Evelyn Innes Part 48

She found her father in the workroom, and the sight of him in his cap and ap.r.o.n mending an old musical instrument caused many home scenes to flash across her mind, and she did not know whether it was from curiosity or a desire to please him that she asked the name of the strange little instrument he was repairing. It looked like an overgrown concertina, and he explained that it was a tiny virginal, and pointed out the date; it was made in 1631, in Roman notation.

"Father," she said, "I have come back to you; we shall never be separated any more--if you'll have me back."

"Have you back, dear! What has happened now?"

He stood with a chisel in his hand, and she noticed that he dug the point nervously into the soft deal plank. She sat down on a small wooden stool, and kicking the shavings with her feet, she said--

"Father, a great deal has happened. I have sent Owen away ... I shall never see him again; I'm sorry to have to speak about him to you; you mustn't be angry; he was very good to me, and he asked me to marry him; he did everything--I'm afraid I've broken his heart."

"You're very strange, Evelyn, and I don't know what answer to make to you.... Why did you send him away, and why did you refuse to marry him?"

"I sent him away because I thought it wrong to live with him, and I refused to marry him--well, I don't know, father, I don't know why I refused to marry him. It seemed to me that if he had wished to marry me he ought to have done so long ago."

"Is that the only reason you can give?"

"It is the only reason I know. You seem sorry for him, father, are you?

I hope you are. He has been very good to me. I've often wished to tell you; it has often been in my heart to tell you that you should not hate him. He was very good to me, no one could have been kinder; he was very fond of me, you must not bear him any ill will."

"I never said that I bore him ill will. He made you a great singer, and you say he was very kind to you and wanted to marry you."

"Yes, and he was most anxious to see you, and he went with me to St.

Joseph's the Sunday you gave the great Ma.s.s of Pope Marcellus. He was distressed that he could not see you to tell you about the choir."

"They sang better that Sunday than the Sunday you heard the 'Missa Brevis.' I have got two new trebles. One has an exquisite voice. I wish I could get a few good altos. It was the altos that were wrong when you heard the 'Missa Brevis.' But you didn't hear they were out of tune.

That piano has falsified your ear, but it will come back to you."

"Dear father, how funny you are! If nothing were more wrong than my ear ..."

They glanced at each other hastily, and to change the subject he mentioned that he had had a letter that morning from Ulick. He had finished scoring the second act of Grania, and thinking that he was on safe ground, Mr. Innes told her that Ulick hoped to finish his score in the autumn. The third act would not take him long; he had a very complete sketch of the music, etc. "I shall enjoy going through his opera with him."

"Father, I don't know how to tell you. Will you ever forgive me or him.

Ulick must not come back here--at least not while I am here. Perhaps I had better go."

The chisel dropped from his hand, and he stood looking at his daughter.

His look was pitiful, and she could not bear to see him shake his head slowly from side to side.

"Poor father is wondering why I am like this;" and to interrupt his reflections she said--

"I don't know why I am like this; that's what you're thinking, father, but henceforth I'll be like mother and my aunts. They were all good women ... I have often wondered why I am like this." Their eyes met, and seized with a sudden dread lest he should think (if such were really the case) that he was the original cause--she seemed to read something like that in his eyes--she said, "You must forgive me, whatever I am; you know that we've always loved each other, and we always shall. Nothing can come between us; you must be sorry for me, and kiss me, and love me more than ever, for I've been very unhappy. I haven't told you all I have given up so that I might be a good woman; it is not easy to make the sacrifices I have made, but I am happier now that I have made them.

Ulick--Ulick must not come here while I'm here, but you'll want to see him--I had better go. Father, dear, it is hard to say all these things.

I've done nothing but bring you trouble. Now I've robbed you of your friend. For I've promised not to see Ulick again. If I stay here, father, he must not come--I'm ashamed to ask you this, but what am I to do? I bring trouble. Later on, perhaps, but for a long while he and I must not meet."

Mr. Innes stood looking at his daughter, and a peculiar puzzled expression had begun in his eyes, and had spread over his face. He suddenly shrugged his shoulders; the movement was like Evelyn's shrug, it expressed the same nervous hopelessness.

"I promised Monsignor that I would not see either."

"You went to confession--to him?"

Evelyn nodded.

"But how about Grania?"

"I'm not going to sing Grania. I've left the stage for good."

"Left the stage?"

"Yes, father, I've left the stage, and I could not go back even if Monsignor were to permit me. But you must not argue with me; I argued with myself until I nearly went mad. Night after night went by sleepless; I was mad one night, and should have poisoned myself if I had not found my scapular. But you mustn't question me. Some day when it is all far away I'll tell you the whole story. I cannot speak of it at present, it is all too near. Suffice it to say that I have repented, and have come to ask you if you'll have me back to live with you?"

"You're my daughter, and you must do as you like. You were always different from anyone else, I cannot cope with you. So you have left the stage, left the stage! What will people think?"

"I could not be a good woman and remain on the stage, that's what it comes to." In spite of the gravity of the scene, a smile trickled round Evelyn's lips, for she could not help seeing her father like a hen that has hatched out a duckling. He stood looking at her sadly. She had come back--but what new pond would she plunge into? "I am a very unsatisfactory person, I know that. I can't make people happy; but there it is, it can't be otherwise. If I don't sing on the stage, I can sing at your concerts. Come downstairs and let's have some music. We've talked enough.

"What shall we play--a Bach sonata? Ah, I remember this," she said, catching sight of the harpsichord part of a suite by J.P. Rameau, for the harpsichord and viola da gamba. "Where is the viola da gamba part?"

"In the bottom of that bookcase, I think; don't you remember it?"

"Well, it is some time since I've played it," she said, smiling, "but I'll try."

It seemed to her that she remembered it all wonderfully well, and she was surprised how every phrase came up correctly under her bow. But she stopped suddenly.

"I don't remember what comes next."

Mr. Innes played the phrase, she played it after him, but she broke down a little further on, and it took some time to find the music. "No, not in that shelf," cried Mr. Innes, "the next one; not that volume, the next."

"Ah, yes, I remember the volume, about the middle?" When she found the place she said, "Oh, yes, of course," and he answered--

"Ah, it seems simple enough now," and they went on together to the end.

"I've not lost much of my playing, have I?"

"A little stiffness, perhaps, and you've lost your sense of the old forms. Now let's play this rondeau of Marais."

When they had finished, it was dinner-time, and after dinner they had more music. Before going upstairs, Evelyn asked Agnes if there was any ink in her room. She had to ask her father for some writing paper, she would have avoided doing so if she could have helped it. She feared he would guess that she was writing to her lovers. She smiled--so odd did her scruples seem to her--she was writing to send them away. Her father's house was surely the right place. If it were to make appointments, that would be different. It was long past midnight when she read over her letter to Owen.

"Dear Owen,--A great deal has happened since we last met, and I am convinced that it would be unwise for me to see you in three months as I promised. My confessor is of the same opinion; he thinks three months too soon, and I must obey him. I have taken the step which I hope you will take some day, for you too are a Catholic. In going to confession and resolving not to see you again, I had a long struggle with my feelings; but G.o.d gave me grace to overcome them. You know me well enough by this time, and can have no doubt that I could not live with you again as your mistress, and as I do not feel that I could marry you, no course is open to me but to beg of you not to write to me, or to try to see me. Owen, I feel that all this is horrid, that I am horrid looked at from your side. I cannot seem anything else. I hate it all, but it has to be done. Perhaps one of these days you will see things as I do.

"I owe you--I do not know how much, but I owe you a great deal of money.

I remember saying that Savelli's lessons were to be considered as a debt, also the expenses of the house in the Rue Balzac. You never would tell me what the rent of that house was, but as well as I can calculate, I owe you a thousand pounds for that year in Paris." (Evelyn paused. "It must be," she thought, "much more, but it would be difficult for me to pay more.")

"You have," she continued, "paid for a hundred other things besides Savelli's lessons and the house in the Rue Balzac, but it would be impossible to make out a correct account, I feel, too, that you gave me the greatest part of my jewellery thinking that one day I would be your wife; you would not have given me so much if you had not thought so.

Therefore I feel it is only just to offer you the whole of it back. I will only ask you to allow me to keep a few trifles--the earrings you bought for me the day we arrived in Paris, the mummy's ring, etc., not more than half-a-dozen things in all. I should like to keep these in memory of a time which I ought to forget, but which I am afraid I shall never have the courage even to try to forget. Dear Owen, I cannot tell you why I cannot marry you, I only know that I cannot. I am obeying an instinct far stronger than I, and I cannot struggle against it any longer.

"One day perhaps we may meet--but it may not be for years, until we are both quite different.

"Sincerely yours,