Charles Auchester Volume I Part 20

"Oh!" I cried, "how I wish I had known that."

"Why so, my dear boy?"

"Because I would have asked her what he is like,--I do so want to know."

"She does not admire him so wonderfully, Santonio says, and soon tired of his instructions. I suppose the fact is she can get on very well alone."

"But I wish I had asked her, sir," I again said, "because we should be quite sure about the conductor."

"But you forget Miss Lawrence was at the festival, Charles, and that she saw you there. Come! my boy you are not vain."

"No, sir, I don't think I am. Oh! Miss Benette, you laughed!"

"Yes, Master Auchester, because you could be no more vain than I am."

"Why not, Miss Benette?"

"Because we could neither of us be vain, side by side with our tone-master," she answered, with such a childlike single-heartedness that I was obliged to look at Davy to see how he bore it. It was very nearly dark, yet I could make out the lines of a smile upon his face.

"I am very proud to be called so, Miss Benette; but it is only a name in my case, with which I am well pleased my pupils should amuse themselves."

"Master Auchester," exclaimed Miss Benette, without reply to Davy at all, "you can ask Miss Lawrence about Monsieur Milans-Andre, if you please, for she is coming to see my work, and I think it will be to-morrow that she will come."

"Oh, thank you, Miss Benette! I suppose Miss Lawrence said that to you when Mr. Davy called me away to him?"

"I did not call you, Charles; you came yourself."

"But you kept me, sir,"--and it struck me on the instant that Davy's delicate device ought not to have been touched upon; so I felt awkward and kept silence.

I was left at home first, and promised Clara I would come, should my mother and the weather agree to permit me. I was hurried to bed by Clo, who had sat up to receive me. I was disappointed at not seeing Millicent, with the unreasonableness which is exclusively fraternal; but Clo informed me that my mother would not permit her to stay out of bed.

"And, Charles, you must not say one word to-night, but eat this slice of bacon and this egg directly, and let me take off your comforter."

The idea of eating eggs and bacon! I managed the egg, but it was all I could do, and she then presented me with a cup of hot barley-water.

Oh! have you ever tasted barley-water, with a squeeze of lemon-juice, after listening to the violin? I drank it off, and was just about to make a rush at the door when Clo stopped me.

"My dear Charles, Margareth is gone up to bed; stay until I can light you with my candle. And come into my room to undress, that you may not wake my mother by throwing your brush down."

I was marched off impotent, she preceding me upstairs with a stately step. But softly as we pa.s.sed along, Millicent heard us; she just opened a little bit of her door, and stooped to kiss me in her white dressing-gown. "I have chosen my instrument," I said, in a whisper, and she smiled. "Ah, Charles!"

I need not recapitulate my harangue the next morning when I came down late and found only Millicent left to make my breakfast. I was expected to be idle, and the rest had gone out to walk. But I wondered, when I came to think, that I had been so careless as to omit asking Clara the hour fixed for Miss Lawrence's visit,--though, perhaps, was my after-thought, she did not know herself. I need not have feared, though; for while I was lying about on the sofa after our dinner, having been informed that I must do so, or I should not practise in the evening, in came Margareth with a little white note directed to "Master Charles Auchester."

"I am sure, Master Charles," said she, "you ought to show it to my mistress, for the person that brought it was no servant in any family hereabouts, and looks more like a gypsy than anything else."

"Well, and so it is a gypsy, Margareth. Of course I shall tell my mother,--I know all about it."

Margareth wanted to know, I was sure, but I did not enlighten her further; besides, I was in too great a hurry to break the seal,--a quaint little impression of an eagle carrying in his beak an oak-branch. The note was written in a hand full of character, yet so orderly it made me feel ashamed. It was as follows:--

DEAR SIR,--The young lady is here, and I said you wished to come. She has no objection, and will stay to see you.

CLARA BENETTE.

"How like her!" I thought; and then, with an unpardonable impulse,--I don't defend myself in the least,--I flew out of the house as if my shoes had been made of satin. I left the note open upon the table (it was in the empty breakfast-room where I had been lolling), meaning thereby to save my credit,--like a simpleton as I was, for it contained not one word of explanation.

A carriage was at the door of that corner house in St. Anthony's Lane,--a dark-green carriage; very handsome, very plain, with a pair of beautiful horses: the coachman, evidently tired of waiting, was just going to turn their heads.

When I got into the room upstairs, or rather while yet upon the stairs, I smelt some refined sort of foreign scent I had once before met with in my experience; namely, when my mother had received a present of an Indian shawl in an Indian box, from an uncle of hers who had gone out to India and laid his bones there. When I really entered, Miss Lawrence, in a chair by the table, was examining some fresh specimens of Miss Benette's work outspread upon the crimson as before. I abruptly wished Clara good-day, and immediately her visitor held out her hand to me. This lady made me feel queer by daylight: I could not realize, scarcely recognize, her. She looked not so brilliant, and now I found that she was slightly sallow; her countenance might have been called heavy, from its peculiar style.

Still, I admired her eyes, though I discerned no more fireflies in her glance. She was dressed in a great shawl,--red, I think it was,--with a black bonnet and feather; and her gloves were so loose, they seemed as if they would fall off. She had an air of even more fas.h.i.+onable ease than ever, and I, not knowing that it _was_ fas.h.i.+onable ease, felt so abashed under its influence that I could not hold up my head.

She went on talking about the work. I found she wished to purchase some; but Clara would not part with any of that which was upon the table, because it was for the Quakers in Albemarle Square. But she was very willing to work specially for Miss Lawrence. I thought I had never seen Clara so calm,--I wondered she could be so calm; at once she seemed to me like myself,--a child, so awfully grown-up did Miss Lawrence appear. I beheld, too, that the latter lady glanced often stealthily round and round the room, and I did not like her the better for it. I thought she was curious, and very fine besides; so the idea of asking her about Milans-Andre pa.s.sed out of my brain completely.

She had, as I said, been discussing the work. She gave orders for embroidered handkerchiefs, and was very particular about the flowers to be worked upon them; and she gave orders for a muslin ap.r.o.n, to be surrounded with vand.y.k.es, and to have vand.y.k.ed pockets,--for a toilet cus.h.i.+on and veil; and then she said: "Will you have the goodness to send them to the Priory when they are finished? My friends live there, and will send them on to me. I wish to pay for them now,"--and she laid a purse upon the table.

"I think there is too much gold here, ma'am," said Clara, innocently.

"I know precisely the cost of work, Miss Benette: such work as yours is, besides, priceless. Recollect, you find my materials. That is sufficient, if you please." And to my astonishment, and rather dread, she turned full upon me as I was standing at the table.

"You wish to know what Milans-Andre is like, Master Charles Auchester,--for that is your name, I find. Well, thus much: he is not like you, and he is not like Santonio, nor like the unknown conductor, nor like your favorite, Mr. Davy. He is narrow at the shoulders, with long arms, small white hands, and a handsome face,--rather too large for his body. He plays wonderfully, and fills a large theatre with one pianoforte. He is very amiable, but not kind; and very famous, but not beloved."

"What an extraordinary description!" I thought; and I involuntarily added: "I thought he was your master."

She seemed touched, and answered generously: "I am afraid you think me ungrateful, but I owe nothing to him. Ah! you owe far more to your master, Mr. Davy."

I was pleased, and replied, "Oh! I know that; but I should like to hear Milans-Andre play."

"You will be sure to hear him. He will, ere long, become common, and play everywhere. But if I had a piano here, I could show you exactly how he plays, and could play you a piece of his music."

I thought it certainly a strange mistake in punctilio for Miss Lawrence to refer to the want of a piano in that room; but I little knew her. She paused, too, as she said it, and looked at Clara. Clara did not blush, nor did her sweet face change.

"I am very sorry that I have no piano; I am to have one some day when I grow rich. But Mr. Davy is kind enough to teach me at his house, and I sing to his piano there. I wish I had one, though, that you might play, Miss Lawrence."

The fire-flies all at once sparkled, almost dazzled, from the eyes of Miss Lawrence: a sudden glow, which was less color than light, beamed all over her face. I could tell she was enchanted about something or other,--at least she looked so.

"Oh! Miss Benette," she answered, in a genial tone, "you are very, very rich with such a voice as yours, and such power to make it perfect as you possess."

Clara smiled. "Thank you for saying so." Miss Lawrence had risen to go, yet she still detained herself, as having something left to do or say.

"I should like to see you both again, and to hear you. You, Miss Benette, I am sure of; but I also expect to discover something very wonderful about Master Charles Auchester. You are to be a singer, of course?" she quickly said to me.

"I hope I shall be a player, if I am to be anything."

"What, another Santonio, or another Milans-Andre?"

"Oh! neither; but I must learn the violin."

"Oh! is that it? Have you begun, and how long?"

"Not yet,--I have no violin; but I mean to begin very soon."