The First Violin

CHAPTER III

“Lucifer, Star of the Morning! How art thou fallen!”

I found myself, without having met any one of my family, in my own room, in the semi-darkness, seated on a chair by my bedside, unnerved, faint, miserable with a misery such as I had never felt before. The window was open, and there came up a faint scent of sweetbrier and wall-flowers in soft, balmy gusts, driven into the room by the April night wind. There rose a moon and flooded the earth with radiance. Then came a sound of footsteps; the door of the next room, that belonging to Adelaide, was opened. I heard her come in, strike a match, and light her candle; the click of the catch as the blind rolled down. There was a door between her room and mine, and presently she passed it, and bearing a candle in her hand, stood in my presence. My sister was very beautiful, very proud. She was cleverer, stronger, more decided than I, or rather, while she had those qualities very strongly developed, I was almost without them. She always held her head up, and had one of those majestic figures which require no back-boards to teach them uprightness, no master of deportment to instill grace into their movements. Her toilet and mine were not, as may be supposed, of very rich materials or varied character; but while my things always looked as bad of their kind as they could – fitted badly, sat badly, were creased and crumpled – hers always had a look of freshness; she wore the merest old black merino as if it were velvet, and a muslin frill like a point-lace collar. There are such people in the world. I have always admired them, envied them, wondered at them from afar; it has never been my fate in the smallest degree to approach or emulate them.

Her pale face, with its perfect outlines, was just illumined by the candle she held, and the light also caught the crown of massive plaits which she wore around her head. She set the candle down. I sat still and looked at her.

“You are there, May,” she remarked.

“Yes,” was my subdued response.

“Where have you been all evening?”

“It does not matter to any one.”

“Indeed it does. You were talking to Sir Peter Le Marchant. I saw you meet him from my bedroom window.”

“Did you?”

“Did he propose to you?” she inquired, with a composure which seemed to me frightful. “Worldly,” I thought, was a weak word to apply to her, and I was suffering acutely.

“He did.”

“Well, I suppose it would be a little difficult to accept him.”

“I did not accept him.”

“What?” she inquired, as if she had not quite caught what I said.

“I refused him,” said I, slightly raising my voice.

“What are you telling me?”

“The truth.”

“Sir Peter has fif – ”

“Don’t mention Sir Peter to me again,” said I, nervously, and feeling as if my heart would break. I had never quarreled with Adelaide before. No reconciliation afterward could ever make up for the anguish which I was going through now.

“Just listen to me,” she said, bending over me, her lips drawn together. “I ought to have spoken to you before. I don’t know whether you have ever given any thought to our position and circumstances. If not, it would be as well that you should do so now. Papa is fifty-five years old, and has three hundred a year. In the course of time he will die, and as his life is not insured, and he has regularly spent every penny of his income – naturally it would have been strange if he hadn’t – what is to become of us when he is dead?”

“We can work.”

“Work!” said she, with inexpressible scorn. “Work! Pray what can we do in the way of work? What kind of education have we had? The village school-mistress could make us look very small in the matter of geography and history. We have not been trained to work, and, let me tell you, May, unskilled labor does not pay in these days.”

“I am sure you can do anything, Adelaide, and I will teach singing. I can sing.”

“Pooh! Do you suppose that because you can take C in alt. you are competent to teach singing? You don’t know how to sing yourself yet. Your face is your fortune. So is mine my fortune. So is Stella’s her fortune. You have enjoyed yourself all your life; you have had seventeen years of play and amusement, and now you behave like a baby. You refuse to endure a little discomfort, as the price of placing yourself and your family forever out of the reach of trouble and trial. Why, if you were Sir Peter’s wife, you could do what you liked with him. I don’t say anything about myself; but oh! May, I am ashamed of you, I am ashamed of you! I thought you had more in you. Is it possible that you are nothing but a romp – nothing but a vulgar tomboy? Good Heaven! If the chance had been mine!”

“What would you have done?” I whispered, subdued for the moment, but obstinate in my heart as ever.

“I am nobody now; no one knows me. But if I had had the chance that you have had to-night, in another year I would have been known and envied by half the women in England. Bah! Circumstances are too disgusting, too unkind!”

“Oh! Adelaide, nothing could have made up for being tied to that man,” said I, in a small voice; “and I am not ambitious.”

“Ambitious! You are selfish – downright, grossly, inordinately selfish. Do you suppose no one else ever had to do what they did not like? Why did you not stop to think instead of rushing away from the thing like some unreasoning animal?”

“Adelaide! Sir Peter! To marry him?” I implored in tears. “How could I? I should die of shame at the very thought. Who could help seeing that I had sold myself to him?”

“And who would think any the worse of you? And what if they did? With fifteen thousand a year you may defy public opinion.”

“Oh, don’t! don’t!” I cried, covering my face with my hands. “Adelaide, you will break my heart!”

Burying my face in the bed-quilt, I sobbed irrepressibly. Adelaide’s apparent unconsciousness of, or callousness to, the stabs she was giving me, and the anguish they caused me, almost distracted me.

She loosed my arm, remarking, with bitter vexation:

“I feel as if I could shake you!”

She left the room. I was left to my meditations. My head – my heart too – ached distractingly; my arm was sore where Adelaide had grasped it; I felt as if she had taken my mind by the shoulders and shaken it roughly. I fastened both doors of my room, resolving that neither she nor any one else should penetrate to my presence again that night.

What was I to do? Where to turn? I began now to realize that the Res dom, which had always seemed to me so abundant for all occasions, were really Res Angusta, and that circumstances might occur in which they would be miserably inadequate.

CHAPTER IV

“Zu Rathe gehen, und vom Rath zur That.”

There was surely not much in Miss Hallam to encourage confidences; yet within half an hour of the time of entering her house I had told her all that oppressed my heart, and had gained a feeling of greater security than I had yet felt. I was sure that she would befriend me. True, she did not say so. When I told her about Sir Peter Le Marchant’s proposal to me, about Adelaide’s behavior; when, in halting and stammering tones, and interrupted by tears, I confessed that I had not spoken to my father or mother upon the subject, and that I was not quite sure of their approval of what I had done, she even laughed a little, but not in what could be called an amused manner. When I had finished my tale, she said:

“If I understand you, the case stands thus: You have refused Sir Peter Le Marchant, but you do not feel at all sure that he will not propose to you again. Is it not so?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“And you dread and shrink from the idea of a repetition of this business?”

“I feel as if it would kill me.”

“It would not kill you. People are not so easily killed as all that; but it is highly unfit that you should be subjected to a recurrence of it. I will think about it. Will you have the goodness to read me a page of this book?”

Much surprised at this very abrupt change of the subject, but not daring to make any observation upon it, I took the book – the current number of a magazine – and read a page to her.

“That will do,” said she. “Now, will you read this letter, also aloud?”

She put a letter into my hand, and I read:

“Dear Madame, – In answer to your letter of last week, I write to say that I could find the rooms you require, and that by me you will have many good agreements which would make your stay in Germany pleasanter. My house is a large one in the Alléestrasse. Dr. Mittendorf, the oculist, lives not far from here, and the Städtische Augenklinik – that is, the eye hospital – is quite near. The rooms you would have are upstairs – suite of salon and two bedrooms, with room for your maid in another part of the house. I have other boarders here at the time, but you would do as you pleased about mixing with them.

“With all highest esteem,“Your devoted,“‘Clara Steinmann.’”

“You don’t understand it all, I suppose?” said she, when I had finished.

“No.”

“That lady writes from Elberthal. You have heard of Elberthal on the Rhine, I presume?”

“Oh, yes! A large town. There used to be a fine picture-gallery there; but in the war between the – ”

“There, thank you! I studied Guy’s geography myself in my youth. I see you know the place I mean. There is an eye hospital there, and a celebrated oculist – Mittendorf. I am going there. I don’t suppose it will be of the least use; but I am going. Drowning men catch at straws. Well, what else can you do? You don’t read badly.”

“I can sing – not very well, but I can sing.”

“You can sing,” said she, reflectively. “Just go to the piano and let me hear a specimen. I was once a judge in these matters.”

I opened the piano and sung, as well as I could, an English version of “Die Lotus-blume.”

My performance was greeted with silence, which Miss Hallam at length broke, remarking:

“I suppose you have not had much training?”

“Scarcely any.”

“Humph! Well, it is to be had, even if not in Skernford. Would you like some lessons?”

“I should like a good many things that I am not likely ever to have.”

“At Elberthal there are all kinds of advantages with regard to those things – music and singing, and so on. Will you come there with me as my companion?”

I heard, but did not fairly understand. My head was in a whirl. Go to Germany with Miss Hallam; leave Skernford, Sir Peter, all that had grown so weary to me; see new places, live with new people; learn something! No, I did not grasp it in the least. I made no reply, but sat breathlessly staring.

“But I shall expect you to make yourself useful to me in many ways,” proceeded Miss Hallam.

At this touch of reality I began to waken up again.

“Oh, Miss Hallam, is it really true? Do you think they will let me go?”

“You haven’t answered me yet.”

“About being useful? I would do anything you like – anything in the world.”

“Do not suppose your life will be all roses, or you will be woefully disappointed. I do not go out at all; my health is bad – so is my temper very often. I am what people who never had any trouble are fond of calling peculiar. Still, if you are in earnest, and not merely sentimentalizing, you will take your courage in your hands and come with me.”

“Miss Hallam,” said I, with tragic earnestness, as I took her hand, “I will come. I see you half mistrust me; but if I had to go to Siberia to get out of Sir Peter’s way, I would go gladly and stay there. I hope I shall not be very clumsy. They say at home that I am, very, but I will do my best.”

“They call you clumsy at home, do they?”

“Yes. My sisters are so much cleverer than I, and can do everything so much better than I can. I am rather stupid, I know.”

“Very well, if you like to call yourself so, do. It is decided that you come with me. I will see your father about it to-morrow. I always get my own way when I wish it. I leave in about a week.”

I sat with clasped hands, my heart so full that I could not speak. Sadness and gladness struggled hard within me. The idea of getting away from Skernford was almost too delightful; the remembrance of Adelaide made my heart ache.

CHAPTER V

Consent was given. Sir Peter was not mentioned to me by my parents, or by Adelaide. The days of that week flew rapidly by.

I was almost afraid to mention my prospects to Adelaide. I feared she would resent my good fortune in going abroad, and that her anger at having spoiled those other prospects would remain unabated. Moreover, a deeper feeling separated me from her now – the knowledge that there lay a great gulf of feeling, sentiment, opinion between us, which nothing could bridge over or do away with. Outwardly we might be amiable and friendly to each other, but confidence, union, was fled over. Once again in the future, I was destined, when our respective principles had been tried to the utmost, to have her confidence – to see her heart of hearts; but for the present we were effectually divided. I had mortally offended her, and it was not a case in which I could with decency even humble myself to her. Once, however, she mentioned the future.

When the day of our departure had been fixed, and was only two days distant; when I was breathless with hurried repairing of old clothes, and the equally hurried laying in of a small stock of new ones; while I was contemplating with awe the prospect of a first journey to London, to Ostend, to Brussels, she said to me, as I sat feverishly hemming a frill:

“So you are going to Germany?”

“Yes, Adelaide.”

“What are you going to do there?”

“My duty, I hope.”

“Charity, my dear, and duty too, begins at home. I should say you were going away leaving your duty undone.”

I was silent, and she went on:

“I suppose you wish to go abroad, May?”

“You know I have always wished to go.”

“So do I.”

“I wish you were going too,” said I, timidly.

“Thank you. My views upon the subject are quite different. When I go abroad I shall go in a different capacity to that you are going to assume. I will let you know all about it in due time.”

“Very well,” said I, almost inaudibly, having a vague idea as to what she meant, but determined not to speak about it.

The following day the curtain rose upon the first act of the play – call it drama, comedy, tragedy, what you will – which was to be played in my absence. I had been up the village to the post-office, and was returning, when I saw advancing toward me two figures which I had cause to remember – my sister’s queenly height, her white hat over her eyes, and her sunshade in her hand, and beside her the pale face, with its ragged eyebrows and hateful sneer, of Sir Peter Le Marchant.

Adelaide, not at all embarrassed by his company, was smiling slightly, and her eyes with drooped lids glanced downward toward the baronet. I shrunk into a cottage to avoid them as they came past, and waited. Adelaide was saying:

“Proud – yes, I am proud, I suppose. Too proud, at least, to – ”

There! Out of hearing. They had passed. I hurried out of the cottage, and home.

The next day I met Miss Hallam and her maid (we three traveled alone) at the station, and soon we were whirling smoothly along our southward way – to York first, then to London, and so out into the world, thought I.

CHAPTER VI

“Ein Held aus der Fremde, gar kühn.”

We had left Brussels and Belgium behind, had departed from the regions of Chemins de fer, and entered those of Eisenbahnen. We were at Cologne, where we had to change and wait half an hour before we could go on to Elberthal. We sat in the wartesaal, and I had committed to my charge two bundles, with strict injunctions not to lose them.

Then the doors were opened, and the people made a mad rush to a train standing somewhere in the dim distance. Merrick, Miss Hallam’s maid, had to give her whole attention to her mistress. I followed close in their wake, until, as we had almost come to the train, I cast my eyes downward and perceived that there was missing from my arm a gray shawl of Miss Hallam’s, which had been committed to my charge, and upon which she set a fidgety kind of value, as being particularly warm or particularly soft.

Dismayed, I neither hesitated nor thought, but turned, fought my way through the throng of people to the waiting-room again, hunted every corner, but in vain, for the shawl. Either it was completely lost, or Merrick had, without my observing it, taken it under her own protection. It was not in the waiting-room. Giving up the search I hurried to the door: it was fast. No one more, it would seem, was to be let out that way; I must go round, through the passages into the open hall of the station, and so on to the platform again. More easily said than done. Always, from my earliest youth up, I have had a peculiar fancy for losing myself. On this eventful day I lost myself. I ran through the passages, came into the great open place surrounded on every side by doors leading to the platforms, offices, or booking offices. Glancing hastily round, I selected the door which appeared to my imperfectly developed “locality” to promise egress upon the platform, pushed it open, and going along a covered passage, and through another door, found myself, after the loss of a good five minutes, in a lofty deserted wing of the station, gazing wildly at an empty platform, and feverishly scanning all the long row of doors to my right, in a mad effort to guess which would take me from this delightful terra incognito back to my friends.

Gepäck-Expedition, I read, and thought it did not sound promising. Telegraphs bureau. Impossible! Ausgang. There was the magic word, and I, not knowing it, stared at it and was none the wiser for its friendly sign. I heard a hollow whistle in the distance. No doubt it was the Elberthal train going away, and my heart sunk deep, deep within my breast. I knew no German word. All I could say was “Elberthal;” and my nearest approach to “first-class” was to point to the carriage doors and say “Ein,” which might or might not be understood – probably not, when the universal stupidity of the German railway official is taken into consideration, together with his chronic state of gratuitous suspicion that a bad motive lurks under every question which is put to him. I heard a subdued bustle coming from the right hand in the distance, and I ran hastily to the other end of the great empty place, seeing, as I thought, an opening. Vain delusion! Deceptive dream of the fancy! There was a glass window through which I looked and saw a street thronged with passengers and vehicles. I hurried back again to find my way to the entrance of the station and there try another door, when I heard a bell ring violently – a loud groaning and shrieking, and then the sound, as it were, of a train departing. A porter – at least a person in uniform, appeared in a door-way. How I rushed up to him! How I seized his arm, and dropping my rugs gesticulated excitedly and panted forth the word “Elberthal!”

“Elberthal?” said he in a guttural bass; “Wollt ihr nach Elberthal, fräuleinchen!”

There was an impudent twinkle in his eye, as it were impertinence trying to get the better of beer, and I reiterated “Elberthal,” growing very red, and cursing all foreign speeches by my gods – a process often employed, I believe, by cleverer persons than I, with reference to things they do not understand.

“Schon fort, Fräulein,” he continued, with a grin.

“But where – what – Elberthal!”

He was about to make some further reply, when, turning, he seemed to see some one, and assumed a more respectful demeanor. I too turned, and saw at some little distance from us a gentleman sauntering along, who, though coming toward us, did not seem to observe us. Would he understand me if I spoke to him? Desperate as I was, I felt some timidity about trying it. Never had I felt so miserable, so helpless, so utterly ashamed as I did then. My lips trembled as the new-comer drew nearer, and the porter, taking the opportunity of quitting a scene which began to bore him, slipped away. I was left alone on the platform, nervously snatching short glances at the person slowly, very slowly approaching me. He did not look up as if he beheld me or in any way remarked my presence. His eyes were bent toward the ground: his fingers drummed a tune upon his chest. As he approached, I heard that he was humming something. I even heard the air; it has been impressed upon my memory firmly enough since, though I did not know it then – the air of the march from Raff’s Fifth Symphonie, the “Lenore.” I heard the tune softly hummed in a mellow voice, as with face burning and glowing, I placed myself before him. Then he looked suddenly up as if startled, fixed upon me a pair of eyes which gave me a kind of shock; so keen, so commanding were they, with a kind of tameless freedom in their glance such as I had never seen before.

Arrested (no doubt by my wild and excited appearance), he stood still and looked at me, and as he looked a slight smile began to dawn upon his lips. Not an Englishman. I should have known him for an outlander anywhere. I remarked no details of his appearance; only that he was tall and had, as it seemed to me, a commanding bearing. I stood hesitating and blushing. (To this very day the blood comes to my face as I think of my agony of blushes in that immemorial moment.) I saw a handsome – a very handsome face, quite different from any I had ever seen before: the startling eyes before spoken of, and which surveyed me with a look so keen, so cool, and so bright, which seemed to penetrate through and through me; while a slight smile curled the light mustache upward – a general aspect which gave me the impression that he was not only a personage, but a very great personage – with a flavor of something else permeating it all which puzzled me and made me feel embarrassed as to how to address him. While I stood inanely trying to gather my senses together, he took off the little cloth cap he wore, and bowing, asked:

“Mein Fräulein, in what can I assist you?”

His English was excellent – his bow like nothing I had seen before. Convinced that I had met a genuine, thorough fine gentleman (in which I was right for once in my life), I began:

“I have lost my way,” and my voice trembled in spite of all my efforts to steady it. “In a crowd I lost my friends, and – I was going to Elberthal, and I turned the wrong way – and – ”

“Have come to destruction, nicht wahr?” He looked at his watch, raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. “The Elberthal train is already away.”

“Gone!” I dropped my rugs and began a tremulous search for my pocket-handkerchief. “What shall I do?”

“There is another – let me see – in one hour – two —will ’mal nachsehen. Will you come with me, Fräulein, and we will see about the trains.”

“If you would show me the platform,” said I. “Perhaps some of them may still be there. Oh, what will they think of me?”

“We must go to the wartesaal,” said he. “Then you can look out and see if you see any of them.”

I had no choice but to comply.

My benefactor picked up my two bundles, and, in spite of my expostulations, carried them with him. He took me through the door inscribed Ausgang, and the whole thing seemed so extremely simple now, that my astonishment as to how I could have lost myself increased every minute. He went before me to the waiting-room, put my bundles upon one of the sofas, and we went to the door. The platform was almost as empty as the one we had left.

I looked round, and though it was only what I had expected, yet my face fell when I saw how utterly and entirely my party had disappeared.