Charles Auchester Volume I Part 9

Such delicate frock-bodies and sprigged caps for infants; such toilet-cushions rich with patterns, like ingrained pearls; such rolls of lace, with running gossamer leaves, or edges fine as the pinked carnations in Davy's garden. There were also collars with broad white leaves and peeping buds, or wreathing embroidery like sea-weed, or blanched moss, or magnified snow, or whatever you can think of as most unlike work. Then there was a central basket, lined with white satin, in which lay six cambric handkerchiefs, with all the folded corners outwards, each corner of which shone as if dead-silvered with the exquisitely wrought crest and motto of an ancient coroneted family.

"Oh, I never did see anything like them!" was all I could get out, after peering into everything till the excelling whiteness pained my sight. "Do tell me where you send them?"

"I used to send them to Madame Varneckel's, in High Street; but she cheated me, and I send them now to the Quaker's, in Albemarle Square."

"You sell them, then?"

"Yes, of course; I should not work else. I do not love it."

"They ought to give you a hundred guineas for those."

"I have a hundred guineas already."

"You have!" I quite startled her by the start I gave. I very nearly said, "Then why do you live up here?" but I felt, in time, that it would be rude.

"Oh! I must get four hundred more, and that will take me two years, or perhaps three, unless my voice comes out like a flower." Here her baby-mouth burst into a smile most radiant,--a rose of light!

"Oh, Miss Benette, everything you say is like one of the German stories,--a _Marchen_,[9] you know."

"Oh, do you talk German? I love it. I always spoke it till I came to this city."

"What a pity you came!--at least, I should have been very sorry if you had not come; but I mean, I should have thought you would like Germany best."

"So I should, but I could not help coming; I was a baby when I came.

Mr. Davy brought me over in his arms, and he was just as old then as I am now."

"How very odd! Mr. Davy never told me he had brought you here."

"Oh, no! he would not tell you all the good things he has done."

"He has done me good,--quite as much good as he can have done to you; but I should so like to hear all about it."

"You must not stay,--you _shall_ go," she answered, with her grave sweetness of voice and manner; "and if you are not in time to-day, we shall never practise again. I shall be very sorry, for I like to sing with you."

I was not in time, and I got the nearest thing to a scolding from my mother, and a long reproof from Clo. She questioned me as to where I had been, and I was obliged to answer. The locality did not satisfy her; she said it was a low neighborhood, and one in which I might catch all sorts of diseases. I persisted that it was as high and dry as we were, and possessed an advantage over us in that it had better air, being, as it was, all but out in the fields. My mother was rather puzzled about the whole matter, but she declared her confidence in me, and I was contented, as she ever contents me. I was very grateful to her, and a.s.sured them all how superior was Miss Benette to all the members of the cla.s.s. I also supplicated Millicent to accompany me the next time I should be allowed to go, that she might see the beautiful work.

"I cannot go, my dear Charles," she returned. "If this young lady be what you yourself make her out to be, it would be taking a great liberty; and besides, she could not want me,--I do not sing in the cla.s.s."

But she looked very much as if she wished she did.

"I just wish you would ask Mr. Davy about her, that's all."

FOOTNOTES:

[8] The idea that Laura Lemark was intended as a sketch of Taglioni, the _danseuse_, is altogether fanciful; except the fact that Taglioni in her old age taught deportment to ladies who desired to be presented at the English court, and that Laura did the same after she had retired, there is no resemblance between them.

[9] A tale, or romance.

CHAPTER XIV.

When I went to the cla.s.s next time I was very eager to catch Mr. Davy, that I might explain to him where I had been, for I did not like acting without his cognizance. However, he was already down below when I arrived. My fair companions were both in their places, but, to my astonishment, Miss Benette took no notice of me. Her sweet face was as grave as it was before I caught from under those long lashes the azure light upon my own for the first time. Certain that she did not mean to offend me, I got on very well though, and Davy was very much pleased with our success.

Little Laura looked very pale; her hair was out of its curl, and altogether she had an appearance as if she had been dragged through a river, lost and forlorn, and scarcely sensible. She sang languidly, but Miss Benette's clinging tones would not suffer me to be aware of any except hers and my own.

Davy taught us something about Gregorian chants, and gave us a few to practise, besides a new but extremely simple service of his own. "He wrote that for us, I suppose," I ventured; and Clara nodded seriously, but made no a.s.sent in words. Afterwards she seemed to remember me again as her ally; for as Davy wished us his adieu in his wonted free "Good-night!" she spoke to me of her own accord.

"I think it was all the better that we practised."

"Oh, was it not? Suppose we practise again."

"I should like it, if you will come at the same time, and not stay longer; and Laura can come too, can she not?"

I did not exactly like this idea, but I could not contradict the calm, mellow voice.

"Oh, if she will practise."

"Of course she will practise if she comes on purpose."

"I don't care about coming!" exclaimed the child, in a low, fretful voice. "I know I sha'n't get out, either."

"Yes, you shall; I will coax your papa. Look, Laura! there he is, waiting for you."

The child ran off instantly, with an air of fear over all her fatigue, and I felt sure she was not treated like a child; but I said nothing about it then.

"Sir," said I to Mr. Davy, "pray walk a little way, for I want to tell you something. My mother particularly requests that you will go to our house to sup with us this evening."

"I will accept her kindness with the greatest pleasure, as I happen to be less engaged than usual."

Davy never bent his duty to his pleasure,--rather the reverse.

"I went to practise with Miss Benette the day before yesterday."

"So she told me."

"She told you herself?"

"Yes, when she came to my house for her lesson last afternoon. I was very glad to hear it, because such singing as hers will improve yours.

But I should like to tell your mother how she is connected with me."

"How was it, sir?"

"Oh! I shall make a long story for her; but enough for you that her father was very good to me when I was an orphan boy and begged my way through Germany. He taught me all that I now teach you; and when he died, he asked me to take care of his baby and his lessons. She was only born that he might see her, and die."

"Oh, sir, how strange! Poor man! he must have been very sorry."