Girls of the Forest Part 14

"And if I don't dress you," said Penelope--"if I'm awful good--will you give me sugar-plums?"

"That is a treat in the very far distance," said Miss Tredgold.--"But now, girls, go out. The more you enjoy this lovely air the better."

They did all enjoy it; after their hard work--for lessons were hard to them--freedom was sweet. With each moment of lesson-time fully occupied, leisure was delicious. They wandered under the trees; they opened the wicket-gate which led into the Forest, and went a short way into its deep and lovely shade. When lunch-bell sounded they returned with hungry appet.i.tes.

The rest of the day pa.s.sed pleasantly. Even preparation hour was no longer regarded as a hardship. It brought renewed appet.i.tes to enjoy tea.

And in the midst of tea a wild dissipation occurred, for a piano-van came slowly down the rutty lane which led to the front avenue. It stopped at the gates; the gates were opened, the piano-van came up the avenue, and John and two other men carried the beautiful Broadwood into the big drawing-room.

Miss Tredgold unlocked it and touched the ivory keys with loving fingers.

"I will play to you to-night when it is dusk," she said to the girls.

After this they were so eager to hear the music that they could scarcely eat their dinner. Mr. Dale now always appeared for the evening meal. He took the foot of the table, and stared in an abstracted way at Aunt Sophia. So fond was he of doing this that he often quite forgot to carve the joint which was set before him.

"Wake up, Henry," said Miss Sophia in her sharp voice; "the children are hungry, and so am I."

Then the student would shake himself, seize the knife and fork, and make frantic dashes at whatever the joint might happen to be. It must be owned that he carved very badly. Miss Tredgold bore it for a day or two; then she desired the parlor-maid to convey the joint to the head of the table where she sat. After this was done the dinner-hour was wont to progress very satisfactorily. To-day it went quickly by. Then Verena went up to her aunt.

"Now, Aunt Sophy," she said, "the gloaming has come, and music is waiting to make us all happy in the drawing-room."

"I will play for you, my dears," said Aunt Sophia.

She was just leaving the room when she heard Verena say:

"You love music, father. Do come into the drawing-room. Aunt Sophia has got her new piano. She means to play on it. Do come; you know you love music."

"Indeed, I do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Dale.

He pushed his gray hair back from his forehead and looked abstractedly at Miss Sophia, who was standing in the twilight just by the open door.

"You remind me, Sophia----" said Mr. Dale.

He paused and covered his eyes with his hand.

"I could have sworn that you were she. No music, thanks; I have never listened to it since she died. Your mother played beautifully, children; she played and she sang. I liked her songs; I hate the twaddle of the present day. Now I am returning to my Virgil. My renderings of the original text become more and more full of light. I shall secure a vast reputation. Music! I hate music. Don't disturb me, any of you."

When Mr. Dale reached his study he sank into his accustomed chair. His lamp was already lit; it burned brightly, for Miss Tredgold herself trimmed it each morning. His piles of books of reference lay in confusion by his side. An open ma.n.u.script was in front of him. He took up his pen.

Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies; the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his children, to the home in which he lived.

"I could have sworn," he muttered to himself, "that Alice had come back.

As Sophia stood in the twilight I should scarcely have known them apart.

She is not Alice. Alice was the only woman I ever loved--the only woman I could tolerate in my house. My children, my girls, are none of them women yet, thank the Almighty. When they are they will have to go. I could not stand any other woman but Alice to live always in the house. But now to forget her. This knotty point must be cleared up before I go to bed."

The doors of the ancient world were slowly opening. But before they could shut Mr. Dale within their portals there came a sound that caused the scholar to start. The soft strains of music entered through the door which Verena had on purpose left open. The music was sweet and yet masterly. It came with a merry sound and a certain quick rhythm that seemed to awaken the echoes of the house. Impossible as it may appear, Mr. Dale forgot the ancient cla.s.sics and the dim world of the past. He lay back in his chair; his lips moved; he beat time with his knuckles on the arms of his chair; and with his feet on the floor. So perfect was his ear that the faintest wrong note, or harmony out of tune, would be detected by him. The least jarring sound would cause him agony. But there was no jarring note; the melody was correct; the time was perfect.

"I might have known that Alice----" he began; but then he remembered that Alice had never played exactly like that, and he ceased to think of her, or of any woman, and became absorbed in those ringing notes that stole along the pa.s.sage and entered by the open door and surrounded him like lightsome fairies. Into his right ear they poured their charm; in his left ear they completed their work. Virgil was forgotten; old Homer might never have existed.

Mr. Dale rose. He got up softly; he walked across the room and opened the door wide. There was a very bright light streaming down the pa.s.sage. In the old days this pa.s.sage was always dark; no one ever thought of lighting the lobbies and pa.s.sages at The Dales. The master of the house wondered dimly at the light; but at the same time it gave him a sense of comfort.

Suddenly a voice began to sing:

"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows."

The voice was sweet, pure, and high. It floated towards him. Suddenly he stretched out his arms.

"I am coming, Alice," he said aloud. "Yes, I am coming. Don't call me with such insistence. I come, I tell you; I come."

He ran down the pa.s.sage; he entered the central hall; he burst into the drawing-room. His eyes were full of excitement. He strode across the room and sank into a chair close to the singer.

Miss Tredgold just turned and glanced at him.

"Ah, Henry!" she said; "so you are there. I hoped that this would draw you. Now I am going to sing again."

"A song of the past," he said in a husky voice.

"Will this do?" she said, and began "Annie Laurie."

Once again Mr. Dale kept time with his hand and his feet. "Annie Laurie"

melted into "Home, Sweet Home"; "Home, Sweet Home" into "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonny Doon"; "Ye Banks and Braes" wandered into the delicious notes of "Auld Lang Syne."

Suddenly Miss Tredgold rose, shut and locked the piano, and then turned and faced her audience.

"No more to-night," she said. "By-and-by you girls shall all play on this piano. You shall also sing, for I have not the slightest doubt that most of you have got voices. You ought to be musical, for music belongs to both sides of your house. There was once a time when your father played the violin as no one else, in my opinion, ever played it. By the way, Henry, is that violin still in existence?"

"Excuse me," said Mr. Dale; "I never touch it now. I have not touched it for years. I would not touch it for the world."

"You will touch it again when the time is ripe. Now, no more music to-night. Those who are tired had better go to bed."

The girls left the room without a word. Miss Tredgold then went up to Mr.

Dale.

"Go back to your study and your Virgil," she said. "Don't waste your precious time."

He looked exactly as though some one had whipped him, but he took her at her word and returned to his study.

The music was henceforth a great feature in the establishment. Miss Tredgold enhanced its value by being chary in regard to it. She only played as a special treat. She would by no means give them the great pleasure of her singing and playing every night.

"When you have all had a good day I will sing and play to you," she said to the girls; "but when you neglect your work, or are idle and careless, or cross and sulky, I don't intend to amuse you in the evenings. I was brought up on a stricter plan than the girls of the present day, and I mean while I am with you to bring you up in the same way. I prefer it to the lax way in which young people are now reared."

For a time Miss Tredgold's plans went well. Then there came a day of rebellion. Pauline was the first to openly rebel against Aunt Sophia.

There came a morning when Pauline absolutely refused to learn her lessons. She was a stoutly built, determined-looking little girl, very dark in complexion and in eyes and hair. She would probably be a handsome woman by-and-by, but now she was plain, with a somewhat sallow face, heavy black brows, and eyes that could scowl when anything annoyed her.

She was the next eldest to Verena, and was thirteen years of age. Her birthday would be due in a fortnight. Even at The Dales birthdays were considered auspicious events. There was always some sort of present, even though it was worth very little in itself, given by each member of the family to the possessor of the birthday. Mr. Dale generally gave this happy person a whole shilling. He presented the shilling with great pomp, and invariably made the same speech:

"G.o.d bless you, my dear. May you have many happy returns of the day. And now for goodness' sake don't detain me any longer."

A shilling was considered by the Dale girls as valuable as a sovereign would be to girls in happier circ.u.mstances. It was eked out to its furthest dimensions, and was as a rule spent on good things to eat. Now, under Miss Tredgold's reign, Pauline's birthday would be a much more important event. Miss Tredgold had long ago taken Verena, Briar, Patty, Josephine, and Adelaide into her confidence. Pauline knew quite well that she was talked about. She knew when, the girls retired into corners that she was the object of their eager conversations. The whole thing was most agreeable to her sense of vanity, and when she suddenly appeared round a corner and perceived that work was put out of sight, that the eager whisperers started apart, and that the girls looked conscious and as if they wished her out of the way, she quite congratulated herself on the fact that hers was the first birthday in the immediate future, and that on that day she would be a very great personage indeed. As these thoughts came to her she walked with a more confident stride, and thought a great deal of her own importance. At night she lay awake thinking of the happy time, and wondering what this coming birthday, when she would have been fourteen whole years in the world, would bring forth.

There came a lovely morning about a week before the birthday. Pauline had got up early, and was walking by herself in the garden. She felt terribly excited, and almost cross at having to wait so long for her pleasure.