The First Violin Part 20

"I am going home," said I.

A quick look of feeling--whether astonishment, regret, or dismay, I should not like to have said--flashed across his face.

"Have you had bad news?"

"Yes, very. Miss Hallam returns to England next week."

"But why do you go? Why not remain here?"

"Gladly, if I had any money," I said, with a dry smile. "But I have none, and can not get any."

"You will return to England now? Do you know what you are giving up?"

"Obligation has no choice," said I, gracefully. "I would give anything if I could stay here, and not go home again." And with that I burst into tears. I covered my face with my hands, and all the pent-up grief and pain of the coming parting streamed from my eyes. I wept uncontrollably.

He did not interrupt my tears for some time. When he did speak, it was in a very gentle voice.

"Miss Wedderburn, will you try to compose yourself, and listen to something I have to say?"

I looked up. I saw his eyes fixed seriously and kindly upon me with an expression quite apart from their usual indifferent coolness--with the look of one friend to another--with such a look as I had seen and have since seen exchanged between Courvoisier and his friend Helfen.

"See," said he, "I take an interest in you, Fraulein May. Why should I hesitate to say so? You are young--you do not know the extent of your own strength, or of your own weakness. I do. I will not flatter--it is not my way--as I think you know."

I smiled. I remembered the plentiful blame and the scant praise which it had often fallen to my lot to receive from him.

"I am a strict, sarcastic, disagreeable old pedagogue, as you and so many of my other fair pupils consider," he went on, and I looked up in amaze. I knew that so many of his "fair pupils" considered him exactly the reverse.

"It is my business to know whether a voice is good for anything or not.

Now yours, with training, will be good for a great deal. Have you the means, or the chance, or the possibility of getting that training in England?"

"No."

"I should like to help you, partly from the regard I have for you, partly for my own sake, because I think you would do me credit."

He paused. I was looking at him with all my senses concentrated upon what he had said. He had been talking round the subject until he saw that he had fairly fixed my attention; then he said, sharply and rapidly:

"Fraulein, it lies with you to choose. Will you go home and stagnate there, or will you remain here, fight down your difficulties, and become a worthy artist?"

"Can there be any question as to which I should like to do?" said I, distracted at the idea of having to give up the prospect he held out.

"But it is impossible. Miss Hallam alone can decide."

"But if Miss Hallam consented, you would remain?"

"Oh! Herr von Francius! You should soon see whether I would remain!"

"Also! Miss Hallam shall consent. Now to our singing!"

I stood up. A singular apathy had come over me; I felt no longer my old self. I had a kind of confidence in von Francius, and yet--Despite my recent trouble, I felt now a lightness and freedom, and a perfect ability to cast aside all anxieties, and turn to the business of the moment--my singing. I had never sung better. Von Francius condescended to say that I had done well. Then he rose.

"Now I am going to have a private interview with Miss Hallam," said he, smiling. "I am always having private interviews with her, _nicht wahr_?

Nay, Fraulein May, do not let your eyes fill with tears. Have confidence in yourself and your destiny, as I have."

With that he was gone, leaving me to practice. How very kind von Francius was to me! I thought--not in the least the kind of man people called him. I had great confidence in him--in his will. I almost believed that he would know the right thing to say to Miss Hallam to get her to let me stay; but then, suppose she were willing, I had no possible means of support. Tired of conjecturing upon a subject upon which I was so utterly in the dark, I soon ceased that foolish pursuit.

An hour had pa.s.sed, when I heard von Francius' step, which I knew quite well, come down the stairs. My heart beat, but I could not move.

Would he pa.s.s, or would he come and speak to me? He paused. His hand was on the lock. That was he standing before me, with a slight smile. He did not look like a man defeated--but then, could he look like a man defeated? My idea of him was that he held his own way calmly, and that circ.u.mstances respectfully bowed to him.

"The day is gained," said he, and paused; but before I could speak he went on: "Go to Miss Hallam; be kind to her. It is hard for her to part from you, and she has behaved like a Spartan. I felt quite sorry to have to give her so much pain."

Much wondering what could have pa.s.sed between them, I left von Francius silently and sought Miss Hallam.

"Are you there, May?" said she. "What have you been doing all the morning?"

"Practicing--and having my lesson."

"Practicing--and having your lesson--exactly what I have been doing.

Practicing giving up my own wishes, and taking a lesson in the act of persuasion, by being myself persuaded. Your singing-master is a wonderful man. He has made me act against my principles."

"Miss Hallam--"

"You were in great trouble this morning when you heard you were to leave Elberthal. I knew it instantly. However, you shall not go unless you choose. You shall stay."

Wondering, I held my tongue.

"Herr von Francius has showed me my duty."

"Miss Hallam," said I, suddenly, "I will do whatever you wish. After your kindness to me, you have the right to dispose of my doings. I shall be glad to do as you wish."

"Well," said she, composedly, "I wish you to write a letter to your parents, which I will dictate; of course they must be consulted. Then, if they consent, I intend to provide you with the means of carrying on your studies in Elberthal under Herr von Francius."

I almost gasped. Miss Hallam, who had been a by-word in Skernford, and in our own family, for eccentricity and stinginess, was indeed heaping coals of fire upon my head. I tried, weakly and ineffectually, to express my grat.i.tude to her, and at last said:

"You may trust me never to abuse your kindness, Miss Hallam."

"I have trusted you ever since you refused Sir Peter Le Marchant, and were ready to leave your home to get rid of him," said she, with grim humor.

She then told me that she had settled everything with von Francius, even that I was to remove to different lodgings, more suited for a solitary student than Frau Steinmann's busy house.

"And," she added, "I shall ask Doctor Mittendorf to have an eye to you now and then, and to write to me of how you go on."

I could not find many words in which to thank her. The feeling that I was not going, did not need to leave it all, filled my heart with a happiness as deep as it was unfounded and unreasonable.

At my next lesson von Francius spoke to me of the future.

"I want you to be a real student--no play one," said he, "or you will never succeed. And for that reason I told Miss Hallam that you had better leave this house. There are too many distractions. I am going to put you in a very different place."

"Where? In which part of the town?"

"Wehrhahn, 39, is the address," said he.