Charles Auchester Volume I Part 27

"Sir, he has eaten it all, but he is so very sleepy; mayn't he go to bed?"

Santonio was so overcome with laughter at my audacity, though I was really very much alarmed, that he leaned back in his chair and shook again. Aronach bent upon me his flowing beard: "Dost thou know to refrain thyself, as well as thou knowest to rebuke thine elders?" But I could plainly see he was not angry, for he arose and tapped upon the ceiling with a stout oak staff that he fished from the unimagined closet. Then the little one came down and into the room, shy of Santonio, and keeping behind his chair, as he murmured "Good-night" to Aronach. The latter gave him a nod which would not have disgraced Jove in full council. Santonio requested very kindly that I too might go to bed; and in a few minutes I found myself in that little cave of my own of which he had made mention.

Its entrance was hard by, through one of the very doors I had noticed when the glimmer showed me the staircase, and it entirely answered my expectations, in so far as it was very dim and haunted-looking, very unlike my own room in England, or any of our rooms at home. It had a stove, a looking-gla.s.s, and a press large enough to contain a bride's trousseau complete. There was also a recess which seemed lined with London fog, but which, on examination by the light of my candle, I found to contain the bed in a box of which my mother had forewarned me. I could no more have slept in it than if it had been a coffin, and for the first time I fully appreciated her provision for my comfort in this particular. My boxes were all there, and I uncorded them and drew forth my keys. My excellent sister Clo had packed in one trunk the bed and bedding, and one set of night-clothes, also a variety of toilet necessaries in holland bags. It was quite an affair to lift out the pieces; they were fitted into each other so beautifully that it was natural to imagine they could never be got back again. None but an experienced feminine hand could have accomplished such a feat, and very carefully had I been inducted into the puzzlement of putting the parts together. I had just unfolded the tight white mattress, so narrow, but so exactly wide enough, when Santonio knocked at the door to bid me good-night and farewell; and as he came in he a.s.sisted me in the accomplishment of my plans with that a.s.siduous deftness which pre-eminently distinguishes the instrumental artist. He most kindly offered to see me into bed; but that was out of the question, so I let him go with my hearty thanks. It was not the least a melancholy feeling with which I stretched myself, all tingling with my rapid ablutions, beneath my home-blanket. I did not the least long after home, nor the least experience the mother-sickness that is the very treble-string of humility to many a hero in his inaugurative exile; but I felt extremely old, grand, and self-reliant, especially satisfied, in spite of my present ignorance, that by some means or other this Aronach would make a man of me, and not a trifler. I was just asleep when I heard a hand on the lock, and that no dream, for a voice vociferated, roughly enough,--"Out with the light!" I sprang up and opened the door.

"It is only my little lamp, sir, that I brought with me, and it is very safe, as you see; but still, if you wish it, I will try to sleep in the dark. I have never liked to do so, because it excites me."

"Bah! thou art too young to know the meaning of excitement. But for the sake of some one else who loves the night-lamp, thou mayest keep thine eyes open with it, and thank him too, for it is his doing. Now get back to bed! and don't come out again,--the quick and living walk not about in night-smocks here."

I heard him bolt me in as soon as I shut the door. I cannot say this proceeding pleased me, but on the contrary cost me many a cold sweat until I became accustomed to it. I lay a little while awake, now spying out such variations from English style as had escaped me on my first acquaintance with my quarters; then reverted to Aronach's dark hint about the person who, like me, was excited by the darkness; and at last recollected my contemporaries, and speculated upon their present circ.u.mstantials. Most softly did that poor little soul present himself to mine as he played with my b.u.t.tons, and I secretly determined to become his protector and ally. As for the imp in the blouse, I abjured him at first sight; perhaps because he was, though repugnant to my taste, handsome and elegant, and I was neither.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] It is generally accepted that Aronach is a portrait of Zelter, the friend of Goethe and teacher of Mendelssohn, who was for many years director of the Sing Akademie at Berlin. He was the first who inspired Mendelssohn with his love for John Sebastian Bach's music.

CHAPTER XXVI.

I awoke with sonorous cries, and sounds of bells, and songs of sellers, and the dim ringing of wheels on a frosty soil. Hard and white the day-dews stood upon the windows; the sky was clear as light itself, and my soul sprang as into the arms of freedom. It occurred to me that I was perhaps late, and I dressed fast. About half-way to the end, I heard the violins begin, both of them; but now they outrageously contradicted each other in different directions, and I could keep by my ear to neither.

I made the utmost haste, but, as in most cases, it was least speed. I pulled off a b.u.t.ton, and then a shoestring came loose; I had to begin very nearly all over again. And when at length equipped, I recalled the incarceration of the previous night, and wondered how long I should stay there; but a sudden impulse sent me to the door, and immediately it yielded to my hand. "He has been here, then," I thought, "and has not awakened me, because I was tired last night. How good, to be sure! Not at all what I expected." I sallied forth to the landing; it was like a room itself, but still dark,--dark for day-time; and I could only make out its extent by the glimmer through the crack beneath every door. I listened at each first, not knowing at the instant which was which; but the violins a.s.serted themselves, and I chose one to unlock on my own responsibility. I had made a mistake here, and come into the untenanted organ-room where we had supped.

There the wintry light reigned full, and freshened up the old tints till they gleamed no more dusky, but rich.

The pictures and wreaths of other years gave welcome to me, that magic child especially; nor less the harpsichord unopened, quiet, while those sounds of younger violins broke through and through my fancy, and made my heart swell up till I could have fainted with emotion.

But of all that pressed upon me, the crowning sense was of that silent organ lost in the shady roof; the sun playing upon those columned tubes, and the black-white key-board cl.u.s.tering to hide its wealth of "unheard melodies," sweeter than those "_heard_" as one has sung, who can surely never have _heard_ them!

The chamber had been brushed and swept, but still the fine dust flew, and caught the sunshine on its eddies like another shade of light.

There was no one in the room, and, my first flush over, I felt alone and idle. The table was spread for breakfast, as I discovered, last of all; and I question whether such coffee as stood upon the stove so cosily could be surpa.s.sed even in Arabia. It was so perfect that it stood the test of sugarlessness, which I preferred, if possible.

Standing to eat and drink in all haste, a speculation stung me,--where was my violin? It had not even slept with me; I had missed it in my room,--that baby of mine, that doll, that ladykin! I looked everywhere,--at least everywhere I could; the closet-door I did not try, justly supposing that it was not my place to do so; and at last I concluded to attack my fellow-pupils.

I found my small friend's door very easily, and turned the key to admit myself. The room, to my amazement, was precisely like my own, even to that bed in the recess; and the inmate was not alarmed, for he evidently expected me.

"Oh!" he said, after putting up his lips to mine, "Marc has your study for this morning; the master gave it him to keep till you were ready.

But mind you lock me in again when you get out, or he will flog you and me."

"Did he ever flog you yet?"

"No, and he does not call it 'flog;' but he did tie Marc's hands together one day, and he said it was the same to him to do that as for an English master to flog."

"A very mild type, I think. But who is Marc?"

"Marc Iskar; you saw him last night. He won't speak to me; he says I am too young."

"So much the better for you. And what is your little name?"

"I am Starwood Burney;[14] but I should like you to call me Star, as my papa does."

"That I will, my German aster!"

"Aster is Latin; I have begun Latin. But do please go, I have so much to do, and he will be so very angry,--so very, very cross!"

"How dare you say so, when he has never even tied your hands together!

You should not be hurt nor disgraced, little Starling; if I were there, I would be punished instead, for I have twice your strength.

But you should try to love him while you fear him."

"You speak like a great man, and I will try. But please to go now, for I find this very hard."

I left him, having selfishly shrunk from the necessity to interrogate Iskar.

I stole to his door. I was really electrified as I stood,--not with envy, but with amazement! He was already a wonderful mechanist. Such sallies of execution were to me tremendous, but his tone did not charm me, and I imagined it might be the defect of his instrument that it sounded thin and cold, unlike my notion altogether, and frosty as the frost without. Clearly and crisply it saluted me as I entered. The room was like ours,--the little one's and mine; but it was gayly adorned with pictures of the lowest order (such as are hawked about the streets in England), and only conspicuous from their unnaturally vivid coloring. They were chiefly figures of ladies dancing, or of gentlemen brandishing the sword and helmet,--theatrical subjects, as I afterwards discovered. Iskar was sitting before his desk, and had his face from me. As I approached, my awe was doubled at his performance, for I beheld Corelli's solos. I had heard of those from Davy. Another desk was also near him, and a second violin-case stood upon the floor.

I asked him very modestly whether they were mine. He replied, without regarding me, "That sheet of paper has your exercise upon it, and if you cannot play it, you are to look in Marenthal's Prolusion, which is in the bureau under the desk. You are to take all these things into your own room."

There was something in the tones of the blouse--he was yet in blouse--that irritated me intensely. His voice was defined as that of his violin, and to the full as frosty. I was only too happy to retire.

Then, sitting upon my own bed, I examined the exercise. It was drearily indistinct,--a copy, and I could make nothing of it. The mere Germanisms of the novel rests and signs appalled me. I could neither handle the violin nor steady the bow; but I had carefully borne in mind the methods I had observed when I had had opportunity, and I stooped to take this child of music from its cradle. It was no more mine own than I had expected; an awkward bulky frame it had, and I did not feel to love it nor to bring it to my heart. Something must be done, I felt, and I returned to the organ-room. I found the Prolusion, as Iskar said,--an awfully Faustish tome, with rusty clasps, the letters worn off the back. I was in doom certainly. It was close black national type, and I pored and bored myself over it,--leaf after leaf,--until, blissfully, I arrived at the very exercise prepared for me. It was presented in ill.u.s.tration, and there were saw-like enunciations of every step; but half the words were unknown to me, and I grew rigid with despair. "Oh!" I cried aloud, "if some one would only tell me! if Davy were only here! if Lenhart Davy knew!" Still I slackened not in my most laughable labor, endeavoring to interpret such words as I could not translate by their connection with others I did know, by their look and make,--their euphony. I was vocalizing them very loud, and had made out already the first position, when a rattle of the closet lock turned me all over cold. I listened, it came again; a tremendous "So!" followed, and the door, opening, displayed Aronach himself in the glories of a morning-gown. How could he have got in there, and how have come out upon me so suddenly without any warning? and above all, how would he behave to me, finding me so ignorant? I believe that on account of my very ignorance I found favor in his sight,--he truly wise; for, merely alluding to my condition in this form, "Thou hast shown thyself faithful, only keep thy faith," he bade me bring my traps in there, and a.s.sured me--merely by his aspect--that he would clear every stone from my path.

When I returned he was standing between the organ and the window: a grander picture could not be perpetrated of the life-long laboring and, for love's sake, aspiring artist. His furrowed forehead was clear as rutted snow in the serene of sunlight as he appeared then; and through all the sternness with which he spoke I discerned the gentleness of art's impression. And after the most careful initiation into the simplest mechanical process, he dismissed me to work alone, nor did I relax from that one exercise for a week.

But a great deal chanced in that week besides. We spent each day alike, except Sunday. On other days we breakfasted very soon after it was light, on milk porridge, or bread and coffee. But sometimes Aronach would breakfast alone in his cave, which was that very closet I mentioned, and in which the day must have been developed about as decidedly as beneath the ground. However, he had his lamp in there, and his private escritoire, besides all kinds of books and papers, that were seldom produced in our presence, and then only one at a time.

The kitten's basket was there too, and there were shelves upon shelves, containing napery and all sorts of oddities, that had their nest there after being hatched in crannies of the old man's brain. The first time I took a peep I discerned my own violin, carefully enough housed, but quite above my reach. I fumed a little, of course, but did not betray myself; and it was well I did not, as Iskar and little Starwood both practised on common fiddles sc.r.a.ping could not rasp, nor inexperience injure.

After breakfast we worked till noon under lock and key. At noon we dined, and at two o'clock were sent to walk. I do not know whether I put down Aronach as a tyrant. He must, at least, be so written, in that his whims, no less than his laws, were unalterable. A whim it certainly was that we should always walk one way, and the same distance every day, unless he sent us on any special errand. This promenade, though monotonous, became dear to me, and I soon learned to appreciate the _morale_ of that _regime_. We could not go to Cecilia, which had its village only two miles off, and whose soft blue gentle hill was near enough to woo, and distant enough to tempt the dreamer, nor would our guide at hand permit us to approach the precinct consecrated to such artistic graduation as we had not yet attained.

In the mornings Aronach was either absent abroad instructing, or writing at home. But we never got at him, and were not suffered to apply to him until the evening. As we could not play truant unless we had battered down the doors, so we could not a.s.sociate with each other unreservedly, except in our walks; and on those occasions, pretty often, our master came too, calling on his friends as he pa.s.sed their houses, while we paraded up and down; but whenever he was by our side, silent as a ruminant ox, and awful as Apis to the Egyptians for Starwood and for me. When he came not, it would have been charming, but for Iskar, who was either too fine to talk, or else had nothing at his command to say, and whose deportment was so drearily sarcastic that neither of us, his companions, ever ventured an original or a sympathizing remark.

On my first Sunday I took Starwood to church,--that is, we preceded Aronach, who was lecturing Iskar, and sent us on beforehand. The little one was bright this morning, and as I looked upon his musically built brow, and trembling color, and expressive eyes,--blue as the air at evening, and full of that sort of light,--I could not make clear to myself how it was that he so disliked his work, and drooped beneath it in the effort to master his frail body by his struggling soul. We had turned into the place of the church,--the leafless lindens were whispering to it,--and we rested by the stone basin, while the bells came springing through the frost-clear day like--yet how unlike--England! I was afraid my small companion would be cold, and I put one of his long little hands into my pocket with my own, while I made him tuck the other into both his warm gloves, till, by degrees,--having coaxed and comforted him to the utmost,--he told me more about himself than I had known before. He was extremely timid to talk, shy as a fawn, even to me. But at last I made out satisfactorily the secret of his antipathy to his violin. I cannot remember all his words,--besides, they were too infantine to write; but he described himself as having spent that most forlorn of all untended childhoods which befalls the motherless offspring of the needy artist in England. His father had lived in London and taught music, but had left him constantly alone; and I also discovered he had been, and was still, an organist. The child a.s.sured me his mamma had been a beautiful player, but that no one ever opened her grand piano, which stood in a parlor above the street.

"I always knew I was to grow up to music," said Starwood; "for mamma had told me so, and she taught me my notes when I was only four years old. When she died, no one taught me; and while papa was out all day, I played with my toys and sat upon the stairs. One day some men came up and nearly fell over me. I ran into the parlor, and they came too.

They knocked the piano about, and began to take its legs off. I called out to them, 'You must not touch that,--it is my mamma's!'

"They did not take any notice, but made a great noise, and at last they carried it away--all of it--upon their shoulders. I saw it go downstairs, and I sat there all day and cried; I was very miserable, I know. Papa came home at last; when I was so unhappy I thought I must die, and it was all in the dark, and very cold. He carried me in his arms, and made me tell him why I cried. I said 'Because of the piano;'

and he told me he had sold it because it was so large, and because he wanted the money. I know he was very poor, Charles; for a gentleman who was very kind to him gave him some more money to send me here, or I could not have come. But I wish he had kept me at home and taught me himself."

"But how," I replied, "can you be sorry now? We ought to be most gloriously happy to find ourselves here. But you fret, my dear little boy, and mope, and that makes you thin, and takes the strength out of you that you want for music."

"Ah! that is not it. You don't know, Charles, how I feel; I know you don't, for you love your violin."

"I should think I did!"

"Well, I am strange to it, and don't love it,--at least, don't love to play it."

"But why did you not tell your father so before he sent you here? You know you will never do anything well that you don't love to do,--it is impossible. And not to love the violin, Star, for shame!"

"It is not that,--oh, don't be angry with me!--but my music is in the beautiful cold keys."