Charles Auchester Volume I Part 16

I was very glad; for I abjured those braided garments, compa.s.sing about my very heels with bondage, with utter satisfaction. Still, I was amused. "I suppose it is for this party I am going to," thought I.

FOOTNOTE:

[10] Music and Medicine.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The next day at cla.s.s, Laura's place still being empty, I watched eagerly for Clara. The people were pouring in at the door, and I, knowing their faces, could not but feel how unlike she was to them all, when in the way she appeared, so bright in her dark dress, with her cloudless forehead and air of ecstatic innocence. She spoke to me to-day.

"How are you?"

"Quite well; and you, Miss Benette? But I want you to listen to me presently; seriously, I have something to say."

"I'll wait," and she took her seat.

Davy extolled our anthem, and did not stop us once, which fact was unprecedented. We all applauded _him_ when he praised _us_, at which he laughed, but was evidently much pleased. In fact, he had already made for himself a name and fame in the town, and the antagonistic jealousy of the resident professors could not cope therewith, without being worsted; they had given him up, and now let him alone,--thus his sensitive nature was less attacked, and his energy had livelier play.

When the cla.s.s divided, Miss Benette looked round at me: "I am at your service, Master Auchester."

I gave her my mother's message. She was sweet and calm as ever, but still grave, and she said, "I am very grateful to your mother, and to those young ladies your sisters; but I never do go anywhere out to tea."

"But, Miss Benette, you are going to that party at the Redferns'."

"I am going to sing there,--that is different. It is very hard to me not to come, but I must not, because I have laid it upon myself to do nothing but study until I come out. Because, you see, if I make friends now, I might lose them then, for they might not like to know me."

"Miss Benette!"--I stamped my foot--"how dare you say so? We should always be proud to know you."

"I cannot tell that," she retorted; "it might be, or it might not.

Perhaps you will think I am right one day. I should like to have come," she persisted bewitchingly. But I was inwardly hurt, and I daresay she thought me outwardly sulky, for it was all I could do to wish her good-evening like a "young gentleman," as she had called me.

I said to Millicent, when we were walking the next morning, that I had had my fortune told. We had a long conversation. I saw she was very anxious to disabuse me of the belief that I must necessarily be what, in myself, I had always held myself ready to become, and I laughed her quite to scorn.

"But, Charles," she remonstrated, "if this is to be, you must be educated with a direct view to those purposes."

"So I shall be; but when she said medicine she did not mean I should be an apothecary, Millicent," and I laughed the more.

"No, I rather think it is music you ought to profess. But in that case you will require high as well as profound instruction."

"I mean to profess an instrument, and I mean to go to Germany and learn all about it."

"My dear boy!"

"Yes, I do, and I know I shall; but as I have not chosen my instrument yet, I shall wait."

Millicent herself laughed heartily at this. "Would you like to learn the horn, Charles? or the flute? or perhaps that new instrument, the ophicleide?" And so the subject dwindled into a joke for that while. I then told her in strict confidence about Laura. I scarcely ever saw her so much excited to interest; she evidently almost thought Clara herself angelic, and to my delight she at length promised to call with me upon her, if I would ascertain that it would be convenient. I shall never forget, too, that Millicent begged for me from my mother some baked apples, some delicate spiced jelly, and some of her privately concocted lozenges, for Laura. I do think my mother would have liked to dispense these last _a la largesse_ among the populace. I carried these treasures in a small basket to Miss Benette, and saw her just long enough to receive her a.s.surance that she should be so pleased if my sister would come and look at her work.

Sweet child! as indeed she was by the right of Genius (who, if Eros be immortal youth, hath alone immortal fancy),--she had laid every piece of her beauteous work, every sc.r.a.p of net or cambric, down to that very last handkerchief, upon the table, which she had covered with a crimson shawl, doubtless some relic of her luxurious mother conserved for her. And with the instinct of that ideal she certainly created in her life, she had interspersed the lovely manufactures with little bunches of wild-flowers and green, and a few berries of the wild rose-tree, ripe and red.

I was enchanted. I was proud beyond measure to introduce to her my sister; proud of them both. Millicent was astonished, amazed; I could see she was quite puzzled with pleasure, but more than all she seemed lost in watching Clara's calm, cloudless face.

"Which of the pieces do you like best?" asked Miss Benette at last, after we had fully examined all.

"Oh! it is really impossible to say; but if I could prefer, I should confess, perhaps, that this is the most exquisitely imagined;" and Millicent pointed to a veil of thin white net, with the border worked in the most delicate shades of green floss silk, a perfect wreath of myrtle-leaves; and the white flowers seemed to tremble amidst that shadowy garland. I never saw anything to approach them; they were far more natural than any paintings.

Miss Benette took this veil up in her little pink hands, and folding it very small, and wrapping it in silver paper, presented it to Millicent, saying, in a child-like but most touching manner, "You must take it, then, that you may not think I am ungrateful; and I am so glad you chose that."

As Millicent said, it would have been impossible to have refused her anything. I quite longed to cry, and the tears stood in my tender-hearted sister's eyes; but Clara seemed entirely unconscious she had done anything touching or pretty or complete.

If I go on in this way, raking the embers of reminiscence into rosy flames, I shall never emanc.i.p.ate myself into the second great phase of my existence. It is positively necessary that I should not revert to that veil at present, or I should have to delineate astonishment and admiration that had no end.

CHAPTER XIX.

At last the day came, and having excited myself the whole morning about the Redferns, I left off thinking of them, and returned to myself. Although it portends little, I may transmit to posterity the fact that my new clothes came home at half-past three, and my mother beheld me arrayed in them at five. Davy had all our parts and the songs of Miss Benette, for she was to sing alone if requested to do so, and was to be ready, when I should call, to accompany me.

I was at length p.r.o.nounced at liberty to depart,--that is, everybody had examined me from head to foot. I had a sprig of the largest myrtle in the greenhouse quilted into the second and third b.u.t.ton-holes, and my white gloves were placed in my pocket by Clo, after she had wrapped them in white paper. I privately carried a sprig of myrtle, too, for Miss Benette: it was covered with blossom, and of a very fine species.

Thone never answered the door in St. Anthony's Lane, but invariably the same extraordinary figure who had startled me on my first visit.

She stared so long with the door in her hand, this time, that I rushed past her and ran up the stairs.

Still singing! Yes, there she was, in her little bonnet, but from head to foot enveloped in a monstrous cloak; I could not see what dress she wore. It was November now, and getting very dusk; but we had both expressed a wish to walk, and Davy always preferred it. How curious his sh.e.l.l looked in the uncertain gleam! The tiny garden, as immaculate as ever, wore the paler s.h.i.+ne of asters and Michaelmas daisies; and the cas.e.m.e.nt above, being open, revealed Davy watching for us through the twilight. He came down instantly, sweeping the flower-shrubs with his little cloak, and having locked the door and put the key into his pocket, he accosted us joyously, shaking hands with us both. But he held all the music under his cloak too, nor would I proceed until he suffered me to carry it. We called for Mr. Newton, our companion tenor, who lived a short way in the town. He met us with white gloves ready put on, and in the bravery of a white waistcoat, which he exhibited through the opening of his jauntily hung great-coat. I left him behind with Davy, and again found myself with Miss Benette. I began to grow nervous when, having pa.s.sed the shops and factories of that district, we emerged upon the Lawborough Road, lit by a lamp placed here and there, with dark night looming in the distant highway. Again we pa.s.sed house after house standing back in ma.s.ses of black evergreen; but about not a few there was silence, and no light from within. At length, forewarned by rolling wheels that had left us far behind them, we left the gate of the Priory and walked up to the door.

It was a very large house, and one of the carriages had just driven off as Davy announced his name. One of three footmen, lolling in the portico, aroused and led us to a room at the side of the hall, shutting us in. It was a handsome room, though small, furnished with a looking-gla.s.s; here were also various coats and hats reposing upon chairs. I looked at myself in the gla.s.s while Davy and our tenor gave themselves the last touch, and then left it clear for them. I perceived that Miss Benette had not come in with us, or had stayed behind. She had taken off her bonnet elsewhere, and when we were all ready, and the door was opened, I saw her once more, standing underneath the lamp. I could not find out how she was dressed; her frock was, as usual, black silk, but of the very richest. She wore long sleeves, and drooping falls upon her wrists of the finest black lace; no white against her delicate throat, except that in front she had placed a small but really magnificent row of pearls. Her silky dark hair she wore, as usual, slightly drooped on either temple, but neither curled nor banded. I presented her with the myrtle sprig, which she twisted into her pearls, seeming pleased with it; but otherwise she was very unexcited, though very bright. I was not bright, but very much excited; I quite shook as we walked up the soft stair-carpet side by side. She looked at me in evident surprise.

"You need not be nervous, Master Auchester, I a.s.sure you!"

"It is going into the drawing-room, and being introduced, I hate; will there be many people, do you think?"

She opened her blue eyes very wide when I asked her, and then, with a smile quite new to me upon her face, a most enchanting but sorely contemptuous smile, she said,--

"Oh! we are not going in there,--did you think so? There is a separate room for us, in which we are to sip our coffee."

I was truly astonished, but I had not time to frame any expression; we were ushered forward into the room she had suggested. It was a sort of inner drawing-room apparently, for there were closed folding-doors in the wall that opposed the entrance. An elegant chandelier hung over a central rosewood table; on this table lay abundance of music, evidently sorted with some care. Two tall wax-candles upon the mantelshelf were reflected in a tall mirror in tall silver sticks; the gold-colored walls were pictureless, and crimson damask was draperied and festooned at the shuttered window. Crimson silk chairs stood about, and so did the people in the room, whom we began, Clara and I, to scrutinize. Standing at the table by Davy, and pointing with a white kid finger to the music thereon arranged, was an individual with the organs of melody and of benevolence in about equal development; he was talking very fast. I was sure I knew his face, and so I did. It was the very Mr. Westley who came upon us in the corridor at the festival. He taught the younger Miss Redferns, of whom there was a swarm; and as they grew they were pa.s.sed up to the tuition of Monsieur Mirandos, a haughtily-behaved being, in the middle of the rug, warming his hands, gloves and all, and gazing with the self-consciousness of pianist primo then and there present. It was Clara who initiated me into this fact, and also that he taught the competent elders of that exclusively feminine flock, and that he was the author of a grand fantasia which had neither predecessor nor descendant. Miss Benette and I had taken two chairs in the corner next the crimson curtain, and nestling in there we laughed and we talked.

"Who is the man in a blue coat with bright b.u.t.tons, now looking up at the chandelier?" I inquired.

"That is a man who has given his name an Italian termination, but I forget it. He has a great name for getting up concerts, and I daresay he will be a sort of director to-night."

So it was, at least so it seemed, for he at last left the room, and returning presented us each with a sheet of pink-satin note-paper, on which were named and written in order the compositions awaiting interpretation. We looked eagerly to see where our first glee came.

"Oh! not for a good while, Master Auchester. But do look, here is that Mirandos going to play his _grande fantaisie sur des motifs militaires_. Oh! who is that coming in?"

Here Miss Benette interrupted herself, and I, excited by her accent, looked up simultaneously.