Charles Auchester Volume II Part 24

"Thone chose this cottage for me because of the number of the flowers.

I believe she thinks there is some charm in flowers which will prevent my becoming wicked! If you had been so kind as to bring your violin, I would have filled up the case with roses, and then you would not have had to carry them in your hands."

"But may I not have some, although I did not bring my violin? I never think of anything but violets, though, for strewing that sarcophagus."

"Sarcophagus means 'tomb,' does it not? It is a fine idea of resurrection, when you take out the sleeping music and make it live. I know what you mean about violets,--their perfume is like the tones of your instrument, and one can separate it from all other scents in the spring, as those tones from all other tones of the orchestra."

"I have a tender thought for violets,--a very sad one, Miss Benette; but still sweet now that what I remember has happened a long while ago."

"That is the best of sorrow,--all pa.s.ses off with time but that which is not bitter, though we can hardly call it sweet. I am grieved I talked of violets, to touch upon any sorrow you may have had to bear; still more grieved that you have had a sorrow, for you are very young."

"I seem to feel, Miss Benette, as if you must know exactly what I have gone through since I saw you, and I am forced to remember it is not the case. I am not sorry you spoke about violets, or rather that I did, because some day I must tell you the whole story of my trouble. I know not why the violet should remind me more than does the beautiful white flower upon that rose-bush over there, for I have in my possession both a white rose that has lived five summers, and an everlasting violet which will never allow me to forget."

"I know, from your look, that it is about some one dying: but why is that so sad? We must all die, Mr. Auchester, and cannot stay after we have been called."

"It may be so, and must indeed; but it was hard to understand, and I cannot now read why a creature so formed to teach earth all that is most like heaven, should go before any one had dreamed she could possibly be taken; for she had so much to do. You would not wonder at the regret I must ever feel, if you had also known her."

Clara had led me onwards as I spoke, and we stood before that rose-tree; she broke off a fresh rose quietly, and placed it in my hand.

"I am more and more unhappy. It was not because I was not sorry that I said so. Pray tell me about her."

"She was very young, Miss Benette, only sixteen; and more beautiful than any flower in this garden, or than any star in the sky; for it was a beauty of spirit, of pa.s.sion, of awful imagination. She was at school with me, and I was taught by her how slightly I had learned all things; she had learned too much, and of what men could not teach her.

I never saw such a face,--but that was nothing. I never heard such a voice,--but neither had it any power, compared with her heavenly genius and its sway upon the soul. She had written a symphony,--you know what it is to do that! She wrote it in three months, and during the slight leisure of a most laborious student life. I was alarmed at her progress, yet there was something about it that made it seem natural. She was ill once, but got over the attack; and the time came when this strange girl was to stand in the light of an orchestra and command its interpretation. It was a private performance, but I was among the players. She did not carry it through. In the very midst she fell to the ground, overwhelmed by illness. We thought her dead then, but she lived four days."

"And died, sir? Oh! she did not die?"

"Yes, Miss Benette, she died; but no one then could have wished her to live."

"She suffered so?"

"No, she was only too happy. I did not know what joy could rise to until I beheld her face with the pain all pa.s.sed, and saw her smile in dying."

"She must have been happy, then. Perhaps she had nothing she loved except Jehovah, and no home but heaven."

"Indeed, she must have been happy, for she left some one behind her who had been to her so dear as to make her promise to become his own."

"I am glad she was so wise, then, as to hide from him that she broke her heart to part with him; for she could not help it: and it was worthy of a young girl who could write a symphony," said Clara, very calmly, but with her eyes closed among the flowers she was holding in her hand. "Sir, what did they do with the symphony? and, if it is not rude, what did the rose and the violet have to do with this sad tale?"

"Oh! I should have told you first, but I wished to get the worst part over; I do not generally tell people. It was the day our prizes were distributed she took her death-blow, and I received from the Chevalier Seraphael, who superintended all our affairs, and who ordered the rewards, a breast-pin, with a violet in amethyst, in memory of certain words he spoke to me in a rather mystical chat we had held one day, in which he let fall, 'the violin is the violet.' And poor Maria received a silver rose, in memory of Saint Cecilia, to whom he had once compared her, and to whom there was a too true resemblance in her fateful life. The rose was placed in her hair by the person I told you she loved best, just as she was about to stand forth before the orchestra; and when she fainted it fell to my feet. I gathered it up, and have kept it ever since. I do not know whether I had any right to do so, but the only person to whom I could have committed it, it was impossible to insult by reminding of her. In fact, he would not permit it; he left Cecilia after she was buried, and never returned."

Clara here raised her eyes, bright and liquid, and yet all-searching; I had not seen them so.

"I feel for him all that my heart can feel. Has he never ceased to suffer? Was she all to him?"

"He will never cease to suffer until he ceases to breathe, and then he will, perhaps, be fit to bear the bliss that was withdrawn from him as too great for any mortal heart; that is his feeling, I believe, for he is still now, and uncomplaining,--ever proud, but only proud about his sorrow. Some day you will, I trust, hear him play, and you will agree with me how that grief must have grown into a soul so pa.s.sionate."

"You mean, when you say he is proud, he will not be comforted, I suppose? There are persons like that, I know; but I do not understand it."

"I hope you never will, Miss Benette. You must suffer with your whole nature to refuse comfort."

"To any one so suffering I should say, the comfort is that all those who suffer are reserved for joy."

"Not here, though."

"But it will not be less joy because it is saved for by and by. Now that way of talking makes me angry; I believe there is very little faith."

"Very little, I grant. But poor Florimond Anastase does not fail there."

She stopped beside me as we were pacing the lawn.

"Florimond Anastase! you did not say so? Do you mean the great player?

I have heard of that person."

Her face flushed vividly, as rose hues flowing into pearl, her aspect altered, she seemed convicted of some mistaken conclusion; but, recovering herself almost instantly, resumed,--

"Thank you for telling me that story,--it will make me better, I hope.

I do not deserve to have grown up so well and strong. May I do my duty for it, and at least be grateful! You did not say what was done with the symphony?"

"The person I mentioned would not allow it to be retained. And, indeed, what else could be done? It was buried in her virgin grave,--a maiden work. She sleeps with her music, and I know not who could have divided them."

"You have told me a story that has turned you all over, like the feeling before a thunder-storm. I will not hear a word more. You cannot afford to talk of what affects you. Now, let me be very impertinent and change the key."

"By all means; I have said quite enough, and will thank you."

"There is Laura in the arbor, just across the gra.s.s; we will go to her, if you please, and you shall see her pretty pink frock among the roses, instead of my black gown. On the way I will tell you that there is some one, a lady too, so much interested in you that she was going down to your neighborhood on purpose to find out about you; but I prevented her from coming, by saying you would be here, and she answered,--

"'Tell him, then, to come and call upon me.'"

"It can only have been one living lady who would have sent that message,--Miss Lawrence. Actually I had forgotten all about her, and she returns upon me with a strong sense of my own ingrat.i.tude. I will certainly call upon her, and I shall be only too glad to identify my benefactress."

"That you cannot do; she will not allow it,--at least, to this hour she persists in perfect innocence of the fact."

"That she provided us both with exactly what we wanted at exactly the right time? She chalked out my career, at least. I'll make her understand how I feel. Is she not a character?"

"Not more so than yourself, but still one, certainly; and a peculiarity of hers is, that generous--too generous almost--as she is, she will not suffer the slightest allusion to her generosities to be made, nor hint to be circulated that she has a heart at all."

Laura was sitting in the arbor, which was now at hand, but not, as Clara prophesied, among the roses in any sense, for the green branches that festooned the lattice were flowerless until the later summer, and her face appeared fading into a mist of green. The delicate leaves framed her as a picture of melancholy that has attired itself in mirth, which mirth but served to fling out the shadow by contrast and betray the source. Clara sat on one side, I on the other, and presently we went in to tea. But I did not hear the voice I longed for that evening, nor was the pianoforte opened that I so well remembered standing in its "dark corner."

CHAPTER XI.

I determined not to let a day pa.s.s without calling on Miss Lawrence, for I had obtained her address before I left the cottage, and I set forth the following morning. It was in the midst of a desert of West-end houses, none of which have any peculiar characteristic, or suggest any peculiar notion. When I reached the door, I knocked, and it being opened, gave in my card to the footman, who showed me into a dining-room void of inhabitants, and there left me.

It seemed strange enough to my perception, after I could sit down to breathe, that a lady should live all by herself in such an immense place; but I corrected myself by remembering she might possibly not live by herself, but have brothers, sisters, nay, any number of relations or dependants. She certainly did not dine in that great room, at that long table polished as a looking-gla.s.s, where half a regiment might have messed for change. There were heavy curtains, striped blue and crimson, and a n.o.ble sideboard framed in an arch of yellow marble.

The walls were decorated with deep-toned pictures on a ground almost gold color; and I was fastened upon one I could not mistake as a Murillo, when the footman returned, but only to show me out, for Miss Lawrence was engaged. I was a little crestfallen, not conceitedly so, but simply feeling I had better not have taken her at her word, and retreated in some confusion. Returning very leisurely to my two apartments near the Strand, and stopping very often on the way at music or print shops, I did not arrive there for at least an hour, and was amazed on my entrance to find a note, directed to myself, lying upon the parlor table-cloth.