Charles Auchester Volume I Part 21

"Only determine, and you will. Farewell!"

She had pa.s.sed out, leaving a purse upon the table, containing fifty guineas. Miss Benette opened it, turned out the coins one by one, and, full of trouble, said, "Oh! whatever shall I do? I shall be so unhappy to keep it."

"But that is wrong, Miss Benette, because you deserve it. She is quite right."

"No, but I will keep it, because she is generous, and I can see how she loves to give."

CHAPTER XXIII.

Laura was at the next cla.s.s. I had almost forgotten her until I saw her eyes. I felt quite wicked when I perceived how thin and transparent the child had grown,--wicked to have thought so little of her in suffering, while I had been enjoying myself. I cannot give the least idea how large her eyes looked,--they quite frightened me. I was not used to see persons just out of illness. Her hair, too, was cut much shorter, and, altogether, I did not admire her so much. I felt myself again wicked for this very reason, and was quite unhappy about it. She gave me a nod. Her cheeks were quite pale, and usually they were very pink: this also affected me deeply. Clara appeared to counter-charm me, and I saw no other immediately.

"Ah, Laura, dear! you are looking quite nice again, so pretty," said this sweet girl as she took her seat; and then she stooped down and kissed the little dancer.

I found myself rather in the way; for to Clara it seemed quite natural to scatter happiness with her very looks. She turned to me, after whispering with Laura:

"She wants to thank you for the flowers, but she does not like to speak to you."

I was positively ashamed, and, to hide my confusion, said to Laura, "Do you like violets?"

"Yes, but I like large flowers better. I like red roses and blue cornflowers."

I did not care for cornflowers myself, except among the corn; and I thought it very likely Laura took the poppies for roses; still, I did not set her right,--it was too much trouble. But if I had known I should never see her again,--I mean, see her as she then was,--I should have taken more care to do her kindness. Is it not ever so?

Clara entirely engaged me; in fact, I was getting quite used _not_ to do without her. How well I remember that evening! We sang a service.

Davy had written several very simple ones, and I longed to perform them in public,--that is to say, in the singing gallery of our church.

But I might as well have aspired to sing them up in heaven, so utterly would they have been spurned as innovatory.

It was this evening I felt for the first time what I suppose all boys feel at one time or another,--that they cannot remain always just as they are. It was no satiety, it was no disappointed hope, nor any vague desire. It was purely a conviction that some change was awaiting me. I suppose, in fact, it was a presentiment. The voices of our choir seemed thin and far away; the pale cheek of Lenhart Davy seemed stamped with unearthly l.u.s.tre; the room and roof were wider, higher; the evening colors, cl.u.s.tered in the shape of windows, wooed to that distant sky. I was agitated, ecstatic. I could not sing; and when I listened, I was bewildered in more than usual excitement. s.n.a.t.c.hes of hymns and ancient psalms, morsels of the Bible, lullabies and bells, speeches of no significance, uttered years and, as it seemed, centuries ago, floated into my brain and through it, despite the present, and made there a murmurous clamor, like the din of a mighty city wafted to the ear of one who stands on a commanding hill. I mention this to prove that presentiment is not a fatuity, but something mysterious in its actuality,--like love, like joy; perhaps a pa.s.sion of memory, that antic.i.p.ates its treasures and delights _to be_.

"What beautiful words!" said Clara, in a whisper that seemed to have more sweetness than other whispers, just as some shadows have more symmetry than other shadows. She meant, "Unto whom I sware in my wrath," and the rest.

"Yes," I answered, "I like those words, all of them, and the way they are put. I always liked them when I was a little boy."

It was very hard to Miss Benette not to reply here, I could tell, she so entirely agreed with me; but Davy was recalling our attention. When the cla.s.s was over, she resumed,--

"I know exactly what you mean; for I used to feel it at the old church in London, where I went with Mr. Davy's aunt, and could not see above the pew, it was so high."

"Did you like her, Miss Benette? Is she like him?"

"No, not much. She is a good deal stricter, but she is exceedingly good; taller than he is, with much darker eyes. She taught me so much, and was so kind to me, that I only wonder I did not love her a great deal more."

I felt rather aghast, for, to tell the truth, I only wonder when I love,--never when I am indifferent, as to most persons. As we were going out, I asked leave to come and practise on the morrow,--I felt I _must_ come. I wonder what I should have done had she refused me!

"Certainly, Master Auchester." But she was looking after Laura. "Let me pin up that shawl, dear, and tie my veil upon your bonnet,--mind you wear it down in the street." The child certainly seemed to have put on her clothes in a dream, for her great shawl trailed a yard behind her on the floor, and did not cover her shoulders at all. Her bonnet-strings, now very disorderly indeed, were entangled in a knot, which Clara patiently endeavored to divide. I waited as long as I dared, but Davy was staying for me I knew, and at last he waved his hand. I could no longer avoid seeing him, and said to Clara, "Good-night." She smiled, but did not rise; she was kneeling before Laura. "Good-night, Miss Lemark."

She only looked up. The large eyes seemed like the drops of rain after a drenching shower within the chalice of some wood anemone,--too heavy for the fragile face in which they were set, and from which they gazed as if unconscious of gazing. I thought to myself, as I went out, she will die, I suppose; but I did not tell Davy so, because of his reply when I had first spoken of Laura's illness. I felt very dispirited though, and shrank from the notion, though it still obtruded itself.

Davy was very quiet. I recollect it to have been a white foggy night, and more keen than cold: perhaps that was the reason, as he was never strong in health. When I came to our door--how well I remember it!--I pulled him in upon the mat before he well knew what I was about.

"Oh! Master Charles," exclaimed Margareth, who was exclusive porteress in our select establishment, "your brother has brought you a parcel,--a present, no doubt."

"Oh! my goodness; where is Fred?"

"They are all in the parlor. But, sir, won't you walk in?"

"I beg your pardon," said Davy, absently. "Oh! no; I am going back.

Good-night, Charles."

"Oh, dear, Mr. Davy, do stay and see my present, please!"

Davy did not answer here, for the parlor door opened, and my mother appeared, benign and hospitable.

"Come in, come in!" she said, extending her hand, and I at least was in before she was out of the parlor. Fred was there, and Fred's wife--a pretty black-haired little matron, full of trivialities and full of sympathy with Lydia--was sitting by that respected sister at a little table. I ran to shake hands with Mrs. Fred, and knocked over the table. Alas! they were making bead purses, and for a few moments there was a restoration of chaos among their elements. Clo came from a dark corner, where she was wide awake over Dean Prideaux, and my mother had raised her hands in some dismay, when I was caught up by Fred and lifted high into the air.

"Well, and what do I hear," etc.

"Oh! Fred, where is my present?"

"Present, indeed! Such as it is, it lies out there. _n.o.body_ left it at the office, so Vincent tells me; but I found it there among the packages, and was strongly inclined to consider it a mistake altogether. Certainly 'Charles Auchester, Esq.,' was not 'known there;' but I smelt plum-cake, and that decided me to have it opened here."

I rushed to the chair behind the sofa, while the rest--except Millicent and Mr. Davy, who were addressing each other in the low voice which is the test of all human proprieties--were scolding in various styles. The fracas was no more to me than the jingling of the maternal keys. I found a large oblong parcel rolled in the thickest of brown papers, and tied with the thickest of strings round and round again so firmly that it was, or appeared to be, hopeless to open it unless I gnawed that cord.

"Oh! Lydia, lend me your scissors."

"For shame, Charles!" p.r.o.nounced Clo. "How often have I bidden you never to waste a piece of string!"

She absolutely began upon those knots with her fingers. My own trembled so violently that they were useless. Meanwhile, for she was about ten minutes engaged in the neat operation,--I scanned the address. It was, as Fred had mentioned to me, as an adult and as an esquire, and the writing was bold, black, and backward. It seemed to have come a long way, and smelt of travelling; also, when the paper was at length unfolded, it smelt of tow, and something oblong was m.u.f.fled in the tow.

"A box!" observed sapient Clotilda. I tore the tow out in handfuls.

"Don't strew it upon the carpet, oh, my dearest Charles!"

Clo, I defy you! It was a box truly, but what sort of a box? It had a lid and a handle. It was also fastened with little hooks of bra.s.s. It was open, I don't know how. There it lay,--there lay a real violin in the velvet lining of its varnished case!

No, I could not bear it; it was of no use to try. I did not touch it, nor examine it. I flew away upstairs. I shut myself into the first room I came to, which happened to be Lydia's; but I did not care. I rushed up to the window and pressed my face against the cold gla.s.s. I sobbed; my head beat like a heart in my brain; I wept rivers. I don't suppose the same thing ever happened to any one else, therefore none can sympathize. It was mystery, it was pa.s.sion, it was infinitude; it was to a soul like mine a romance so deep that it has never needed other. My violin was mine, and I was it, and the beauty of my romance was, in truth, an ideal charmer; for be it remembered that I knew no more how to handle it than I should have known how to conduct at the festival.

The first restoring fact I experienced was the thin yet rich vibration of that very violin. I heard its voice, somebody was trying it,--Davy, no doubt; and that marvellous quality of tone which I name a double oneness--resulting, no doubt, from the so often treated harmonics--reached and pierced me up the staircase and through the closed door. I could not endure to go down, and presently when I had begun to feel rather ghostly--for it was dead dark--I heard somebody come up and grope first here, then there, overhead and about, to find me. But I would not be found until all the places had been searched where I did not happen to be hidden. Then the person came to my door.

It was Millicent; she drew me into the pa.s.sage.

"Oh! I can't go down."

"Darling do, for my sake. They are all so pleased. Mr. Davy has been playing, and he says it is a real Amati."

"But don't let Fred touch it, please, Millicent!" For I had a vague idea it would not like to be touched by Fred.

"Why, no one _can_ touch it but Mr. Davy,--not even _you_, Charles. Do come downstairs now and look at it."

I went. Mr. Davy was holding it yet, but the instant I entered he advanced and placed it between my arms. I embraced it, much as young ladies embrace their first wax dolls, but with emotions as sweet, as deep, as mystical as those of the youth who first presses to his soul the breathing presence of his earliest love. I saw then that this violin was a tiny thing,--a very fairy of a fiddle; it was certainly not new, but I did not know how very old it was, and should not have been the least aware how valuable it was, and of what a precious costliness, but for Davy's observation, "Take care of it, Charles, and it will make you all you wish to be. I rather suspect Santonio will envy you its possession when he has tried it."