Orpheus in Mayfair, and Other Stories and Sketches Part 13

"No," said the Doctor, "I confess that to me it was always the same thing." And for the second time that day the Doctor shivered, he knew not why.

Soon after the meal was over the guests departed, and although the Doctor detained Guido and endeavoured to persuade him to listen to the voice of reason and commonsense, his efforts were in vain. Guido had determined to wed Margherita.

"Besides which, if I left her now, I should bring shame and ruin on her," he said.

The Doctor started--a familiar voice seemed to whisper in his ear: "She is not the first one." A strange shudder pa.s.sed through him, and he distinctly heard a mocking voice laughing. "Go your way," he said, "but do not come and complain to me if you bring unhappiness on yourself and her."

Guido departed and the Doctor retired to enjoy his siesta.

For the first time during all the years he had lived at Naples the Doctor was not able to sleep. "This and the hallucinations I have suffered from to-day come from drinking that Cyprus wine," he said to himself.

He lay in the darkened room tossing uneasily on his bed and sleep would not come to him. Stranger still, before his eyes fiery letters seemed to dance before him in the air. At seven o'clock he went out into the garden. Never had he beheld a more glorious evening. He strolled down towards the seash.o.r.e and watched the sunset. Mount Vesuvius seemed to have dissolved into a rosy haze; the waves of the sea were phosph.o.r.escent. A fisherman was singing in his boat. The sky was an apocalypse of glory and peace.

The Doctor sighed and watched the pageant of light until it faded and the stars lit up the magical blue darkness. Then out of the night came another song--a song which seemed familiar to the Doctor, although for the moment he could not place it, about a King in the Northern Country who was faithful to the grave and to whom his dying mistress a golden beaker gave.

"Strange," thought the Doctor, "it must come from some Northern fishing smack," and he went home.

He sat reading in his study until midnight, and for the first time in thirty years he could not fix his mind on his book. For the vision of the sunset and the song of the Northern fisherman, which in some unaccountable way brought back to him the days of his youth, kept on surging up in his mind.

Twelve o'clock struck. He rose to go to bed, and as he did so he heard a loud knock at the door.

"Come in," said the Doctor, but his voice faltered ("the Cyprus wine again!" he thought), and his heart beat loudly.

The door opened and an icy draught blew into the room. The visitor beckoned, but spoke no word, and Doctor Faust rose and followed him into the outer darkness.

THE FLUTE-PLAYER'S STORY

There is a village in the South of England not far from the sea, which possesses a curious inn called "The Green Tower." Why it is called thus, n.o.body knows. This inn must in days gone by have been the dwelling of some well-to-do squire, but nothing now remains of its former prosperity, except the square grey tower, partially covered with ivy, from which it takes its name. The inn stands on the roadside, on the brow of a hill, and at the top of the tower there is a room with four large windows, whence you can see all over the wooded country. The ex-Prime Minister of a foreign state, who had been driven from office and home by a revolution, happening to pa.s.s the night in the inn and being of an eccentric disposition, was so much struck with this room that he secured it, together with two bedrooms, permanently for himself.

He determined to spend the rest of his life here, and as he was within certain limits not unsociable, he invited his friends to come and stay with him on any Sat.u.r.day they pleased, without giving him notice.

Thus it happened that of a Sat.u.r.day and Sunday there was nearly always a mixed gathering of men at "The Green Tower", and after they had dined they would sit in the tower room and drink old Southern wines from the ex-Prime Minister's country, and talk, or tell each other stories. But the ex-Prime Minister made it a stringent rule that at least one guest should tell one story during his stay, for while he had been Prime Minister a Court official had been in his service whose only duty it was to tell him a story every evening, and this was the only thing he regretted of all his former privileges.

On this particular Sunday, besides myself, the clerk, the flute-player, the wine merchant (the friends of the ex-Prime Minister were exceedingly various), and the scholar were present. They were smoking in the tower room. It was summer, and the windows were wide open. Every inch of wall which was not occupied by the windows was crowded with books. The clerk was turning over the leaves of the ex-Prime Minister's stamp collection (which was magnificent), the flute-player was reading the score of Handel's flute sonatas (which was rare), the scholar was reading a translation in Latin hexameters of the "Ring and the Book" (which the ex-Prime Minister has written in his spare moments), and the wine merchant was drinking generously of a curious red wine, which was very old.

"I think," said the ex-Prime Minister, "that the flute-player has never yet told us a story."

The guests knew that this hint was imperative, and so putting away the score, the flute-player said: "My story is called, 'The Fiddler.'" And he began:--

"This happened a long time ago in one of the German-speaking countries of the Holy Roman Empire. There was a Count who lived in a large castle.

He was rich, powerful, and the owner of large lands. He had a wife, and one daughter, who was dazzlingly beautiful, and she was betrothed to the eldest son of a neighbouring lord. When I say betrothed, I mean that her parents had arranged the marriage. She herself--her name was Elisinde--had had no voice in the matter, and she disliked, or rather loathed, her future husband, who was boorish, sullen, and ill-tempered; he cared for nothing except hunting and deep drinking, and had nothing to recommend him but his ducats and his land. But it was quite useless for Elisinde to cry or protest. Her parents had settled the marriage and it was to be. She understood this herself very well.

"All the necessary preparations for the wedding, which was to be held on a splendid scale, were made. There was to be a whole week of feasting; and tumblers and musicians came from distant parts of the country to take part in the festivities and merry-making. In the village, which was close to the castle, a fair was held, and the musicians, tumblers, and mountebanks, who had thronged to it, performed in front of the castle walls for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the Count's guests.

"Among these strolling vagabonds was a fiddler who far excelled all the others in skill. He drew the most ravishing tones from his instrument, which seemed to speak in trills as liquid as those of the nightingale, and in accents as plaintive as those of a human voice. And one of the inmates of the castle was so much struck by the performance of this fiddler that he told the Count of it, and the fiddler was commanded to come and play at the Castle, after the banquet which was to be held on the eve of the wedding. The banquet took place in great pomp and solemnity, and lasted for many hours. When it was over the fiddler was summoned to the large hall and bidden to play before the Lords and Ladies.

"The fiddler was a strange looking, tall fellow with unkempt fair hair, and eyes that glittered like gold; but as he was dressed in tattered uncouth rags (and they were his best too) he cut an extraordinary and almost ridiculous figure amongst that splendid jewelled gathering. The guests t.i.ttered when they saw him. But as soon as he began to play, their t.i.ttering ceased, for never had they heard such music.

"He played--in view of the festive occasion--a joyous melody. And, as he played, the air seemed full of sunlight, and the smell of wine vats and the hum of bees round ripe fruit. The guests could not keep still in their places, and at last the Count gave orders for a general dance. The hall was cleared, and soon all the guests were breathlessly dancing to the divine lilt of the fiddler's melody. All except Elisinde who, when her betrothed came forward to lead her to the dance, pleaded fatigue, and remained seated in her chair, pale and distraught, and staring at the fiddler. This did not, to tell the truth, displease her betrothed, who was a clumsy dancer and had no ear for music. Breathless at last with exhaustion the guests begged the untiring fiddler to pause while they rested for a moment to get their breath.

"And while they were resting the fiddler played another tune. This time it was a sad tune: a low, soft tune, liquid and lovely as a human voice.

A great hush came on the company. It seemed as if after the heat and splendour of a summer's day the calm of evening had fallen; the quiet of the dusk, when the moon rises in the sky, still faintly yellow in the west with the ebb of sunset, and pours on the stiff cornfields its cool, silvery frost; and the trees quiver, as though they felt the freshness and were relieved, and a breeze comes, almost imperceptible and not strong enough to shake the boughs, from the sea; and a bird, hidden somewhere in the leaves, sings a throbbing song.

"Everyone was spellbound, but none so much as Elisinde. The music seemed to be speaking straight to her, to pierce the very core of her heart. It was an inarticulate language which she understood better than any words.

She heard a lonely spirit crying out to her, that it understood her sorrow and shared her pain. And large tears poured down her cheeks.

"The fiddler stopped playing, and for a moment or two no one spoke. At last Elisinde's betrothed gave a great yawn, and the spell was broken.

"'You play very well--very well, indeed,' said the Count.

"'But that sad music is, I think, rather out of place to-day,' said the Countess.

"'Yes, let us have another cheerful tune,' said the Count.

"The fiddler struck up once more and played another dance. This time there was an almost elfish magic in his melody. It took you captive; it was irresistible; it called and commanded and compelled; you longed to follow, follow, anywhere, over the hills, over the sea, to the end of the world.

"Elisinde rose from her chair as though the spirit of the music beckoned her, but looking round she saw no partner to her taste. She sat down again and stared at the fiddler. His eyes were fixed on her, and as she looked at him his squalor and rags seemed to fade away and his blue eyes that glittered like gold seemed to grow larger, and his hair to grow brighter till it shone like fire. And he seemed to be caught in a rosy cloud of light: tall, splendid, young, and glowing like a G.o.d.

"After this dance was over the Count rose, and he and his guests retired to rest. The fiddler was given a purse full of money, and the Count gave orders that he should be served refreshment in the kitchen.

"Elisinde went up to her bedroom, which overlooked the garden. She threw the window wide open and looked out into the starry darkness. It was a breathless summer night. The air was full of warm scents. Lights still twinkled in the village; now and again a dog barked, otherwise everything was still. She leant out of the window, and cried bitterly because her lot was loathsome to her, and she had not a friend in the world to whom she could confide her sorrow.

"While she was thus sobbing she heard a rustling in the bushes beneath; she looked down and she saw a face looking up towards her, a beautiful face, glistening in the moonlight. It was the fiddler.

"'Elisinde,' he called to her in a low voice, 'if you want to escape I have the means. Come with me; I love you, and I will save you from your doom.'

"'I would come with you to the end of the world,' she said, 'but how can I get away from this castle?'

"He threw a rope ladder up to her. 'Make it fast to the bar,' he said, 'and let yourself down.'

"She let herself down into the garden. 'We can easily climb the wall with this,' he said; 'but before you come I must tell you that if you will be my bride your life will be hard and full of misery. Think before you come.'

"'Rather all the misery in the world,' she said, 'than the awful doom that awaits me here. Besides which I love you, and we shall be very happy.'

"They scaled the wall, and on the other side of it the fiddler had two horses, waiting tied to the gate. They galloped through many villages, and by the dawn they had reached a village far beyond the Count's lands.

Here they stopped at an inn, and they were married by the priest that day. But they did not stop in this village; they sought a further country, beyond reach of all pursuit. They settled in a village, and the fiddler earned his bread by his fiddling, and Elisinde kept their cottage neat and clean. For awhile they were as happy as the day was long; the fiddler found favour everywhere by his fiddling, and Elisinde ingratiated herself by her gentle ways. But one day when Elisinde was lying in bed and the fiddler had lulled her to sleep with his music, some neighbours, attracted by the sound, pa.s.sed the cottage and looked in at the window. And to their astonishment they saw the fiddler sitting by a bed on which lay what seemed to them to be a sleeping princess; and the whole cottage was full of dazzling light, and the fiddler's face shone, and his hair and his eyes glittered like gold. They went away much frightened, and told the whole village the news.

"Now there were already not a few of the villagers who looked askance on the fiddler; and this incident set all the evil and envious tongues wagging. When the fiddler went to play the next day at the inn men turned away from him, and a child in the street threw a stone at him.

Presently he was warned that he had better swiftly fly or else he would be drowned as a sorcerer.

"So he and Elisinde fled in the night to a neighbouring village. But soon the dark rumours followed them, and they were forced to flee once more. This happened again and again, till at last in the whole country there was not a village which would receive them, and one night they were obliged to take refuge in a barn, for Elisinde was expecting the birth of her child. That night their child was born, a beautiful little boy, and an hour afterwards Elisinde smiled and died.

"All that night the villagers heard from afar a piteous wailing music, infinitely sad and beautiful, and those that heard it shuddered and crossed themselves.

"The next day the villagers sought the barn, for they had resolved to drown the sorcerer; but he was not there. All they found was the dead body of Elisinde, and a little baby lying on some straw. The body of Elisinde was covered with roses. And this was strange, for it was midwinter. The fiddler had disappeared and was never heard of again, and an old wood-cutter, who was too old to know any better, took charge of the baby.

"I will tell you what happened to it another day."