The Tyranny of the Dark Part 2

"That is the reason you find it lonesome here." Up to this moment his att.i.tude was that of a teacher towards a pretty pupil. "You miss your cla.s.smates, I suppose? Still there must be diversions here, even for a young girl."

The mother sighed. "It really is very lonesome here for Viola--if it weren't for her church work and her music I don't know what she'd do.

There are so few young people, and then her years at the seminary spoiled her for the society out here, anyway."

"So much the worse for Colorow society," laughed Serviss. Then, to clear the shadow which had gathered on the girl's face, he said: "I see a fine piano, and shelves of music books. This argues that you love music. Won't you sing for me? I am hungry for a song."

"I do not sing," she replied, coldly, "I have no voice."

"Then play for me. I have been for eight weeks on the desert and I am famishing for music."

"Are you a musician?" asked Mrs. Lambert.

"Oh no, only a music-lover."

"My daughter is pa.s.sionately fond of the piano," the mother explained, "and her teachers advised her to go on and make a specialty of it.

They recommended Boston, but Viola wants to go to New York. She wanted to go last year, but I couldn't let her go. I'd been without her for four years, and Mr. Lambert's affairs wouldn't permit us both to go, and so she had to stay; but it _does_ seem too bad for one as gifted as she is to give it up."

At this moment Serviss changed his entire att.i.tude towards these people. They were too genuine, too trustful, and too fine to permit of any patronization, and the girl's dignified silence and the charm of her pellucid eyes and rose-leaf lips quite trans.m.u.ted him from the curious onlooker to the friend. "I can understand your dilemma," he said, with less of formal cheer and more of genuine sympathy. "And yet, if your daughter has most decided talent it is only fair to give her a chance to show what she can do."

The girl flushed and her eyes fell as the mother bent towards her visitor.

"I wish you would listen to her play, Dr. Serviss, and tell me what you think of her talent."

His eyes shone with humor. "I will listen with great pleasure; but don't ask a chemist to judge a pianist. I love music--it is a sweet noise in my ears--but I can hardly distinguish Chopin from Schumann."

He faced the girl. "Play for me. I shall be very deeply indebted." As she still hesitated he added: "Please do, or I will certainly think you consider me intrusive."

As Viola slowly rose, Mrs. Lambert said: "You must not feel that way, Dr. Serviss. We are highly honored to entertain one so eminent as you are. I was brought up to value learning. Play for him, Viola."

"What is the reason for her reluctance?" Serviss asked himself. "Is it shyness? Or does she resent me?"

With a glance of protest at her mother the girl took her seat at the piano. "I will try," she said, bluntly. "But I know I shall fail."

Twice she laid her hands upon the keys only to s.n.a.t.c.h them away again as if they were white-hot metal, and Serviss fancied her cheek grew pale. The third time she clashed out a few jarring chords intermixed with quite astonishing roulade on the treble--an unaccountable interruption, as if a third hand had been thrust in to confuse her.

She stopped, and he began to share her embarra.s.sment.

She tried again, shaking her head determinedly from side to side as if to escape some invisible annoying object. It seemed as if some mocking sprite in the instrument were laboring to make her every harmony a discord, and Serviss keenly regretted his insistence.

Suddenly she sprang up with an impatient, choking cry. "I can't do it!

He won't let me!" she pa.s.sionately exclaimed, and rushed from the room leaving her visitor gazing with pity and amazement into the face of the mother, who seemed troubled but in no wise astounded by her daughter's hysterical action. She sat in silence--a painful silence, as if lacking words to express her thought; and Serviss rose, rebuked, and for the first time ill at ease.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lambert; I didn't intend to embarra.s.s your daughter."

"She is very nervous--"

"I understand. Being a complete stranger, I should not have insisted.

One of the best singers I ever knew was so morbidly shy that on the platform she was an absolute failure. Her vocal chords became so contracted that she sang quite out of tune, and yet among friends she was magnificent."

The mother's voice was quite calm. "It was not your fault, sir.

Sometimes she's this way, even when her best friends ask her to play.

That's why I fear she will never be able to perform in concerts--she is _liable_ to these break-downs."

He was puzzled by something concealed in the mother's tone, and pained and deeply anxious to restore the peaceful charm of the home into which he had, in a sense, unbiddenly penetrated. "I am guilty--unpardonably guilty. I beg you to tell her that my request was something more than polite seeming--I was sincerely eager to hear her play. Perhaps at another time, when she has come to know me better, she will feel like trying again. I don't like to think that our acquaintance has ended thus--in discord. May I not come in again, now that I am, in a sense, explained?"

He blundered on from sentence to sentence, seeking to soften the stern, straight line on the mother's lips--a line of singular repression, sweet but firm.

"I wish you _would_ come again. I should really like your advice about Viola's future. Can't you come in this evening?"

"I shall be very glad to do so. At what hour?"

"At eight. Perhaps she will be able to play for you then."

With a feeling of having blundered into a most unpleasant predicament, through a pa.s.sing interest in a pretty girl, Serviss retreated to his hotel across the river.

V

PUPIL AND MASTER

Once out of the spell of the immediate presence of this troubled mother and her appealing daughter, Serviss began to doubt and to question. "They are almost too simple, too confiding. Why should Mrs.

Lambert, at a first meeting, accidental and without explanation, ask me to take thought of her daughter's future?" The fact that his connection with an inst.i.tution of learning gave him a sort of sanct.i.ty in their eyes did not weigh with him. He was of those who take professorships in the modern way--with levity, either real or a.s.sumed.

"I think, on the whole, I'd better keep out of this family complication, whatever it may be," he concluded. "This absence of the husband in the hills may be more significant than at present appears--it may be a voluntary sequestration. I take the hint. I am not seeking new responsibilities, and I don't care to act as adviser, even to a pretty girl--especially _not_ to a pretty girl." And he waved his hand in the manner of one declining a doubtful cigar.

But this slim young witch, with the scarlet lips and pleading gray eyes, was not so easily banished. His inward eye dwelt upon her with increasing joy, "How beautiful she was, as she stood there on that bowlder! Perhaps she was posing? She is now at the very height of her girlish charm. What an appeal she must make to the men of this region--those exquisite lips--that pliant waist--that full bosom!

There is some antagonism between mother and daughter--something more than appears on the surface. She is both sullen and hysterical. What a pity!"

She continued to trouble him as he sat again after his evening meal on the veranda of the hotel. He could hear the slow tramp of heavy boots along the sidewalks beneath him, and the roar of the Colorow, softened by distance, rose and fell like a drowsy tune. On the highest peaks the after-glow still lingered, and from one of the little cottages deep in the shadow across the stream a light appeared like a signal, an invitation, and, the blood in him being young, accepted the lure.

He rose with the impulse. "I'm going! Why not? 'Tis a night for adventure. There's no need of involving myself in any wise with their future. I'm an outsider, and will take precious good care to stay so."

His face was impa.s.sive, but his heart was quick within him as he set foot on the bridge. "Perhaps this is my Rubicon?" he said, and paused with a moment's irresolution.

His doubt, his suspicion, instantly vanished as he re-entered the pretty little sitting-room and faced the sweet-visaged mother, who tacitly acknowledged her daughter as the cause of his coming by saying:

"Viola has just stepped over to the parsonage. She will return in a moment. Won't you please be seated?"

Serviss took a chair, quite ready--even eager--to listen to the further confidences which he perceived his hostess was about to give him.

"I hope you won't think it strange, professor--"

He interrupted her. "Please don't call me professor."

"I beg your pardon, sir. I understood that you were a professor in a university."

She seemed disappointed, and he explained: "It's true I am in the hand-book as a member of the faculty, and I plead guilty to the degree of doctor of philosophy--_that_ I am proud of; but to be called professor robs me of my young humanity." This humorous explanation seemed to confuse her, and he added, kindly and naturally: "Really, Mrs. Lambert, I am a chemist and experimentalist in biology. I have no cla.s.s-room work, because the college prefers to have me make what they call 'original investigation.' And, pray, let me say that while I am very willing to a.s.sist your daughter, or to advise you in any way, I see very little of musical New York. My work confines me to my 'shop'

very closely, and when I go out I a.s.sociate almost wholly with my peculiar kind. However, I can easily secure information as to the best schools of music, for I have several friends who know all about it. I interrupted you--please continue."

This pleasant, straightforward speech restored her confidence. "I think I was about to say, sir, that it may seem strange to you that I should so suddenly ask your advice, but, you see--"