Visionaries Part 25

She knew him! Stunned by his overstrung emotions, he could only bow his head.

II

He received the welcome of a king. The two men he had seen earlier in the day advanced ceremoniously and informed him that the honour of his presence was something they had never hoped for; that--as news flies swiftly in villages--they had heard he was at Alt-Aussee; they had recognized the _great_ Marco Davos on the road. These statements were delivered with exaggerated courtesy, though possibly sincere. The elder of the pair was white-whiskered, very tall and spare, his expression a sadly vague one. It was her father. The other an antique person, a roly-poly fellow who chuckled and quavered, was her uncle. Davos sat in a drawing-room containing a grand pianoforte, a few chairs, and couches.

The floor was stained, and when a cl.u.s.ter of lights was brought by the uncle, he noticed that only Chopin portraits hung on the walls. He apologized for his intrusion--the music had lured him from the highroad.

"We are very musical," said the father.

"I should say so," reiterated his brother-in-law.

"Musical!" echoed Davos. "Do you call it by such an everyday phrase? I heard the playing of a marvellous poet a moment ago." The two men looked shyly at each other. She entered. He was formally presented.

"Monsieur Davos, this is Constantia Grabowska, my daughter. My name is Joseph Grabowski; my late wife's brother, Monsieur Pelletier." Davos was puzzled by the name, Constantia Grabowska! She sat before him, dressed in black silk with crinoline; two dainty curls hung over her ears; her profile, her colouring, were slightly Oriental, and in her nebulous gray eyes with their greenish light there was eternal youth.

Constantia! Polish. And how she played Chopin--ah! it came to him before he had finished his apologies.

"You are named after Chopin's first love," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Pardon the liberty." She answered him in her grave, measured contralto.

"Constantia Gladowska was my grandmother." The playing, the portraits, were now explained. A lover of the Polish composer, Davos knew every incident of his biography.

"I am the son of that Joseph Grabowski, the Warsaw merchant who married the soprano singer, Constantia Gladowska, in 1832," said the father, smilingly. "My father became blind."

"Chopin's _Ideal_!" exclaimed Marco. He was under the spell of the girl's beauty and music. He almost stared at her, for the knowledge that she was a great artiste, perhaps greater than himself, rather dampened his pa.s.sion. She was adorable as she returned without coquetry his ardent gaze; but she was--he had to admit it--a rival. This composite feeling he inwardly wrestled with as the conversation placidly proceeded. They only spoke of Poland, of Chopin. Once the name of Emilia Plater, the Polish Joan of Arc, was mentioned--she, too, was a distant connection. The young pianist hinted that more music would be agreeable, but there was no response. He was quite alone with Constantia, and they talked of Poland's tone-poet. She knew much more of Chopin than he did, and she recited Mickewicz's patriotic poems with incomparable verve.

"Do you believe in heredity?" he cried, as the father entered with the tea. "Do you believe that your love of Chopin is inherited? Chopin composed that wonderful slow movement of the F minor concerto because of his love for your grandmother. How I wish I could have seen her, heard her."

The girl, without answering him, detached from her neck a large brooch and chain. Davos took it and amazedly compared the portrait with the living woman.

"You _are_ Constantia Gladowska." She smiled.

"Her love of Chopin--she must have loved her youthful adorer--has been transmitted to you. Oh, please play me that movement again, the one Rubinstein called 'the night wind sweeping over the churchyard graves.'"

Constantia blushed so deeply that he knew he had offended her. She had for him something of the pathos of old dance music--its stately sweetness, its measured rhythms. After drinking a cup of tea he drifted to the instrument--flies do not hanker after honey as strongly as do pianists in the presence of an open keyboard. A tactful silence ensued.

He began playing, and, as if exasperated at the challenge implied by her refusal, he played in his old form. Then he took the theme of Chopin's E flat minor Scherzo, and he juggled with it, spun it into fine fibres of tone, dashed it down yawning and serried harmonic abysses. He was magnificent as he put forth all the varied resources of his art.

Constantia, her cheeks ablaze, her lips parted, interposed a fan between her eyes and the light. There was something dangerous and pa.s.sionate in her regard. In all the fury of his play he knew that he had touched her.

Once, during a pause, he heard her sigh. As he finished in a thunderous crash he saw in the doorway the figure of the j.a.panese maid--an ugly, gnarled idol with slitted eyes. She withdrew when he arose to receive the unaffected homage of his hosts. He was curious. Monsieur Pelletier, who looked like a Brazilian parrot in beak and hue, cackled:--

"That's Cilli, our j.a.panese. She was born in Germany, and is my niece's governess. Quite musical, too, I should say so. Just look at my two Maltese cats! I call them Tristan and Isolde because they make noises in the night. Don't you _loathe_ Wagner?"

It was time to go. Enamoured, Davos took his leave, promising to call the next forenoon before he went back to Ischl. He held her fingers for a brief moment and longed to examine their tips,--the artist still struggled to subdue the man,--but the pressure he received was so unmistakable that he hurried away, fearing to betray his emotion. He hovered in the vicinity of the house, longing for more music. He was disappointed. For a full hour he wandered through the dusty lanes in the faded light of an old moon. When he reached his chamber, it was long past one o'clock; undaunted, his romantic fervour forced him to the window, and he watched the s.h.i.+ning lake. He fell asleep thinking of Constantia. But he dreamed of Cilli, the j.a.panese maid with the hideous eyes.

III

Not only that morning, but every morning for two weeks, did Marco Davos visit Alt-Aussee. He came down from Ischl on the earliest train, and some nights he stopped at the hotel near his new friends. After a few visits he saw little of the father and uncle, and he was not sorry--they were old bores with their archaic anecdotes of dead pianists. Two maniacs on the subject of music, Davos wished them to the devil after he had known them twenty-four hours. His pa.s.sion had reached the acute key.

He could not eat or drink in normal fas.h.i.+on, and no sooner had he left the girl than the sky became sombre, his pulse weakened, and he longed to return to her side to tell her something he had forgotten. He did this several times, and hesitated in his speech, reddened, and left her, stumbling over the gra.s.s like a lame man. Never such a crazy wooer, never a calmer maiden. She looked unutterable sentiment, but spoke it not.

When he teased her about her music, she became a statue. She was too timid to play before artists; her only master had been her father. Once more he had heard the piano as he returned unexpectedly, and almost caught her; he saw her at the instrument, but some instinct must have warned her that she was being spied upon. She stopped in the middle of a phrase from a Mendelssohn song, and even to his prejudiced ears her touch had seemed commonplace. Yet he loved her all the more despite her flat refusal to play. The temptation to his excited artistic temperament was removed. He played, often, gloriously. His nerves were steel. This was a cure his doctor had not foreseen. What did it matter, anyhow?--he was near Constantia daily, and the suns.h.i.+ne was royal. Only--why did her relatives absent themselves so obstinately! She told him, with her secret smile, that she had scolded them for talking so much; but when he played they were never far away, she a.s.sured him. Nor was the j.a.panese woman, Cilli--what a name! A nickname given by Constantia in her babyhood. Cilli was a good soul. He hoped so--her goodness was not apparent. She had a sneering expression as he played. He never looked up from the keyboard that he did not encounter her ironical gaze. She was undoubtedly interested. Her intensity of pose proved it; but there was no sympathy in her eyes. And she had a habit of suddenly appearing in door or window, and always behind her mistress. She ended by seriously annoying him, though he did not complain. It was too trivial.

One afternoon he unfolded his novel views on touch. If the action of the modern pianoforte could be made as sensitive in its response as the fingerboard of a fiddle.... Constantia listened with her habitual gravity, but he knew that she was bored. Then he s.h.i.+fted to the subject of fingers. He begged to be allowed the privilege of examining hers. At first she held back, burying her hand in the old Mechlin lace flounce of her sleeves. He coaxed. He did not attempt to conceal his chagrin when he finally saw her fingers. They were pudgy, good-humoured, fit to lift a knife and fork, or to mend linen. They did not match her cameo-like face, and above all they did not reveal the musical soul he knew her to possess. For the first time since he met her she gave evidence of ill humour. She sharply withdrew her hand from his, and as she did so a barbaric croon was heard, a sort of triumphant wailing, and Constantia, without making an excuse, hurriedly left the room. The singing stopped.

"It's that devil of a j.a.panese woman," he muttered testily. He waited for nearly an hour, and in a vile temper took up his hat and stick and went away. Decidedly this was his unlucky day, he grumbled, as he reached the water. He saw Grabowski and Pelletier, arm in arm, trudging toward the villa, but contrived to evade them. In ten minutes he found himself spying on the house he had quitted. He skirted a little private way back of the villa, and to his amazement father, uncle, and Constantia came out and hailed the omnibus which travelled hourly to Aussee. Davos was furious. He did not risk following them, for he realized he had been treated shabbily. His wrath softened as he reflected; perhaps Constantia, agitated by his rudeness,--had he been rude?--persuaded her family to follow him to Ischl. The sky cleared.

That was the solution--Marco Davos straightened himself--his pride was no longer up in arms. Poor child--she was so easily wounded! How he loved her!

His body trembled. He could not believe he was awake. Incredible music was issuing from behind the closed blinds of the villa. Music! And the music he had overheard that first night. But Constantia had just gone away; he had seen her. There must be some mistake, some joke. No, no, by another path she had managed to get back to the house. Ay! but what playing. Again came that purling rush of notes, those unison pa.s.sages, as if one gigantic hand grasped them--so perfect was the tonal accord.

He did not hesitate. At a bound he was in the corridor and pushed open the door of the drawing-room....

At first the twilighted room blinded him. Then to his disgust and terror he saw the apelike features of the squat j.a.panese governess. She sat at the piano, her bilious skin flushed by the exertion of playing.

"You--you!" he barely managed to stammer. She did not reply, but preserved the immobility of a carved idol.

"You are a wonderful artiste," he blurted, going to her. She stolidly answered:--

"The j.a.panese have the finest sense of touch in the world. I was once a pupil of Karl Tausig." Involuntarily he bowed his head to the revered name of the one man he had longed to hear. Then his feelings almost strangled him; his master pa.s.sion a.s.serted itself.

"Your fingers, your fingers--let me see them," he hoa.r.s.ely demanded.

With a malicious grin she extended her hands--he groaned enviously. Yes, they were miracles of sculpture, miracles of colour and delicacy, the slender tips well-nigh prehensile in their cunning power. And the fingers of Constantia, of his love, of the woman who loved Chopin--that Chopin whose first pa.s.sion was for her grandmother, the opera singer Constantia Gladowska!

The knowledge of her cruel deception crept into his consciousness. He was chilled for several seconds. Grief at his lost love, implacable anger at her trickery, crowded into his unhappy brain. But he only bowed to Cilli, and summoning all his will he politely said:--

"It is quite true that when the j.a.panese choose to play the piano, we Europeans must shut up shop." He hurried out to the road and walked desperately....

The next morning, as he nervously paced the platform of the Ischl railway station, he encountered his old friend Alfred Brunfeld, the jovial Viennese pianist.

"Hullo!"

"Hullo!"

"Not going back to Vienna?"

"Yes--I'm tired of the country."

"But, man, you are pale and tired. Have you been studying up here after your doctor bade you rest?" The concern in Brunfeld's voice touched Davos. He shook his head, then bethought himself of something.

"Alfred, you are acquainted with everybody in Europe. How is it you never told me about that strange Grabowski crowd--you know, the granddaughter of Chopin's first love?" Brunfeld looked at him with instant curiosity.

"You also?" he said. The young man blushed. After _that_ he could never forgive! The other continued:--

"Granddaughter, fiddlesticks! They are not Poles, those Grabowskis, but impostors. Their real name is--is--" Davos started.

"What, you have met them?"

"Yes, the stupid father, the odious uncle, the fair Constantia--what a meek saint!--and that diabolical j.a.panese, who plays the piano like a house on fire." Tears came to the eyes of Marco Davos.

"Did they--I mean, did _she_ take you in, too?"

"Here, at Ischl, last summer," was the grim reply.