Charles Auchester Volume I Part 10

"He was not sorry to go, for he loved his wife, and she went first."

"Oh, that was Miss Benette's mamma?"

"Yes, her lovely mamma."

"Of course she was lovely. If you please, sir, tell me about her too."

But Davy reserved his tale until we were at home.

My mother fully expected him, it was evident; for upon the table, besides the plain but perfectly ordered meal we always enjoyed at about nine o'clock, stood the supernumerary ill.u.s.trations--in honor of a guest--of boiled custards, puff pastry, and our choicest preserves.

My mother, too, was sitting by the fire in a species of state, having her hands void of occupation and her pocket-handkerchief outspread.

Millicent and Lydia wore their dahlia-colored poplin frocks,--quite a Sunday costume,--and Clo revealed herself in purple silk, singularly adapted for evening wear, as it looked black by candle-light!

I never sat up to supper except on very select occasions. I knew this would be one, without being told so, and secured the next chair to my darling friend's.

I would that I could recall, in his own expressive language, his exact relation of his own history as told to us that night. It struck us that he should so earnestly acquaint us with every incident,--at least, it surprised us then, but his after connection with ourselves explained it in that future.

No fiction could be more fraught with fascinating personality than his actual life. I pa.s.s over his birth in England (and in London), in a dark room over a dull book-shop, in his father's house. That father, from pure breeding and const.i.tutional exclusiveness, had avoided all intercourse with his cla.s.s, and conserved his social caste by his marriage only. I linger not upon his remembrance of his mother, Sybilla Lenhart,--herself a Jewess, with the most exquisite musical ability,--nor upon her death in her only son's tenth year.

His father's pining melancholy meantime deepened into an abstraction of misery on her loss. The world and its claims lost their hold, and he died insolvent when Lenhart was scarcely twelve.

Then came his relation of romantic wanderings in Southern France and Germany, like a troubadour, or minnesinger, with guitar and song; of his accidental friends.h.i.+ps and fancy fraternities, till he became choir-alto at a Lutheran church in the heart of the Eichen-Land. Then came the story of his attachment to the young, sage organist of that very church, who, in a fairy-like adventure, had married a count's youngest daughter, and never dared to disclose his alliance; of her secret existence with him in the topmost room of an old house, where she never dared to look out of the window to the street for fear she should be discovered and carried back,--the etiquette requisite to cover such an abduction being quite alien from my comprehension, by the way, but so Davy a.s.sured us she found it necessary to abide; of their one beautiful infant born in the old house, and the curious saintly carving about its wooden cradle; of the young mother, too hastily weaned from luxurious calm to the struggling dream of poverty, or at least uncertain thrift; of her fading, falling into a stealthy sickness, and of the night she lay (a Sunday night) and heard the organ strains swell up and melt into the moonlight from her husband's hand; of Lenhart Davy's presence with her alone that night, unknowing, until the music-peal was over, that her soul had pa.s.sed to heaven, as it were, in that cloud of music.

But I must just observe that Davy made as light as possible of his own pure and characteristic decision, developed even in boyhood. He pa.s.sed over, almost without comment, the more than elder brotherly care he must have bestowed on the beautiful infant, and dwelt, as if to divert us from that point, upon the woful cares that had pressed upon his poor friend,--upon his own trouble when the young organist himself, displaced by weakness from his position, made his own end, even as Lenhart's father, an end of sorrow and of love.

Davy, indeed, merely mentioned that he had brought little Clara to England himself, and left her in London with his own mother's sister, whose house he always reckoned his asylum, if not his home. And then he told us of his promise to Clara's father that she should be brought up musically, and that no one should educate her until she should be capacitated to choose her own masters, except Davy, to whom her father had imparted a favorite system of his own.

I remember his saying, in conclusion, to my mother: "You must think it strange, dear madam, that I brought Miss Benette away from London, and alone. I could not remain in London myself, and I have known for years that her voice, in itself, would become to her more than the expected heritage. My aunt taught her only to work. This was my stipulation; and she now not only supports herself by working,--for she is very independent,--but is in possession of a separate fund besides, which is to carry her through a course of complete instruction elsewhere,--perhaps in Italy or Germany."

I saw how much my mother felt impressed by the dignity and self-reliance that so characterized him, but I scarcely expected she would take so warm an interest in his _protegee_. She said she should like to see some of Miss Benette's work; and again I descanted on its beauties and varieties, supported by my hero, who seemed to admire it almost as much as I did.

"Then I may go and practise with Miss Benette?" I said, in conclusion.

"Oh, certainly; and you must ask her to come and see you some evening when Mr. Davy is kind enough to drink tea with us."

"That curious little Laura too," thought I; "they would not like _her_ so well, I fancy. But though I do dislike her myself, I wish I could find out what they do with her."

I was going to practise the day after the next, and methought I will then discover.

CHAPTER XV.

I took a very small pot of honey for Miss Benette; Millicent had begged it for me of Lydia, who was queen-bee of the store-closet. I ran all the way as usual, and was very glad to get in. The same freshness pervaded the staircase; but when I reached the black door, I heard two voices instead of one. I was rather put out. "Laura is there! I shall not like singing with her; it is very tiresome!" I stood still and listened; it was very lovely. How ineffable music must be to the blind! yet oh, to miss that which may be embraced by sight!

I knocked, and they did not hear me; again--they both ceased singing, and Laura ran to the door. Instead of being dressed in her old clothes, she perfectly startled me by the change in her costume,--a glittering change, and one from herself; for through it she appeared unearthly, and if not spiritual, something very near it. Large gauze pantaloons, drawn in at the ankles, looked like globes of air about her feet; her white silk slippers were covered with spangles; so also was her frock, and made of an illusive material like clouds; and her white sash, knotted at her side, was edged with silver fringe. Her amber necklace was no more there, but on her arms she had thick silver rings, with little clinking bells attached. She wore her hair, not in those stray ringlets, but drawn into two broad plaits, unfastened by knot or ribbon; but a silver net covered all her head behind, though it met not her forehead in front, over whose wide, but low expanse, her immense eyes opened themselves like l.u.s.trous moons.

"Miss Lemark," cried I, unfeignedly, "what are you going to do in that dress?"

"Come, Master Auchester, do not trouble her; she must be ready for her papa when he calls, so I have dressed her in order that she might practise with us."

"Miss Benette," I answered, "I think it is most extremely pretty, though very queer; and I did not mean to tease her. I wish you would tell me why you put it on, though."

"To dance in," said Laura, composedly. "I am going to dance in 'Scheradez, or the Magic Pumpkin.' It is so pretty! But Miss Benette is so kind to me; she lets me have tea with her the nights I dance."

"But do you live in this house, then?"

"Oh, I wish I did! Oh, Clara, I wish I did live with you!" and she burst into a fit of her tears.

Miss Benette arose and came to her, laying down a piece of muslin she was embroidering. "Do not cry, dear; it will spoil your pretty frock,--besides, Master Auchester has come on purpose to sing, and you detain him."

Laura instantly sat on a chair before the music-stand; her diaphanous skirts stood round her like the petals of a flower, and with the tears yet undried she began to sing, in a clear little voice, as expressionless as her eyes, but as enchanting to the full as her easy, painless movements. It was very pleasurable work now, and Clara corrected us both, she all the while sustaining a pure golden soprano.

"I am tired," suddenly said Laura.

"Then go into the other room and rest a little. Do not ruffle your hair, which I have smoothed so nicely, and be sure not to lie down upon the bed, or you will make those light skirts as flat as pancakes."

"How am I to rest, then?"

"In the great white chair."

"But I don't want to sit still,--I only mean I am tired of singing. I want to dance my _pas_."

"Then go into the other room all the same; there is no carpet,--it is best."

"I don't like dancing in that room, it is so small."

"It is not smaller than this one. The fact is, you want to dance to Master Auchester."

"Yes, so I do."

"But he came to sing, not to see you."

"I should like to see her dance, though," said I. "Do let her, Miss Benette!"

"If you can stay. But do not begin the whole of that dance, Laura,--only the finale, because there will not be time; and you will besides become too warm, if you dance from the beginning, for the cold air you must meet on your way to the theatre."

Miss Benette's solemn manner had great authority over the child, it was certain. She waited until the elder had put aside the brown table,--"That you may not blow my bits of work about and tread upon them," she remarked. "Shall I sing for you, Laura?"

"Oh, please do, pray do, Miss Benette!" I cried; "it will be so charming."

She began gravely, as in the anthem, but with the same serene and genial perfection, to give the notes of a wild measure, in triple time, though not a waltz.

Laura stood still and gazed upwards until the opening bars had sounded, then she sprang, as it were, into s.p.a.ce, and her whole aspect altered. Her cheeks grew flushed as with a fiery impulse; her arms were stretched, as if embracing something more ethereal than her own presence; a suavity, that was almost languor, at the same time took possession of her motions. The figure was full of difficulty, the time rapid, the step absolutely twinkling. I was enraptured; I was lost in this kind of wonder,--"How very strange that any one should call dancing wrong when it is like that! How extraordinary that every one does not think it lovely! How mysterious that no one should talk about her as a very great wonder! She is almost as great a wonder as Miss Benette. I should like to know whether Mr. Davy has seen her dance."

But though I called it dancing, as I supposed I must, it was totally unlike all that I had considered dancing to be. She seemed now suspended in the air, her feet flew out with the spangles like a shower of silver sparks, her arms were flung above her, and the silver bells, as she floated by me without even brus.h.i.+ng my coat, clinked with a thrilling monotone against Clara's voice. Again she whirled backwards, and, letting her arms sink down, as if through water or some resisting medium, fell into an att.i.tude that restored the undulating movement to her frame, while her feet again twinkled, and her eyes were raised. "Oh!" I exclaimed, "how lovely you look when you do that!" for the expression struck me suddenly. It was an illumination as from above, beyond the clouds, giving a totally different aspect from any other she had worn. But lost in her maze, she did not, I believe, hear me. She quickened and quickened her footsteps till they merely skimmed the carpet, and, with a slide upon the very air, shook the silver bells as she once more arched her arms and made a deep and spreading reverence. Miss Benette looked up at me and smiled.

"Now you must go; it is your time, and I want to give Laura her tea."