Charles Auchester Volume I Part 13

"So it is."

"And some tenor or other."

"Mr. Newton, I daresay; he leads all the others."

"I think it was. And you, Charles, he wishes to take, for he says your alto voice is very beautiful. You will do your best, I know."

"I would do _anything_ to hear a great violin-player."

And full of the novel notion, I fell asleep much sooner than I did (as a child) when no excitement was before me.

CHAPTER XVII.

My mother, besides being essentially an unworldly person, had, I think, given up the cherished idea of my becoming a great mercantile character, and even the expectation that I should take kindly to the prospective partnership with Fred; for certainly she allowed me to devote more time to my music tasks with Millicent than to any others.

I owe a great deal to that sister of mine, and particularly the early acquaintance I made with intervals, scales, and chords. Already she had taught me to play from figured ba.s.ses a little, to read elementary books, and to write upon a ruled slate simple studies in harmony.

Hardly conscious who helped me on, I was helped very far indeed. Other musicians, before whom I bow, have been guided in the first toneless symbols and effects of tone by the hand, the voice, the brain of women; but they have generally been famous women. My sister was a quiet girl. Never mind; she had a fame of her own at last. Davy, considering I was in progress, said no more about teaching me himself, and indeed it was unnecessary. I was certainly rather surprised at my mother's permission for me to accompany him to the Redferns', first and chiefly because I had never visited any house she did not frequent herself, and she had never been even introduced to this family, though we had seen them in their large pew at church, and I was rather fond of watching them,--they being about our choicest gentry. For all the while I conceived I should be a visitor, and that each of us would be on the same footing.

Had I not been going to accompany Davy, I should have become nervous at the notion of attending a great party met at a fashionable house; but as it was, it did but conceal for me a glorious unknown, and I exulted while I trembled a little at my secret heart.

But I went to my master as he had requested, and he let me into his sh.e.l.l. I smelt again that delicious tea, and it exhilarated me as on the first occasion. Upstairs, in the little room, was Miss Benette.

She was dressed as usual, but I thought she had never worn anything yet so becoming as that plain black silk frock. The beautiful china was upon the table, now placed for three; and child as I was, I could not but feel most exquisitely the loveliness of that simplicity which rendered so charming and so convenient the a.s.sociation of three ages so incongruous.

There are few girls of fourteen who are women enough to comport themselves with the inbred dignity that appertains to woman in her highest development, and there are few women who retain the perfume and essence of infancy. _These_ were flung around Clara in every movement, at each smile or glance; and _those_ adorned her as with regality,--a regality to which one is born, not with which one has been invested. She did not make tea for Davy, nor did she interfere with his little arrangements; but she sat by me and talked to me spontaneously, while she only spoke when he questioned, or listened while he spoke.

There was perfect serenity upon her face,--yes! just the serenity of a cloudless heaven; and had I been older, I should have whispered to myself that her peace of soul was all safe, so far as he was concerned. But I did not think about it, though I might naturally have done so, for I was romantic to intensity, even as a boy.

"How is Miss Lemark?" I suddenly inquired, while Davy was in the other little room. I forgot to mention that my surmise was well founded,--he _had_ no servant.

"She is much better, thank you, or I should not have come here. The flowers look very fresh to-day, and she lies where she can see them."

"When will she get up?"

"I have persuaded her to remain in bed even longer than she needs; for the moment she gets up they will make her dance, and she is not strong enough for that yet."

Davy here returned, and we began to sing. We had a delicious hour. In that small room Clara's voice was no more too powerfully perceptible than is the sunlight in its entrance to a tiny cell,--that glory which itself is the day of heaven. She sang with the most rarefied softness, and I quite realized how infinitely she was my superior in art no less than by nature.

What we chiefly worked upon were glees, single quartet pieces, and an anthem; but last of all, Davy produced two duets for soprano and alto,--one from Purcell, the other from a very old opera, the hundred and something one of the Hamburg Kaiser, which our master had himself copied from a copy.

"Shall you sing with us in all the four-parted pieces, sir?" I ventured to ask during the symphony of this last.

"Yes, certainly; and I shall accompany you both invariably. But of all things do not be afraid, nor trouble yourselves the least about singing in company: nothing is so easy as to sing in a high room like that of the Redferns', and nothing is so difficult as to sing in a small room like this."

"I do not find it so difficult, sir," said Clara, gravely.

"That is because, Miss Benette, you have already had your voice under perfect control for months. You have been accustomed to practise nine hours a day without an instrument, and nothing is so self-supporting as such necessity."

"Yes, sir, it is very good, but not so charming as to sing with your sweet piano."

"Do you really practise nine hours a day, Miss Benette?"

"Yes, Master Auchester, always; and I find it not enough."

"But do you practise without a piano?"

"Yes, it is best for me; but when I come to my lessons and hear the delightful keys, I feel as if music had come out of heaven to talk with me."

"Ah, Miss Benette!" said Davy, with a kind of exultation, "what will it be when you are singing _in_ the heart of a grand orchestra?"

"I never heard one, sir, you know; but I should think that it was like going into heaven after music and remaining there."

"But were you not at the festival, Miss Benette?"

"Oh, no!"

"How very odd, when I was there!"

Davy looked suddenly at her; but though his quick, bright glance might have startled away her answer, that came as calmly as all her words,--like a breeze awakening from the south.

"I did not desire to go; Mr. Davy had the kindness to propose I should, but I knew it would make me idle afterwards, and I cannot afford to waste my time. I am growing old."

"Now, Miss Benette, there is our servant or your nurse," for I heard a knock. "Will you let me come to-morrow?"

"Just for half an hour only, because I want to sit with Laura."

"I thank you; thank you!"

"How did you get home last night?" I asked, on the promised meeting.

She was sitting at the window, where the light was strongest, for her delicate work was in her hand; and as the beams of a paler sun came in upon her, I thought I had seen something like her somewhere before in a picture as it were framed in a dusky corner, but itself making for its own loveliness a shrine of light. Had I travelled among studios and galleries, I must have been struck by her likeness to those rich-hued but fairest ideals of the sacred schools of painting which have consecrated the old masters as worshippers of the highest in woman; but I had never seen anything of the kind except in cold prints. That strange reminiscence of what we never have really seen, in what we at present behold, appertains to a certain temperament only,--that temperament in which the ideal notion is so definite that all the realities the least approximating thereunto strike as its semblances, and all that it finds beautiful it compares so as to combine with the beautiful itself. I do not suppose I had this consciousness that afternoon, but I perfectly remember saying, before Clara rose to welcome me as she always did, "You look exactly like a picture."

"Do I? But no people in pictures are made at work. Oh, it is very unpicturesque!" and she smiled.

"I am not going to sing, Miss Benette; there is no time in just half an hour."

"I _must_ practise, Master Auchester; I cannot afford to lose my half hours and half hours."

"But I want to ask you some questions. Now do answer me, please."

"You shall make long questions, then, and I short answers."

She began to sing her florid exercises, a paper of which lay open upon the desk, in Davy's hand.

"Well, first I want to know why are they unkind to Laura, and what they do to her which is unkind."