The Devourers Part 54

"Well, our share, I suppose," said Nancy timidly.

"That's right," said the impresario, and he stopped laughing suddenly, and looked at his watch. "Now hurry up and come along. It is time to start."

"Anne-Marie is asleep," said Nancy.

"Then wake her," said the impresario.

Nancy felt herself turning pale.

"Get on," said the impresario; "it won't kill her to play to-night. And the concert-hall is sold out."

"I am sorry," said Nancy; "but Anne-Marie never plays when she is tired."

"That is foolish, my dear woman," said the impresario, getting up. "I shall be obliged to wake her myself if you don't." And he took a step towards the closed door which led into the room where Anne-Marie was sleeping.

Now Anne-Marie's sleep was a sacred thing. A thing watched over and hallowed, approached on tip of toe, spoken of with finger on lip and bated breath. If Anne-Marie slept perfect silence was kept, and the world must stop. If Bemolle chanced to open a door or creak a careless shoe, he was frowned at with horrified brows. Anne-Marie's sleep was a thing inviolate and sacrosanct.

Bemolle had been standing near the window looking out into the darkness while the impresario spoke to Nancy; but with the first step in the direction of the closed door Bemolle darted forward with a growl like that of a angry dog. Bemolle was short and stout, but his long acc.u.mulated anger and hatred stood him in lieu of height and muscles. He jumped at the impresario, he pulled his beard, he scratched his face, he pummelled him in the chest, and with short, excited legs he kicked him.

When the big man recovered from the amazement caused by this unexpected onslaught, he lifted Bemolle off his legs and sat him on the floor. The he took his hat and his umbrella and walked out of the room, and out of the hotel.

"Has he gone?" said Bemolle, after a while, sitting up, with papery cheeks and a reddened eye.

"Yes, he has gone," said Nancy. "Poor Bemolle! Did he hurt you?"

Bemolle did not rise from the floor. He shook his head, and muttered hoa.r.s.ely:

"He wanted to wake Anne-Marie. He actually wanted to wake Anne-Marie!"

... It cost them twenty-five thousand francs to annul the contract, and five hundred francs in legal expenses. But they considered that it was cheap for the joy of having got rid of the impresario.

They had picnics and played about until Fraulein was well enough to join them again, and then they went to Rome, where they arrived with a fortnight to spare before the orchestral concerts at the Teatro Costanzi.

Thither from Milan came Aunt Carlotta, bent and wrinkled, and Zio Giacomo, trembling and slow; and Adele and Nino and Carlo and Clarissa in a noisy and affectionate group. Many tender tears were shed in memory of Valeria, who had not lived to see her little grandchild's fame. "But she saw _your_ glory, Nancy," said Nino.

They lived again in memory Nancy's visit to the Queen with her little volume of poems, as they all went one sunshiny afternoon up the hill of the Quirinal and past the Palace. Nino, whose hair was quite grey, and who, according to Aunt Carlotta, was rather difficult to please and easy to irritate, walked in front of them, and Anne-Marie trotted beside him, holding his hand. He told her interesting tales about a pink pinafore her mother had worn when she was eight years old, and what Fraulein looked like when she was apple-cheeked and twenty-five. Fraulein, who really did not show the twenty years' difference very much, walked beside them, deeply moved by these reminiscences; and Bemolle, who was to go and visit his lonely old mother as soon as the Costanzi concerts were over, walked behind them all, tearful on general principles.

"By the way," said Nino to Nancy, "I saw the dear old Grey House again.

I went to England on Carlo's affairs two months ago. I ran down to Hertfordshire and looked at it. It seemed to be empty."

"Oh," said Fraulein, "what a beautiful place it was! Don't you remember it, Nancy?"

"I remember the garden," said Nancy, with vague eyes, "and the swing----"

"What swing?" said Anne-Marie, taking an interest.

Nancy told her about the swing in the orchard of that far-away home, where she had stood swinging and singing in the placid English sunshine when she was a little girl.

... After a very few days the well-remembered envelope with the golden arms of the Royal House was put into Anne-Marie's small hands. On the following evening, Adele, Carlotta, and Clarissa were in a flutter preparing Nancy and Anne-Marie for their audience at the Quirinal.

Bemolle was fevered with excitement, for he was to play Anne-Marie's accompaniments on the piano. He walked, pale and happy, carrying the violin and the music, behind Nancy and Anne-Marie, as they pa.s.sed, with right hands bared, through the red room, and the yellow room, and the blue room, and at last into the white and gold room where the King and the Queen and many officers and ladies were waiting for them. The Queen was not the same Queen whom Nancy had known, and whose name--the name of a flower--was written on the first page of her old diary. But the little boy whose picture, framed in diamonds, Nancy had received on her wedding-day, was King.

The Queen embraced Anne-Marie many times, and laughed when Anne-Marie talked, and wept when Anne-Marie played. Anne-Marie gazed at the tall, dark-eyed Queen with adoration, sparing a glance or two for a gorgeous man in scarlet tunic, with many decorations, whom she took to be the King.

As the Adagio of Mendelssohn's concerto ended, a stern-faced man in plain evening-dress, sitting slightly apart from the others, said: "I do not care much for music, but this music I love." The Queen turned to him with a smile on her beautiful face--a smile that startled Anne-Marie.

Anne-Marie followed the track of that shining smile, and her eyes fastened on the face of the stern man. Where had she seen that face before? Why was it so dear and familiar? Why did it make her think of New York, and her mother weeping over letters from home. Stamps! She had seen it on stamps! _He_ was the King of Italy! How could she have looked at that silly, yellow-haired man in the red tunic! Anne-Marie's small loyal heart prostrated itself in penitence before him who did not care for music. And as she played, he smiled back at her with piercing, friendly eyes.

Bemolle, who had made his deep obeisance on entering the door, and had then stopped beside the piano, bent under the awful joy of the majestic presence, never straightened himself out again, but sat down and stood up when spoken to, in a tense curvilinear posture that was painful to look upon. He also played many wrong notes in the accompaniments, and could feel the anger of Anne-Marie flashing upon him, even though her small blue back was turned. Nancy sat beside the Queen, smiling through tear-lit eyes, replying to the many intimate and kindly questions the beautiful lips asked. The Queen addressed her by her maiden name that was famous, and quoted her poems to her with softly cadenced voice; and the past and the present melted into one in Nancy's heart, and she could not separate their beauty.

They drove back to the hotel in moved and grateful spirit. Anne-Marie, fluffy and feathery in her mother's arms, chatted all the way home, for she had much to say.

XXIV

A year of dream-like travels from triumph to triumph, from success to success, scattered roses and myrtles at the feet of Anne-Marie. She went through life as a child wanders through a fairy-tale garden, alight with flowers that bow and bend to her hand. The concerts were her joy. Music filled her soul to overflowing, and, like a pure and chosen vessel, Anne-Marie poured it forth again upon the listening world. When she played she was fulfilling her destiny, as a lark must sing.

One day in Genoa she was taken to see Paganini's violin, hanging mute and sealed in its gla.s.s case at the town hall. She looked at it silently and turned away.

"What are you thinking, dear heart?" said Nancy. "You look so sad."

"I am thinking," said Anne-Marie, with solemn eyes, "how it must hurt that violin and ache it, to be kept locked up, and not be allowed to sing!"

The remark was heard, and repeated, and reached the ears of the Mayor of Genoa. One afternoon, with great pomp, Anne-Marie was invited to the palace of the Municipio, and, before a few invited guests, the seals were broken, and the hallowed instrument of the immortal Nicol was placed in the little girl's hands. Anne-Marie had not slept for three nights thinking of that moment, imagining the joy of the imprisoned voice when her hands should let it loose.

She drew a new E string quickly over the tarnished bridge. Now she plucked lightly at it, bending her head to listen. Then, raising her bow, she struck the bonds of silence from the quivering strings. The chord in D minor rippled out, hoa.r.s.e and feeble. Anne-Marie struck a second chord, pressing down her fingers with a vehement vibrato. Again the reply came--m.u.f.fled, quavering, weak. Anne-Marie's face grew white and tense. She removed the violin from her shoulder with a little sob.

"It is dead," she said.

Years after, if ever Nancy thought that it might have been better had Anne-Marie been held back, and not been allowed to play her heart out to the world, the memory of the Silent Violin, locked in its gla.s.s case, came back to her--the violin that had died of its own silence. And she was glad that her little skylark had been allowed to sing.

And sing it did, in many climes and under many skies. Was it in Turin that the horses were taken from the carriage, and Anne-Marie and Nancy drawn in triumph through the cheering, waving streets? Was it in Bern that the police had to hold the crowd back, and clear the squares for their plunging horses to pa.s.s? Where was it that she was serenaded and called to the balcony twenty times by a crowd that seemed to have gone mad? Where did men lift little children up that they might touch her dress, and women, jostled in the crowd, with hats awry, fight for a glimpse of the fair nodding head, for a touch of the little gloved hand?

Was it at Naples that they called her _la bambino, a.s.sist.i.ta_, and thought her possessed by a spirit, and begged her to predict to them the winning numbers of the following Sat.u.r.day's lottery?

Yes, that was in Naples. In the confused glory of the shifting scenes some memories stood out clearly, and held Nancy's recollection. It was in Naples that no seat had been reserved for her in the immense and crowded concert-hall, and that the manager had told her of a lady who would give her a seat in her own box: box 5, tier 2--Nancy remembered it still. And when Anne-Marie, duly kissed and blessed, stepped out, violin in hand, upon the platform, Nancy was still running along the empty corridors of tier 2, looking for box 5. Here it was! There was a lady in it alone. Nancy bowed to her and took her seat, murmuring: "Grazie."

Then, with tightly folded hands, she had whispered the little prayer she always said for G.o.d to help Anne-Marie. And, as always, the prayer was answered, for Anne-Marie played grandly and suavely, never even dreaming that help could be needed.

Nancy sat in the box, tense and terrified as usual, waiting for the tranquil eyes of Anne-Marie to wander round the auditorium and find her.

There! They found her, and shone and twinkled. Then the Spirit of Music dropped its great wings between them, and carried away little Anne-Marie, swinging and singing her out of reach--out of reach of her mother's love, farther than Nancy could follow.

The lady in black took her pocket-handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. Nancy was used to the gesture, but it always moved her. She put her hand lightly on the arm of the unknown woman whose heart her little girl's music had wrung.

The last piece was ended, and the well-known cries of applause were starting from all corners of the house, when Nancy rose quickly to go back to Anne-Marie. The woman in black put back her veil, and said:

"My name is Villari."

Nancy remembered the name. All that Aldo had told, all that Nino had not told, years ago swept into her mind. She looked curiously into the tired face, under its helmet of dark-red tinted hair. There were many lines in the face. Nancy thought it looked like a map, and along the many little lines Nancy's eyes seemed to travel into a sad and distant country. She put out her hand.

"I know your name well," said Nancy. "I salute the great artist."