who didn"t care a b.u.t.ton for society, and had never been guilty of a flirtation in his life. I knew Doctor John"s heart far better than Martha Riddell could know anybody"s; and I knew there was nothing of the old bachelor in his nature. He just had to wait for the right woman, that was all, not being able to content himself with less as some men can and do. If she never came Doctor John would never marry; but he wouldn"t be an old bachelor for all that.
He was thirty when Marcella came to Bridgeport--a tall, broad-shouldered man with a mane of thick brown curls and level, dark hazel eyes. He walked with a little stoop, his hands clasped behind him; and he had the sweetest, deepest voice. Spoken music, if ever a voice was. He was kind and brave and gentle, but a little distant and reserved with most people. Everybody in Bridgeport liked him, but only a very few ever pa.s.sed the inner gates of his confidence or were admitted to any share in his real life. I am proud to say I was one; I think it is something for an old woman to boast of.
Doctor John was always fond of children, and they of him. It was natural that he and little Marcella should take to each other. He had the most to do with bringing her up, for Miss Sara consulted him in everything. Marcella was not hard to manage for the most part; but she had a will of her own, and when she did set it up in opposition to the powers that were, n.o.body but the doctor could influence her at all; she never resisted him or disobeyed his wishes.
Marcella was one of those girls who develop early. I suppose her constant a.s.sociation with us elderly folks had something to do with it, too. But, at fifteen, she was a woman, loving, beautiful, and spirited.
And Doctor John loved her--loved the woman, not the child. I knew it before he did--but not, as I think, before Marcella did, for those young, straight-gazing eyes of hers were wonderfully quick to read into other people"s hearts. I watched them together and saw the love growing between them, like a strong, fair, perfect flower, whose fragrance was to endure for eternity. Miss Sara saw it, too, and was half-pleased and half-worried; even Miss Sara thought the Doctor too old for Marcella; and besides, there were the Barrys to be reckoned with. Those Barrys were the nightmare dread of poor Miss Sara"s life.
The time came when Doctor John"s eyes were opened. He looked into his own heart and read there what life had written for him. As he told me long afterwards, it came to him with a shock that left him white-lipped. But he was a brave, sensible fellow and he looked the matter squarely in the face. First of all, he put away to one side all that the world might say; the thing concerned solely him and Marcella, and the world had nothing to do with it. That disposed of, he asked himself soberly if he had a right to try to win Marcella"s love. He decided that he had not; it would be taking an unfair advantage of her youth and inexperience. He knew that she must soon go to her father"s people--she must not go bound by any ties of his making. Doctor John, for Marcella"s sake, gave the decision against his own heart.
So much did Doctor John tell me, his old friend and confidant. I said nothing and gave no advice, not having lived seventy-five years for nothing. I knew that Doctor John"s decision was manly and right and fair; but I also knew it was all nullified by the fact that Marcella already loved him.
So much I knew; the rest I was left to suppose. The Doctor and Marcella told me much, but there were some things too sacred to be told, even to me. So that to this day I don"t know how the doctor found out that Marcella loved him. All I know is that one day, just a month before her sixteenth birthday, the two came hand in hand to Miss Sara and me, as we sat on Miss Sara"s veranda in the twilight, and told us simply that they had plighted their troth to each other.
I looked at them standing there with that wonderful sunrise of life and love on their faces--the doctor, tall and serious, with a sprinkle of silver in his brown hair and the smile of a happy man on his lips--Marcella, such a slip of a girl, with her black hair in a long braid and her lovely face all dewed over with tears and sunned over with smiles--I, an old woman, looked at them and thanked the good G.o.d for them and their delight.
Miss Sara laughed and cried and kissed--and forboded what the Barrys would do. Her forebodings proved only too true. When the doctor wrote to Richard Barry, Marcella"s guardian, asking his consent to their engagement, Richard Barry promptly made trouble--the very worst kind of trouble. He descended on Bridgeport and completely overwhelmed poor Miss Sara in his wrath. He laughed at the idea of countenancing an engagement between a child like Marcella and an obscure country doctor. And he carried Marcella off with him!
She had to go, of course. He was her legal guardian and he would listen to no pleadings. He didn"t know anything about Marcella"s character, and he thought that a new life out in the great world would soon blot out her fancy.
After the first outburst of tears and prayers Marcella took it very calmly, as far as outward eye could see. She was as cool and dignified and stately as a young queen. On the night before she went away she came over to say good-bye to me. She did not even shed any tears, but the look in her eyes told of bitter hurt. "It is goodbye for five years, Miss Tranquil," she said steadily. "When I am twenty-one I will come back. That is the only promise I can make. They will not let me write to John or Aunt Sara and I will do nothing underhanded. But I will not forget and I will come back."
Richard Barry would not even let her see Doctor John alone again. She had to bid him good-bye beneath the cold, contemptuous eyes of the man of the world. So there was just a hand-clasp and one long deep look between them that was tenderer than any kiss and more eloquent than any words.
"I will come back when I am twenty-one," said Marcella. And I saw Richard Barry smile.
So Marcella went away and in all Bridgeport there were only two people who believed she would ever return. There is no keeping a secret in Bridgeport, and everybody knew all about the love affair between Marcella and the doctor and about the promise she had made. Everybody sympathized with the doctor because everybody believed he had lost his sweetheart.
"For of course she"ll never come back," said Mrs. Riddell to me.