The Place of Honeymoons Part 23

CHAPTER XIV

A COMEDY WITH MUSIC

The Harrigans occupied the suite in the east wing of the villa. This consisted of a large drawing-room and two ample bedchambers, with window-balconies and a private veranda in the rear, looking off toward the green of the pines and the metal-like l.u.s.ter of the copper beeches. Always the suite was referred to by the management as having once been tenanted by the empress of Germany. Indeed, tourists were generally and respectively and impressively shown the suite (provided it was not at the moment inhabited), and were permitted to peer eagerly about for some sign of the vanished august presence. But royalty in pa.s.sing, as with the most humble of us, leaves nothing behind save the memory of a tip, generous or otherwise.

It was raining, a fine, soft, blurring Alpine rain, and a blue-grey monotone prevailed upon the face of the waters and defied all save the keenest scrutiny to discern where the mountain tops ended and the sky began. It was a day for indoors, for dreams, good books, and good fellows.

The old-fas.h.i.+oned photographer would have admired and striven to perpetuate the group in the drawing-room. In the old days it was quite the proper thing to snap the family group while they were engaged in some pleasant pastime, such as spinning, or painting china, or playing the piano, or reading a volume of poems. No one ever seemed to bother about the incongruence of the eyes, which were invariably focused at the camera lens. Here they all were. Mrs. Harrigan was deep in the intricate maze of the Amelia Ars of Bologna, which, as the initiated know, is a wonderful lace. By one of the windows sat Nora, winding interminable yards of lace-hemming from off the willing if aching digits of the Barone, who was speculating as to what his Neapolitan club friends would say could they see, by some trick of crystal-gazing, his present occupation. Celeste was at the piano, playing (_pianissimo_) s.n.a.t.c.hes from the operas, while Abbott looked on, his elbows propped upon his knees, his chin in his palms, and a quality of ecstatic content in his eyes. He was in his working clothes, picturesque if paint-daubed. The morning had been pleasant enough, but just before luncheon the rain clouds had gathered and settled down with that suddenness known only in high alt.i.tudes.

The ex-gladiator sat on one of those slender mockeries, composed of gold-leaf and parabolic curves and faded brocade, such as one sees at the Trianon or upon the stage or in the new home of a new millionaire, and which, if the true facts be known, the ingenious Louis invented for the discomfort of his favorites and the folly of future collectors. It creaked whenever Harrigan sighed, which was often, for he was deeply immersed (and no better word could be selected to fit his mental condition) in the baneful book which he had hurled out of the window the night before, only to retrieve like the good dog that he was. To-day his shoes offered no loophole to criticism; he had very well attended to that. His tie harmonized with his s.h.i.+rt and stockings; his suit was of grey tweed; in fact, he was the gla.s.s of fas.h.i.+on and the mold of form, at least for the present.

"Say, Molly, I don't see what difference it makes."

"Difference what makes, James?" Mrs. Harrigan raised her eyes from her work. James had been so well-behaved that morning it was only logical for her to antic.i.p.ate that he was about to abolish at one fell stroke all his hard-earned merits.

"About eating salads. We never used to put oil on our tomatoes. Sugar and vinegar were good enough."

"Sugar and vinegar are not nouris.h.i.+ng; olive-oil is."

"We seemed to hike along all right before we learned that." His guardian angel was alert this time, and he returned to his delving without further comment. By and by he got up. "Pshaw!" He dropped the wearisome volume on the reading-table, took up a paper-covered novel, and turned to the last fight of the blacksmith in _Rodney Stone_. Here was something that made the invention of type excusable, even commendable.

"Play the fourth _ballade_," urged Abbott.

Celeste was really a great artist. As an interpreter of Chopin she had no rival among women, and only one man was her equal. She had fire, tenderness, pa.s.sion, strength; she had beyond all these, soul, which is worth more in true expression than the most marvelous technique. She had chosen Chopin for his brilliance, as some will chose Turner in preference to Corot: riots of color, barbaric and tingling. She was as great a genius in her way as Nora was in hers. There was something of the elfin child in her spirit. Whenever she played to Abbott, there was a quality in the expression that awakened a wonderment in Nora's heart.

As Celeste began the _andante_, Nora signified to the Barone to drop his work. She let her own hands fall. Harrigan gently closed his book, for in that rough kindly soul of his lay a mighty love of music. He himself was without expression of any sort, and somehow music seemed to stir the dim and not quite understandable longing for utterance. Mrs. Harrigan alone went on with her work; she could work and listen at the same time. After the magnificent finale, nothing in the room stirred but her needle.

"Bravo!" cried the Barone, breaking the spell.

"You never played that better," declared Nora.

Celeste, to escape the keen inquiry of her friend and to cover up her embarra.s.sment, dashed into one of the lighter compositions, a waltz. It was a favorite of Nora's. She rose and went over to the piano and rested a hand upon Celeste's shoulder. And presently her voice took up the melody.

Mrs. Harrigan dropped her needle. It was not that she was particularly fond of music, but there was something in Nora's singing that cast a temporary spell of enchantment over her, rendering her speechless and motionless. She was not of an a.n.a.lytical turn of mind; thus, the truth escaped her. She was really lost in admiration of herself: she had produced this marvelous being!

"That's some!" Harrigan beat his hands together thunderously. "Great stuff; eh, Barone?"

The Barone raised his hands as if to express his utter inability to describe his sensations. His elation was that ascribed to those fortunate mortals whom the G.o.ds lifted to Olympus. At his feet lay the lace-hemming, hopelessly snarled.

"Father, father!" remonstrated Nora; "you will wake up all the old ladies who are having their siesta."

"Bah! I'll bet a doughnut their ears are glued to their doors. What ho!

Somebody's at the portcullis. Probably the padre, come up for tea."

He was at the door instantly. He flung it open heartily. It was characteristic of the man to open everything widely, his heart, his mind, his hate or his affection.

"Come in, come in! Just in time for the matinee concert."

The padre was not alone. Courtlandt followed him in.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Courtlandt followed him in.]

"We have been standing in the corridor for ten minutes," affirmed the padre, sending a winning smile around the room. "Mr. Courtlandt was for going down to the bureau and sending up our cards. But I would not hear of such formality. I am a privileged person."

"Sure yes! Molly, ring for tea, and tell 'em to make it hot. How about a little peg, as the colonel says?"

The two men declined.

How easily and nonchalantly the man stood there by the door as Harrigan took his hat! Celeste was aquiver with excitement. She was thoroughly a woman: she wanted something to happen, dramatically, romantically.

But her want was a vain one. The man smiled quizzically at Nora, who acknowledged the salutation by a curtsy which would have frightened away the banshees of her childhood. Nora hated scenes, and Courtlandt had the advantage of her in his knowledge of this. Celeste remained at the piano, but Nora turned as if to move away.

"No, no!" cried the padre, his palms extended in protest. "If you stop the music I shall leave instantly."

"But we are all through, Padre," replied Nora, pinching Celeste's arm, which action the latter readily understood as a command to leave the piano.

Celeste, however, had a perverse streak in her to-day. Instead of rising as Nora expected she would, she wheeled on the stool and began _Morning Mood_ from Peer Gynt, because the padre preferred Grieg or Beethoven to Chopin. Nora frowned at the pretty head below her. She stooped.

"I sha'n't forgive you for this trick," she whispered.

Celeste shrugged, and her fingers did not falter. So Nora moved away this time in earnest.

"No, you must sing. That is what I came up for," insisted the padre. If there was any malice in the churchman, it was of a negative quality. But it was in his Latin blood that drama should appeal to him strongly, and here was an unusual phase in The Great Play. He had urged Courtlandt, much against the latter's will this day, to come up with him, simply that he might set a little scene such as this promised to be and study it from the vantage of the prompter. He knew that the princ.i.p.al theme of all great books, of all great dramas, was antagonism, antagonism between man and woman, though by a thousand other names has it been called. He had often said, in a spirit of raillery, that this antagonism was princ.i.p.ally due to the fact that Eve had been constructed (and very well) out of a rib from Adam. Naturally she resented this, that she had not been fas.h.i.+oned independently, and would hold it against man until the true secret of the parable was made clear to her.

"Sing that, Padre?" said Nora. "Why, there are no words to it that I know."

"Words? _Peste!_ Who cares for words no one really ever understands? It is the voice, my child. Go on, or I shall make you do some frightful penance."

Nora saw that further opposition would be useless. After all, it would be better to sing. She would not be compelled to look at this man she so despised. For a moment her tones were not quite clear; but Celeste increased the volume of sound warningly, and as this required more force on Nora's part, the little cross-current was pa.s.sed without mishap. It was mere pastime for her to follow these wonderful melodies. She had no words to recall so that her voice was free to do with as she elected. There were bars absolutely impossible to follow, note for note, but she got around this difficulty by taking the key and holding it strongly and evenly. In ordinary times Nora never refused to sing for her guests, if she happened to be in voice. There was none of that conceited arrogance behind which most of the vocal celebrities hide themselves. At the beginning she had intended to sing badly; but as the music proceeded, she sang as she had not sung in weeks. To fill this man's soul with a hunger for the sound of her voice, to pour into his heart a fresh knowledge of what he had lost forever and forever!

Courtlandt sat on the divan beside Harrigan who, with that friendly spirit which he observed toward all whom he liked, whether of long or short acquaintance, had thrown his arm across Courtlandt's shoulder. The younger man understood all that lay behind the simple gesture, and he was secretly pleased.

But Mrs. Harrigan was not. She was openly displeased, and in vain she tried to catch the eye of her wayward lord. A man he had known but twenty-four hours, and to greet him with such coa.r.s.e familiarity!

Celeste was not wholly unmerciful. She did not finish the suite, but turned from the keys after the final chords of _Morning Mood_.

"Thank you!" said Nora.

"Do not stop," begged Courtlandt.

Nora looked directly into his eyes as she replied: "One's voice can not go on forever, and mine is not at all strong."

And thus, without having originally the least intent to do so, they broke the mutual contract on which they had separately and secretly agreed: never to speak directly to each other. Nora was first to realize what she had done, and she was furiously angry with herself. She left the piano.

As if her mind had opened suddenly like a book, Courtlandt sprang from the divan and reached for the fat ball of lace-hemming. He sat down in Nora's chair and nodded significantly to the Barone, who blushed. To hold the delicate material for Nora's unwinding was a privilege of the G.o.ds, but to hold it for this man for whom he held a dim feeling of antagonism was altogether a different matter.

"It is horribly tangled," he admitted, hoping thus to escape.