Hildegarde's Home Part 6

"And forgetful! well! well! he needed to be tied to some one, Mr.

Raymond did. To see him come in for his luncheon, and then forget all about it, and stand with a book in his hand, reading as if there was nothing else in the world. And then Mr. Tom--dear! dear! would put his head down and run and b.u.t.t him right in the stomach, and down they would go together and roll over and over; great big lads, like you, sir, and their father would take the dog-whip and thrash 'em till they got up.

'Twas all in sport like, d'ye see; but Mr. Raymond never let go his book, only beat Mr. Tom with it. Dear! dear! such lads!"

"Tell me about his running away," said Jack.

"After the fiddler, do you mean, dear? That was when he was a little lad. Always mad after music he was, and playing on anything he could get hold of, and singing like a serup, that boy. So one day there came along an Italian, with a fiddle that he played on, and a little boy along with him, that had a fiddle, too. Well, and if Mr. Raymond didn't persuade that boy to change clothes with him, and he to stay here and Mr. Raymond to go with the fiddler and learn to play. Of course the man was a scamp, and had no business; and Mr. Raymond gave him his gold piece to take him, and all! But when the old Squire--that's your grandfather, dear!--when he came in and found that little black-eyed fellow dressed in his son's clothes, and crying with fright, and not a word of English--well, he was neither to hold nor to bind, as the saying is. Luckily Mrs. Ferrers--that's your grandmother, dear! she came in before the child was frightened into a fit, though very near it; and she spoke the language, and with her quiet ways she got the child quiet, and he told her all about it, and how the fiddler beat him, and showed the great bruises. And when she told the Squire, he got black in the face, like he used, and took his dog-whip and rode off on his big grey horse like mad; and when he came back with Mr. Raymond in front of him, the whip was all in pieces, and Mr. Raymond crying and holding the little fiddle tight. And the Italian boy stayed, and the Squire made a man of him, from being a Papist outlandish-man. And that's all the story, Master Jack."

"And he is Giuseppe?" asked Jack.

"And he is Jew Seppy," Mrs. Beadle a.s.sented. "Though it seems a hard name to give him, and no Jew blood in him that any one can prove, only his eyes being black. But he won't hear to its being shortened. And now it is getting to be night-cap time, Master Jack," said the good woman, beginning to fold up her work, "and I hope you are going to bed, too, like a good young gentleman. But if you don't, you'll shut the door careful, won't you dear?"

"Never fear," said the boy, gathering himself up from the floor. "I'm sleepy to-night, anyhow; I may go straight to bed. Good-night, Biddy.

You're quite sure you like me to call you 'Biddy'?"

"My dear, it makes me feel five-and-twenty years younger!" said the good woman; "and I seem to see your dear father, coming in with his curls a-shaking, calling his Biddy. Ah, well! Good-night, Master Jack, dear!

Don't forget to look in when you go by."

"Good-night, Biddy!"

The lad went off with his candle, fairly stumbling along the corridor from sheer sleepiness; but when he reached his own room, which was flooded with moonlight, the drowsiness seemed to take wings and disappear. He sat down by the open window and looked out. Below lay the garden, all black and silver in the intense white light. The smell of the roses came up to him, exquisitely sweet. He leaned his head against the window-frame, and felt as if he were floating away on the buoyant fragrance--far, far away, to the South, where his home was, and where the roses were in bloom so long that it seemed as if there were always roses.

The silver-lit garden vanished from his sight, and he saw instead a long, low room, half garret, half workshop, where a man stood beside a long table, busily at work with some fine tools. The spare, stooping figure, the long, delicate hands, the features carved as if in ivory, the blue, near-sighted eyes peering anxiously at the work in his hands,--all these were as actually present to the boy as if he could put out his own hand and touch them. It was with a start that he came back to the world of tangible surroundings, as a sudden breath of wind waved the trees below him, and sent whisperings of leaf and blossom through his room.

"Daddy!" he said half to himself; and he brushed away something which had no possible place in the eyes of a youth who was to go to college next year. Giving himself a violent shake, Jack Ferrers rose, and, going to a cupboard, took out with great care a long, black, oblong box. This he deposited on the bed; then took off his boots and put on a pair of soft felt slippers. His coat, too, was taken off; and then, holding the black box in his arms, as if it were a particularly delicate baby, he left the room, and softly made his way to the stairs which led to the attic. There was a door at the foot of the stairs, which he opened noiselessly, and then he stopped to listen. All was still. He must have been sitting for some time at the window, for the light in the hall was extinguished, which was a sign that his uncle had gone to bed. In fact, as he listened intently, his ear caught a faint, rhythmic sound, rising and falling at regular intervals, like the distant murmur of surf on the sea-sh.o.r.e; his uncle was asleep. Closing the door softly after him, and clasping the black box firmly, Jack climbed the attic stairs and disappeared in the darkness.

CHAPTER VI.

COUSIN JACK.

THE next day, as Hildegarde was arranging flowers on the piazza, with a table before her covered with bowls and vases, and a great basket of many-coloured blossoms beside her, Jack Ferrers appeared, evidently in the depths of misery, carrying a huge bunch of roses. He stumbled while coming up the steps, and dropped half the roses, which increased his discomfort so much that Hildegarde was really sorry for him. Moreover, when seen by daylight, he was a very pleasant-looking fellow, with curly brown hair and great honest blue eyes very wide open. He was over six feet tall, and as awkward as a human being could be, but of course he could not help that.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "JACK FERRERS APPEARED CARRYING A HUGE BUNCH OF ROSES."]

"Good-morning, Cousin Jack!" said Hildegarde pleasantly. "What lovely roses! Are they from Colonel Ferrers's garden?"

"Yes," replied Jack Ferrers. "Uncle sends them with his compliments. I'm sorry I knocked over the basket last night. Good-by."

He was about to fling himself down the steps again, but Hildegarde, controlling her desire to laugh, said cordially: "Oh, don't go! Sit down a moment, and tell me the names of some of these beauties."

"Thank you!" muttered the youth, blushing redder than the roses. "I--I think I must go back."

"Are you so very busy?" asked Hildegarde innocently. "I thought this was your vacation. What have you to do?"

"Oh--nothing!" said the lad awkwardly. "Nothing in particular."

"Then sit down," said Hildegarde decidedly.

And Jack Ferrers sat down. A pause followed. Then Hildegarde said in a matter-of-fact tone, "You have no sisters, have you, Cousin Jack?"

"No," was the reply. "How did you know?"

"Because you are so shy," said Hildegarde, smiling. "Boys who have no sisters are apt to regard girls as a kind of griffin. There used to be a boy at dancing-school, two or three years ago, who was so shy it was really painful to dance with him at first, but he got over it after a while. And it was all because he had no sisters."

"Did you like dancing-school?" Jack inquired, venturing to look up at her shyly.

"Yes, very much indeed!" replied Hildegarde. "Didn't you?"

"No; hated it."

Then they both laughed a little, and after that things went a good deal better. Jack came up on the piazza (he had been sitting on the steps, shuffling his feet in a most distressing manner), and helped to clip the long stems of the roses, and pulled off superfluous leaves. It appeared that he did not care much for flowers, though he admitted that roses were "pretty." He did not care for fishing or shooting; tennis had made his head ache ever since he began to grow so fast. Did he like walking?

Pretty well, when it wasn't too hot. Reading? Well enough, when the book wasn't stupid.

"Wot are we to do with this 'ere 'opeless chap?" said Hildegarde to herself, quoting from "Pinafore."

As a last resort she asked if he were fond of music. Instantly his face lighted up.

"Awfully fond of it," he said with animation, and the embarra.s.sed wrinkle disappeared as if by magic from between his eyebrows.

"Oh, I am so glad!" cried Hildegarde. "I haven't had any music the last two summers. I had everything else that was nice, but still I missed it, of course. Do you play, or sing?"

"A little of both," said Jack modestly.

"Oh, how delightful! We must make music together for mamma sometimes. My own piano has not come yet, but there is the dearest old funny thing here which belonged to the Misses Aytoun."

"Uncle Tom has no piano," said Jack, "but I have my violin, so I don't mind."

"Oh, a violin!" said Hildegarde, opening her eyes wide. "Have you been studying it long?"

"Ever since I was six years old," was the reply. "My mother would not let me begin earlier, though my father said that as soon as I could hold a knife and fork I could hold a bow. He's a little cracked about violins, my father. He makes them, you know."

"I _don't_ know," cried Hildegarde. "Tell me about it; how very interesting!"

"Well--I don't mean that it's his business," said Jack, who seemed to have forgotten his shyness entirely; "he's a lawyer, you know. But it's the only thing he really cares about. He has a workshop, and he has made--oh, ever so many violins! He went to Cremona once, and spent a year there, poking about, and he found an old church that was going to be repaired, and bought the sounding-board. Oh, it must have been a couple of hundred years old. Then he moused about more and found an old fellow, a descendant of one of Amati's workmen, and I believe he would have bought him, too, if he could; but, anyhow, they were great chums, and he taught my father all kinds of tricks. When he came home he made this violin out of a piece of the old sounding-board, and gave it to me on my birthday. It's--oh, it's no end, you know! And he made another for himself, and we play together. Do you know the Mozart Concerto in F, for two violins? It begins with an allegro."

And being fairly mounted on his hobby, Jack Ferrers pranced about on it as if he had done nothing but talk to Hildegarde all his life.

Hildegarde, meanwhile, listened with a mixture of surprise, amus.e.m.e.nt, and respect. He did not look in the least like a musical genius, this long-legged, curly-haired lad, with his blue eyes and his simple, honest face. She thought of the lion front of Beethoven, and the brilliant, exquisite beauty of Mozart, and tried to imagine honest Jack standing between them, and almost laughed in the midst of an animated description of the andante movement. Then she realised that he was talking extremely well, and talking a great deal over her head.

"I am afraid you will find me very ignorant," she said meekly, when her cousin paused, a little out of breath, but with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes. "I have heard a great deal of music, of course, and I love it dearly; but I don't know about it as you do, not a bit. I play the piano a little, and I sing, just simple old songs, you know, and that is all."

Hildegarde might have added that she had a remarkably sweet voice, and sang with taste and feeling, but that her cousin must find out for himself; besides, she was really over-awed by this superior knowledge in one whom the night before she had been inclined to set down as a b.o.o.by.

"Shall I ever learn," she thought remorsefully, "not to make these ridiculous judgments of people, before I know anything about them?"

Just then Mrs. Grahame came out and asked her new-found nephew, as she called him, to stay to dinner; but at sight of her the lad's shyness returned in full force. His animation died away; he hung his head, and muttered that he "couldn't possibly, thank you! Uncle Tom--stayed too long already. Good-by!" and, without even a farewell glance at Hildegarde, went down all the steps at once with a breakneck plunge, and disappeared.