The Price She Paid Part 33

Brindley summoned her pupils and her musical friends. Mildred resumed the lessons with Jennings. There was no doubt about it, she had astonishingly improved during the summer. There had come--or, rather, had come back--into her voice the birdlike quality, free, joyous, spontaneous, that had not been there since her father's death and the family's downfall. She was glad that her arrangement with Donald Keith was of such a nature that she was really not bound to go on with it--if he should ever come back and remind her of what she had said. Now that Jennings was enthusiastic--giving just and deserved praise, as her own ear and Mrs. Brindley a.s.sured her, she was angry at herself for having tolerated Keith's frankness, his insolence, his insulting and contemptuous denials of her ability. She was impatient to see him, that she might put him down. She said to Jennings:

"You think I can make a career?"

"There isn't a doubt in my mind now," replied he. "You ought to be one of the few great lyric sopranos within five years."

"A man, this summer--a really unusual man in some ways--told me there was no hope for me."

"A singing teacher?"

"No, a lawyer. A Mr. Keith--Donald Keith."

"I've heard of him," said Jennings. "His mother was Rivi, the famous coloratura of twenty years ago."

Mildred was astounded. "He must know something about music."

"Probably," replied Jennings. "He lived with her in Italy, I believe, until he was almost grown. Then she died. You sang for him?"

"No," Mildred said it hesitatingly.

"Oh!" said Jennings, and his expression--interested, disturbed, puzzled--made Mildred understand why she had been so reluctant to confess. Jennings did not pursue the subject, but abruptly began the lesson. That day and several days thereafter he put her to tests he had never used before. She saw that he was searching for something--for the flaw implied in the adverse verdict of the son of Lucia Rivi. She was enormously relieved when he gave over the search without having found the flaw. She felt that Donald Keith's verdict had been proved false or at least faulty. Yet she was not wholly rea.s.sured, and from time to time she suspected that Jennings had not been, either.

Soon the gayety of the preceding winter and spring was in full swing again. Keith did not return, did not write, and Cyrilla Brindley inquired and telephoned in vain. Mildred worked with enthusiasm, with hope, presently with confidence. She hoped every day that Keith would come; she would make him listen to her, force him to admit. She caught a slight cold, neglected it, tried to sing it away. Her voice left her abruptly. She went to Jennings as usual the day she found herself able to do nothing more musical than squeak. She told him her plight. Said he:

"Begin! Let's hear."

She made a few dismal attempts, stopped short, and, half laughing, half ashamed, faced him for the lecture she knew would be forthcoming. Now, it so happened that Jennings was in a frightful humor that day--one of those humors in which the most prudent lose their self-control. He had been listening to a succession of new pupils--women with money and no voice, women who screeched and screamed and thoroughly enjoyed themselves and angled confidently for compliments. As Jennings had an acute musical ear, his sufferings had been frightful. He was used to these torments, had the habit of turning the fury into which they put him into excellent financial or disciplinary account. But on this particular day his nerves went to pieces, and it was with Mildred that the explosion came. When she looked at him, she was horrified to see a face distorted and discolored by sheer rage.

"You fool!" he shouted, storming up and down. "You fool! You can't sing! Keith was right. You wouldn't do even for a church choir. You can't be relied on. There's nothing behind your voice--no strength, no endurance, no brains. No brains! Do you hear?--no brains, I say!"

Mildred was terrified. She had seen him in tantrums before, but always there had been a judicious reserving of part of the truth. Instead of resenting, instead of flashing eye or quivering lips, Mildred sat down and with white face and dazed eyes stared straight before her. Jennings raved and roared himself out. As he came to his senses from this debauch of truth-telling his first thought was how expensive it might be. Thus, long before there was any outward sign that the storm had pa.s.sed, the ravings, the insults were shrewdly tempered with qualifyings. If she kept on catching these colds, if she did not obey his instructions, she might put off her debut for years--for three years, for two years at least. And she would always be rowing with managers and irritating the public--and so on and on. But the mischief had been done. The girl did not rouse.

"No use to go on to-day," he said gruffly--the pretense at last rumblings of an expiring storm.

"Nor any other day," said Mildred.

She stood and straightened herself. Her face was beautiful rather than lovely. Its pallor, its strong lines, the melancholy intensity of the eyes, made her seem more the woman fully developed, less, far less, the maturing girl.

"Nonsense!" scolded Jennings. "But no more colds like that. They impair the quality of the voice."

"I have no voice," said the girl. "I see the truth."

Jennings was inwardly cursing his insane temper. In about the kindliest tone he had ever used with her, he said: "My dear Miss Stevens, you are in no condition to judge to-day. Come back to-morrow. Do something for that cold to-night. Clear out the throat--and come back to-morrow. You will see."

"Yes, I know those tricks," said she, with a sad little smile. "You can make a crow seem to sing. But you told me the truth."

"To-morrow," he cried pleasantly, giving her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. He knew the folly of talking too much, the danger of confirming her fears by pretending to make light of them. "A good sleep, and to-morrow things will look brighter."

He did not like her expression. It was not the one he was used to seeing in those vain, "temperamental" pupils of his--the downcast vanity that will be up again in a few hours. It was rather the expression of one who has been finally and forever disillusioned.

On her way home she stopped to send Keith a telegram: "I must see you at once."

There were several at the apartment for tea, among them Cullan, an amateur violinist and critic on music whom she especially liked. For, instead of the dreamy, romantic character his large brown eyes and sensitive features suggested, he revealed in talk and actions a boyish gayety--free, be it said, from boyish silliness--that was most infectious. His was one of those souls that put us in the mood to laugh at all seriousness, to forget all else in the supreme fact of the reality of existence. He made her forget that day--forget until Keith's answering telegram interrupted: "Next Monday afternoon."

A week less a day away! She shrank and trembled at the prospect of relying upon herself alone for six long days. Every prop had been taken away from her. Even the dubious prop of the strange, unsatisfactory Keith. For had he not failed her? She had said, "must"

and "at once"; and he had responded with three words of curt refusal.

After dinner Stanley unexpectedly appeared. He hardly waited for the necessary formalities of the greeting before he said to Mrs. Brindley: "I want to see Mildred alone. I know you won't mind, Mrs. Brindley.

It's very important." He laughed nervously but cheerfully. "And in a few minutes I'll call you in. I think I'll have something interesting to tell you."

Mrs. Brindley laughed. With her cigarette in one hand and her cup of after-dinner coffee in the other, she moved toward the door, saying gayly to Mildred:

"I'll be in the next room. If you scream I shall hear. So don't be alarmed."

Stanley closed the door, turned beaming upon Mildred. Said he: "Here's my news. My missus has got her divorce."

Mildred started up.

"Yes, the real thing," he a.s.sured her. "Of course I knew what was doing. But I kept mum--didn't want to say anything to you till I could say everything. Mildred, I'm free. We can be married to-morrow, if you will."

"Then you know about me?" said she, confused.

"On the way I stopped in to see Keith. He told me about that skunk--told me you were free, too."

Mildred slowly sat down. Her elbows rested upon the table. There was her bare forearm, slender and round, and her long, graceful fingers lay against her cheek. The light from above reflected charmingly from the soft waves and curves of her hair. "You're lovely--simply lovely!"

cried Stanley. "Mildred--darling--you WILL marry me, won't you? You can go right on with the career, if you like. In fact, I'd rather you would, for I'm frightfully proud of your voice. And I've changed a lot since I became sincerely interested in you. The other sort of life and people don't amuse me any more. Mildred, say you'll marry me. I'll make you as happy as the days are long."

She moved slightly. Her hand dropped to the table.

"I guess I came down on you too suddenly," said he. "You look a bit dazed."

"No, I'm not dazed," replied she.

"I'll call Mrs. Brindley in, and we'll all three talk it over."

"Please don't," said she. "I've got to think it out for myself."

"I know there isn't anyone else," he went on. "So, I'm sure--dead sure, Mildred, that I can teach you to love me."

She looked at him pleadingly. "I don't have to answer right away?"

"Certainly not," laughed he. "But why shouldn't you? What is there against our getting married? Nothing. And everything for it. Our marriage will straighten out all the--the little difficulties, and you can go ahead with the singing and not bother about money, or what people might say, or any of those things."

"I--I've got to think about it, Stanley," she said gently. "I want to do the decent thing by you and by myself."

"You're afraid I'll interfere in the career--won't want you to go on?

Mildred, I swear I'm--"

"It isn't that," she interrupted, her color high. "The truth is--" she faltered, came to a full stop--cried, "Oh, I can't talk about it to-night."