Charles Auchester Volume I Part 6

Lingering only until the way was cleared below the orchestra steps, he retreated down them even before the applause had ceased, and before any one could approach him, without addressing any one, he left the hall.

And of him nothing afterwards was heard,--I mean at that time. Not a soul in the whole town had learned his name, and the hotel at which he had slept the night before was in vain attacked by spies on every errand. The landlord could only say what he knew himself,--that he was a stranger who had visited the place for the purpose of attending the festival, and who, having fulfilled that purpose, had left the city unknown, unnamed, as he entered it.

I believe most children of my age would have had a fit of illness after an excitement of brain and of body so peculiar; but perhaps had I been less excited I should have been worse off afterwards. As it was, the storm into which I had been wrought subsided of itself, and I was the better for it,--just as Nature is said to be after her disturbances of a similar description. Davy took me home, and then set off to his own house, where he always seemed to have so much to do; and all my people were very kind to me in listening, while I, more calmly than any one would believe, expatiated upon our grand adventure. I was extremely amused to see how astonished Clo was to find me so reasonable; for her only fear had been, she informed my mother, that Charles would not settle to anything for weeks if he were allowed to go. And Millicent was very much astonished that I spoke so little of the performance itself. I could only defend myself by saying, "If you had seen him you would not wonder."

"Is he handsome, Charles?" said Lydia, innocently, with her brown eyes fixed upon her thimble (which she held upon her finger, and was shocked to perceive a little tarnished). I was so angry that I felt myself turn quite sick; but I was good enough only to answer, "_You_ would not think so;" for so I believe. Millicent softly watched me, and added, "Charlie means, I think, that it was a very beautiful face."

"I do," I said bluntly; "I shall never see a beautiful face again. You will never see one at all, as you have not seen _that_."

"Pity us then, Charles," replied Millicent, in her gentlest voice.

I climbed upon her lap. "Oh, no, dear! It is you who must pity me, because you do not know what it is, and I do, and I have lost it."

Lydia lifted her eyes and made them very round; but as I was put to bed directly, n.o.body heard any more of me that night.

CHAPTER X.

It was very strange, or rather it was just natural, that I should feel so singularly low next day. I was not exactly tired, and I was not exactly miserable. I was perfectly blank, like a sunless autumn day, with no wind about. I lay very late in bed, and as I lay there I no more believed the events of yesterday than if they had been a dream. I was literally obliged to touch myself, my hair, my face, and the bed-clothes before I could persuade myself that I was not myself a dream. The cold bath restored me, into which I daily sprang, summer and winter alike; but I grew worse again after breakfast.

Yearning to re-excite myself in some fas.h.i.+on, I marched into the parlor and requested Clo to teach me as usual. There she was, in her gray-silk gown, peering (with her short-sightedness) into Herodotus; but though all my books were placed upon the table by her, I could tell very easily that she had not expected me, and was very much pleased I should come. Her approbation overcame me, and instead of blotting my copy with ink, I used my tears. They were tears I could no more have helped shedding than I could have helped breathing. Clo was very kind, she looked at me solemnly, not severely, and solemnly administered the consolation that they were the effect of excitement.

I did not think so; I thought they were the effect of a want of excitement, but I said nothing to her.

I overcame them, and was quiet for the rest of the day, and for several days; but imagine what I suffered when I saw no more of Lenhart Davy. As the world in our house went on just the same as before the festival, and as I had no hand in keeping the house so charmingly, nor any part in committees for dinner, nor in pickling speculations, I was fairly left to myself with my new discovery about myself; namely, that I must be a musician, or I should perish.

Had I only seen Lenhart Davy, I could have told him all. I believe my attraction towards him was irresistible, or I should never have thought of him while he stayed away, it would have hurt me too much; for I was painfully, may be vainly, sensitive. I was not able to appreciate his delicacy of judgment, as well as feeling, in abstaining from any further communication with us until we ourselves reminded him of us. I had no hope; and the four or five days I have mentioned as pa.s.sing without his apparition seemed to annihilate my future. I quite drooped, I could not help it; and my mother was evidently anxious. She made me bring out my tongue a dozen times a day, and she continually sighed, as if reproaching herself with something. How long it seemed!

quite four months, as I used to reckon. I never once alluded to Lenhart Davy, but others did,--at least not Millicent, but Lydia and my eldest sister. Lydia made the observation that perhaps he was too modest to come without a special invitation; but Clo hurt me far more by saying that he had no doubt better engagements elsewhere. On the evening of the fifth day I was sitting upon the stool in the parlor by the window, after tea, endeavoring to gather my wandering fancies to "Simple Susan," her simple woes, pleasures, and loves (for Clo was there, and I did not wish to be noticed), when Millicent came into the room and said my mother wished to speak to me upstairs. I went out with Millicent. "What does she want--I mean mother?" I inquired, no doubt rather peevishly.

"She wants to ask you a question you will like to answer, Charles."

"Shall I?--what is it? I don't think I shall like to answer any question. Oh, Millicent!" and I hid my small face in the folds of her dark-blue frock.

"Come, Charles! you know I would not deceive you. Darling, you must not feel so much."

And she stooped to kiss me, smiling, though the tears were in her eyes. I still persisted in hiding my head, and when we reached the door of the dressing-room, I went in crying. My mother sat in a great white chair beside the fire; next her stood a small table covered with hose,--the hose of the whole household.

"How, Charles! how now! Be a man, or at least a boy, or I am sure I had better not ask you what I sent for you to answer. Come, say, would you like to sing in Mr. Davy's cla.s.s? You must not give up your old lessons, nor must you forget to take great pains to write, to cipher, and to read as well; but I think you are very fond of singing since you found your voice, and Mr. Davy, to whom I wrote, says you can be of use to him, and that he will be so very good as to teach you what he teaches the others,--to understand what you sing."

Dear Millicent! I knew I owed it all to her, for there had been that in her face, her manner, and her kind eyes that told me she had felt for me in my desolation; and now as she stood apart from my mother and me, I ran to her and told her so--that I knew it all. I will not dwell upon the solicitude of Clo, lest I should become unmanageable in the midst of my satisfaction, nor upon Lydia's amazement at my mother's allowing me to join the cla.s.s; but I well recollect how Millicent kept fast by me, her will, as it were, upon mine, and her reminding calmness ever possessing me, lest I should by my ecstatic behavior forfeit my right to my new privileges. I was quite good enough, though, in the general opinion, to be permitted to go, as arranged, on the following Tuesday evening.

Lenhart Davy dined with us on Sunday, by special invitation, written by my mother, conveyed by my Margareth. He told me that I must not mistake his silence if he spoke not to me nor noticed me when he was amidst his pupils. I perfectly understood even then how much depended upon his sagacious self-dependence.

The cla.s.s a.s.sembled from six till eight in the evening, twice a week; the room Davy convoked it in was one he hired expressly. My mother sent me with Margareth, who was to fetch me again at the expiration of two hours,--at least during the winter, which was fast approaching.

And thus, had it not been for the festival, I should have been at once initiated into "choral life."

Though, indeed, but for that glorious time, and my own fantastic courage, first-fruit of a musical temperament, I had perhaps never been taught to give that name where I can now bestow none other, so completely has choral wors.h.i.+p pa.s.sed into my life.

When Margareth left me at the door of a house I had never entered,--though I knew it well, for it was let out in auction-rooms, for committees and the like,--I felt far more wild and lost than when I attended the grand rehearsal hand in hand with Lenhart Davy. He was my master, though,--I remembered this, and also that he expected a great deal of me, for he had told me so, and that he had appointed me a high place among the altos. I had my numbered ticket in my hand, and upon it my name, and I showed it to a man who was standing above at the top of the steep staircase. He looked at it, nodded, and pushed me in.

The room was tolerably large and high, and lighted by gas-burners, which fully ill.u.s.trated the bareness of wall and floor and ceiling.

Accustomed to carpets in every chamber, nay, in every pa.s.sage, I was horrified to hear my own footfall upon the boards as I traversed the backs of those raised forms, one above the other, full of people. Boys and men, and women and girls, seemed all mixed up together, and all watching me; for I was late, and quite dreamy with walking through the twilight town. Several beckoning hands were raised as I inquired for the place of the altos, and I took my seat just where a number, nailed to the form, answered to the number on my ticket.

CHAPTER XI.

I was too satisfied to have found my way safely in, and too glad to feel deposited somewhere, to gaze round me just then; but a door opened with a creaking hinge on the ground floor below, and as perfect in my eyes as ever, stepped forth Lenhart Davy and bowed to his whole cla.s.s. He carried a little time-stick in his hands, but nothing else; and as he placed himself in front, immediately beneath the lowest form, I was conscious, though I believe no one else present could be, of the powerful control he had placed as a barrier between himself and those before him,--between his active and his pa.s.sive being.

He began to address us in his fine, easy tones, in language pure enough for the proudest intellect, sufficiently simple for the least cultured ear; and he spoke chiefly of what he had said the time before, recapitulating, and pausing to receive questions or to elicit answers. But all he said, whatever it was to others, was to me a highly spiritual a.n.a.lysis of what most teachers endeavor to lower and to explain away,--the mystery and integrity of the musical art.

He touched very lightly upon theory, but expounded sounds by signs in a manner of his own, which it is not necessary to communicate, as its results were those of no system whatever, but was applied by wisdom, and enforced by gradual acquaintance.

We did not begin to sing for at least half an hour; but he then unlocked a huge closet, drew forth an enormous board, and mapped thereon in white chalk the exercises of his own preparation for our evening's practice. These were pure, were simple, as his introductory address.

As I have said, the cla.s.s was only just organized, but it was not a very small one; there must have been sixty or seventy present that night. I was in the topmost row of altos, and as soon as we began to sing I was irresistibly attracted to those about me; and to identify them with their voices was for me a singular fascination. I was but the fourth from the wall on my side, and a burner was directly above me. I took advantage of the light to criticise the countenances of my nearer contemporaries, who were all absorbed in watching our master's evolutions. I could not look at him until I had acquainted myself with my locality, as far as I could without staring, or being stared at.

Next the wall, two boys (so alike that they could only have been brothers) nestled and bawled; they were dark-hued, yet sallow, and not inviting. I concluded they came from some factory, and so they did; but they did not please me enough to detain my attention,--they were beneath my own grade. So was a little girl nearest to them and next to me, but I could not help regarding her. She had the most imperturbable gaze I ever met,--great eyes of a yellow hazel, with no more expression in them than water; but her cheeks were brightly colored, and her long auburn hair was curled to her waist.

An ease pervaded her that was more than elegance. She leaned and she lounged, singing in a flexible voice, without the slightest effort, and as carelessly as she looked. She wore a pink gingham frock, ill made to a degree, but her slender figure moved in and out of it like a reed; her hands were fitted into discolored light kid gloves, and she had on an amber necklace. This alone would have disgusted me, if she had not looked so unconcerned, so strange, and if I had not thought her hair so very pretty; but I did, and, as I have said, I could not avoid regarding her. She had her bonnet in her lap (a bruised muslin one, with tumbled satin strings); and I was surveying it rather closely, when she turned upon me and whispered loud, not low (and then went on singing herself, instantly), "Why don't you sing?" Scared and shocked, I drew myself away from her as far as possible, and moved my eyes to my other neighbor. It was a girl too; but I instantly felt the words "young lady" to be appropriate, though I knew not wherefore, except that she was, as it were, so perfectly self-possessed. She must be older than I am (it occurred to me), but I could not tell how much.

She was, in fact, about fourteen.

It was some relief to look upon her, after being attacked by the quick little being on my right hand, because she seemed as utterly indisposed to address me as the other had been determined. She did not seem even to see me, nor give the least glance at anybody or anything, except Lenhart Davy and his board. Upon them she fastened her whole expression, and she sang with a.s.siduous calmness. So, though I sang too, fearing my friend would observe my silence, I turned quite towards my young lady and watched her intensely,--she noticing me no more than she would have noticed a fly walking upon the wall, or upon Lenhart Davy's board. I was very fastidious then, whatever I may be now, and I seldom gazed upon a face for the pleasure of seeing it. In this instance I experienced a feeling beyond pleasure, so exquisitely did the countenance beside me harmonize with something in myself. Not strictly fine, nor severely perfect in outline or of hue, this sweet face shone in glory not its own,--the most ardent musical intention lay upon the eyes, the lips, the brow; and the deep lashes themselves seemed born to shade from too much brightness a beholder like myself.

I thought her a young woman, and so she was, compared with my age, at least; but my awe and her exaltation were measured by a distant self-possession towards me, towards all. She was not dressed with much more costliness than my wild little rebuker; but her plain black frock fitted her beautifully, and her dark gloves, and the dark ribbon on her hat, and her little round m.u.f.f, satisfied me as to her gentle and her womanly pretensions.

In linking these adjectives, you will realize one of my infatuations wherever they are substantively found. Enough. I dared not leave off singing, and my voice was rather strong, so I could not clearly decide upon hers, until Davy wrote up a few intervals for unisons, which very few of us achieved on the instant. My calm companion was among those who did. Her voice was more touching than any I had ever heard, and a true contralto; only more soft than deep, more distilling than low.

But unknowing as I was, I was certain she had sung, and had learned to sing, long before she had joined the cla.s.s; for in her singing there was that purified quality which reminds one (it did me) of filtered water, and she p.r.o.nounced most skilfully the varied vocables. I felt afterwards that she must have been annoyed at my pertinacious scrutiny, but she betrayed not the remotest cognizance of me or my regards; and this indifference compelled me to watch her far more than sympathetic behavior would have done. That evening seemed long to me while we were at work, but I could not bear the breaking-up. I had become, as it were, connected with my companions, though we had not exchanged a word. I was rather disposed to wait and see who would join my little girl with her wild eyes, and my serene young lady. I believe I should have done so, but Lenhart Davy kindly came up from below and shook hands with me; and while I was receiving and returning his greeting, they were lost in the general crowd.

He took me himself down stairs to Margareth, who was awaiting me with a cloak and a comforter in a little unfurnished room; and then he himself departed, looking very tired.

CHAPTER XII.

I did not see him again until the next cla.s.s-night. It was strange to find the same faces about me; and above all, my two heroines, dressed exactly as on the first occasion, except that the pink frock was rather less brilliant. I listened eagerly for those pure tones to swell, communing with my own, and I was not disappointed. We did not sing anything that I can specify at present; but it was more than pleasure--it was vitality--to me to fling out my own buoyant notes far and wide, supported, as it were, by an atmosphere of commingling sounds. I suppose, therefore, that I may have been singing very loud when the daring little head out of the muslin bonnet put itself into my face and chanted, in strict attention to Davy's rules all the time, "How beautifully you do sing!" I was hushed for the moment, and should have been vexed if I had not been frightened; for I was ridiculously timorous as a child.

She then brought from the crown of her bonnet a paper full of bonbons, which she opened and presented to me. I replied very sharply, in a low voice, "I don't eat while I am singing," and should have taken no more notice of her; but she now raised upon me her large eyes to the full, and still pushed the bonbon paper at me,--almost in my face too. I was too well bred to push it away, but too honest not to say, when she still persisted in offering the saccharine conglomeration, "I don't like curl papers." The child turned from me with a fierce gesture, but her eyes were now swimming in tears. I was astonished, angry, melted. I at length reproached myself; and though I could not bring myself to touch the colored chocolates, crumbled up as they had been in her hand, I did condescend to whisper, "Never mind!" and she took out her handkerchief to wipe her eyes.

Now, all this while my young lady took no heed, and I felt almost sure she must have noticed us; but she did not turn to the large-eyed maiden, and _I_ occupied myself with both. That night again Davy joined me, and I only managed to catch a glimpse of the muslin bonneted, holding her bonbons still in one dirty glove, and with the other taking the hand of a huge, high-shouldered man, going out with the crowd.

Oh, Davy was too deep for me, and delicate as deep! The next night of our meeting my number was moved to the other side of my serene neighbor, who at present divided me from the hazel eyes and the ringlets. It never occurred to me that _he_ had done it; I thought it to be a mistake, and fully intended, like a curious manikin, to go back another time to my old quarters. I could not help looking at the little one to see whether I was watched. But no; with a coquetry I was too young to appreciate, and she ought to have been too young to exercise, she sang with all her might, never once turning her eyes towards me. I found at length the fascinations of our choral force too strong not to submerge her slight individuality, and soon I forgot she was there,--though I never forgot that serene voice breathing by my side faint prophecies I could not render to myself in any form, except that they had to do with myself, and with music alike my very own. I do not think any musical taste was ever fed and fostered early in an atmosphere so pure as mine; for Lenhart Davy's cla.s.s, when fully organized and entirely submitted to him, seemed invested with his own double peculiarity,--subdued, yet strong. We were initiated this evening into an ancient anthem, whose effect, when it was permitted to us to interpret, was such that I could not repress my satisfaction, and I said aloud, though I did not confront my companion, "That is something like!" My serene contralto answered, strangely to my antic.i.p.ations, and with the superior womanliness I have ascribed to her, "Is it not glorious?"