The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVI, Issue 18, 1 May 1919, Page 3

The Storyteller

Rosa Mulholland. (By arrangement with Messrs. Burns and Oates, London.)

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(Continued.) CHAPTER XX.—A PRIVATE REHEARSAL. One summer day Captain Rupert, nephew and heir of Lord Wilderspin, made his appearance at the Park, and finding his uncle absent from home, had an interview with Mrs. Browne, who was informed that the new visitor would stay the night, being not very well and feeling over-tired. He had returned unexpectedly from India on sick leave : though there was little sign of ill-health about him, unless it might be detected in the languor of his manner and in the sallowness of his handsome face. "And so there is no one here?" he said, wishing he had stayed in London, for few hated solitude more than Captain Rupert Wilderspin. "No one but the young lady and her governess, sir, and they are gone to town to a concert." "The young lady ?" "Yes, sir; the young lady his lordship has adopted." "Adopted!" "Yes, sir; adopted to educate for the musical profession. That is 'ow I have heard it, expressed." "Oh, hobbyhorsing as usual!" Captain Rupert relaxed his stare and' walked to the window with a slight laugh. "And does the young lady live at the Park?"

“Yes, sir.” Mrs. Browne, though longing to pour forth a multitude of details, felt rather in awe of the gentleman’s level eyebrows, which changed their expression so often as to bewilder her, and surprised herself by giving short answers. While he sate at dinner in solitary state, a sound of wheels on the gravel suggested to him the return of the young lady and her governess, whom Mrs. Browne had described as being harbored in some corner of the Hall. He began to wonder what the young girl was like, and feeling sadly in want of society, he wished he had any excuse for presenting himself to these ladies, whose company might be more amusing than solitude. He revolved the idea of inventing a message from his uncle, but after entertaining himself for a while with imaginary scenes which might follow upon the indulgence of such a freak, dismissed the fancy as unworthy of being put into practice. No great wine-drinker, he was soon out of doors smoking his cigar on a leafy terrace, and listening to the nightingales beginning their nightly song. How long was it since he had heard a nightingale ? Certain thoughts of grace were associated in his mind with the delicious nocturnes of the romantic bird; they had their way while he paused and listened, paused and listened; but finally they became troublesome, and were cast rudely off as he flung away his cigar with an impatient sigh and turned indoors, resolved rather to go to bed than sit down alone in the great solitary rooms. In this mood he took his way upstairs, lighted. by the mellow moon. '/• j - " - , -

Fan and. the signora had finished their evening meal in their retired apartment; and, with the lamps lowered and banished to a remote corner, were enjoying the pale lustre of the outside world, and the music that came in fitful waves through the open window out of a black screen of trees looming near. The signora lay in her chair, weary with her late exertions, but her pupil walked restlessly about the room as if the day’s share ;of energy and life had not yet been exhausted in he - ** ■<7cmnof veins. Pan at seventeen had ornwn to her J O ' ~ ’ * - - - o

full height, but her face was little changed since the days when she sang in the gipsies’ tent. A deeper and sweeter meaning in the white-lidded eyes of Irish blue, a richer yet more delicate' rose-tint under their black, curling lashes, a fuller symmetrical outline of cheek, chin, and lip, with a few added dimples, made nearly all the describable difference between the maiden and the. child. She had evidently not yet cared to enter on the period of life wherein dress and manner are called on to announce that all lingering simplicities of childhood are left behind. Though her white gown almost covered her little feet, it was innocent of all the coquetries of fashion her long hair still hung from the nape of her slender neck in one massive braid almost too heavy for her shoulders; and her voice had the same artless ring in it with which she had prattled to Lord Wilderspin about Shawn and the birds. “No, I am not tired, Mamzelle,” she was saying, “I am thinking of the scolding our maestro gave me to-day. He says that though I improve in my singing, Ino longer act with spirit. ‘When you were a child,’ he said, ‘you could forget your own identity and throw yourself into every part, but now you grow abashed and self-conscious. He says a woman’s vanity is taking possession of me, and if I do not conquer it I shall bitterly disappoint his own and Lord Wilderspin’s expectations.” “He makes a mistake, my dear,” said the signora, warmly. “You will never do that.” “I do not know, Mamzelle. I feel that there is truth in what he says. I hate the thought of performing in public. I hated it in the gipsies’ tent, and I shall hate it much more on the stage.” - The signora started out of her resting attitude and sat bolt upright in dismay. “But you will follow Herr Harfenspieler s advice. You will conquer this unfortunate feeling!” “I will,” said Fan, firmly. “Only thus can I repay Lord Wilderspin for his goodness. Only thus pan I hope to find those 1 have lost,” she added softly. “That is why I am running about the room to-night, Mamzelle; because I am in a state of excitement and want to have a tussle with my woman’s vanity at once. I want to practise my acting to make amends to poor Gretchen for my stupid misrepresentation of her this "morning. Herr Harfenspieler was orchestra and audience all in one, and he almost wept at my tameness.”

“My dear, you show the spirit I expected to find in you,” said Mamzelle, comforted, and laughing at the imitation of the Herr Professor’s scowl and gesture with which her pupil wound up the account of his displeasure. .“Believe me, every great artist has had this nervousness to contend with : the finer and more delicate the genius, the more keenly does it suffer in giving itself at first to the gaze of the world. I look on this difficulty as the cross of your vocation,” said the little woman trembling with the earnestness of her belief in what she said.

“Dear Mamzelle, it is you who ought to have been given to this career,” said Fan, coaxingly. “You know all about it so well, and are always so ready for sacrifice. For my part, I feel that ray only vocation is to be faithful to those I love. You rausn’t preach against that, you know,” she continued, stopping the signora’s exclamation with a kiss, “because you are included in the ‘ those.’ ”

“You keep me in a state of perpetual alarm,” said Mamzelle, excitedly. “Do I? Then I won’t. For though I may not feel the stir of ambition in my veins, I have pretty goodwill of my own; and I intend that it shall march me to the cannon’t mouth. So now for some thrilling scenes before I sleep!” (She began pushing away a table to have more room for her movements.) “The nightingales are firing me with emulation ; my blood is up! Margaret shall be righted and Herr Harfenspieler pacified !” “It is a pity you have such a limited audience, my love. Never any but the maestro or me. It is more difficult to perform before one than before a crowd.”

' “I have it!” cried Fan, clapping her hands; “I will run down; to: the picture-gallery, where I shall have a hundred eyes upon me.” “You will have no light.” ' “Quite sufficient. The moonlight will inspire me. No, you must not come, unless you can get into a picture-frame. Your flesh and- blood presence would make my audience seem too shadowy. My one solid person in the pit would interfere with the reality of the people in the boxes.”

“Let me loosen your hair, my dear; it must fall about your shoulders.” “But Margaret’s is not loosened till she is mad. She wears it like mine as long as she is in her senses.” “No matter ; it is well for you to get accustomed to it.” And the signora proceeded to let loose the abundant hair that, shaken well back from the young head, fell like a dark mantle about the slim white figure. “There will have to be a fair wig, I suppose,” said Fan, making a little face over her shoulder at her own dusky tresses. “Nobody would listen to a black Gretchen.” Captain Wilderspin had pursued his way upstairs in the manner of a person in no hurry to reach his destination. He stopped and looked into old familiar rooms, and finally left the main staircase altogether, proceeding down a passage which led him to the pic-ture-gallery. It was not that he had any particular taste for art, but he knew the value of ancestors and liked to pay after long absence a certain homage to the respectable people who had provided him with so goodly an inheritance in life. The moonlight entered from the glazed ceiling and filled the place with a ghostlike radiance, by which the countenances of the portraits could be faintly discerned. Here a visage looked sullenly or mournfully distinct, there a pair of bright eyes peered roguishly out of the- shadows. “Here shall I hang one day” ; mused the future Lord Wilderspin. “One particular frown or grin (according to the humor in which my artist may catch me), all that shall be left of me! Well, it is not every man who is sure that his face will be seen anywhere above ground after a hundred years ! By Jove, how ghostly they look. It is hard to believe they ever strode about here moralising like me. It makes a fellow feel like a ghost already to think of it.” We need hardly say that Captain Wilderspin, having served eight years in India, did not believe in ghosts, and yet, having got on the subject, and having nothing else to do, he was pleased to amuse himself by dwelling upon it. There was a certain full-length portrait of a fair ancestress, whose charming face and flowing chevelure had in early days captivated his boyish imagination and as he stood before it now he felt the return of a share of his youthful admiration. “By my holidame, fair lady,” he muttered, “I have not seen anything so lovely since we parted. Had' the women of the present day the wit that sparkles on your lip, I were not to this hour a bachelor. Wore they your flowing tresses instead of three hairs screwed into a snail-shell point, a rival might have disputed your empire over my heart. As it is, would your ghostship but favor me with its presence, I would put the proverb at defiance and marry my grandmother!” Scarcely had he completed this unusual flight of fancy when the door at the distant end of the gallery flew open and a white figure with long floating hair entered lightly. Overwhelmed by so unexpected an answer to his summons, Captain Wilderspin stood for a moment amazed, then recovering himself retreated backward into the shadows of a doorway behind him. A few warbling notes from the apparition betrayed to him that he was in the presence of his uncle’s ward; as Fan, tripping down the gallery and shaking forth the most delicious roulades, made mocking courtesies before the pictures, as if craving the patronage of the great folks on the wall. And then, at ease in the completeness of . her fancied solitude, she began the rehearsal which she found so difficult in the presence of witnesses. No

longer oppressed by the slight cloud of shyness that had lately;';begun : to embarrass her : in her performances* she gave full vent' to her imaginative powers, and poured out her song with a passion that startled herself. Pleased with her success she warmed more and more to her work, and presently forgot her own identity as thoroughly as the Professor could have wished. Making shift for a seat and spinning-wheel with whatever objects happened to come in her way, she went through Margaret's spinning scene in the garden, singing with the utmost tenderness and sweetness, and making such a picture as outshone the lovely grandmother who stood gazing over her head upon the wall. As she proceeded through the entire opera, imaginary voices answered her, imaginary companions delighted or troubled her : sometimes with altered voice she sang the part of another person, while in the more tragic situations the fervor of her acting seemed to call up the living reality of the creatures she addressed. Captain Wilderspin, having retreated to the door, was arrested by the first notes, and remained standing concealed by, the shadows beyond the threshold. The sudden apparition of this young creature to whose beauty the moonlight gave the most exquisite anil ethereal, character, the unexpected splendor of her voice, the grace and delicacy of her acting, the pretty sense of humor she showed when, at the end of an act, a mournful note having first died away, she would toss her head and in the drollest way reproach the audience for not applauding her, all this took the languid soldier by surprise, fascinated his fancy, and gave his used-up sense of enjoyment a most invigorating shake. lie forgot his own identity as thoroughly as Fan had forgotten hers ; and it was many years since such forgetfulness had seized upon him. "She is too good for the stage," he muttered, "much too good for the stage. What can my uncle be thinking of ? What a voice she has ! How charming she is ! By Jove, what a sensation she will make !" Fan's performance being finished, she swept round the gallery, courtesying again and singing little catches of .thanks to the silent audience for their patience in listening to her. Then unfastening from her waist a long white shawl which had served her as a train, she threw it over her shoulder, and giving her hair a shake, she laughed a sudden bright laugh and disappeared. "What had she laughed at?" Captain Rupert asked himself. "Had she known of his presence, and was her outburst of merriment at his expense ? Or was she only girlishly amused at her own little play?" The first suggestion made him hot and uncomfortable, the second delighted him. He felt he did not deserve her ridicule; for had he not gallantly resisted a desire to come forward and make her acquaintance by thanking her for the treat she had given him? .He had restrained himself, fearing to embarrass and scare her away, and it annoyed him to think of her as conscious of his observation all the time. But the idea of her laughing at her own play of performing to the pictures gave her a charm of simplicity in his critical eyes. "I shall find out all about it to-morrow," he said, remembering with pleasure that the fascinating singer was abiding under the same roof with him, and resolving to find some means of making her acquaintance. His determination to leave the Hall early in the morning had vanished, and he reflected that nothing could be better for his jaded health than a few days' sojourn in Sussex.

“I must say it was a treat for eye and ear which I little expected,” was his last thought on the subject before falling asleep. “There is no mistake about the voice, but I am curious to see what she will look like by day. Moonlight is a wonderful beautifyer.” In the meantime, Fan had gone to rest satisfied with the effort she had made. She was fully aware of certain powers that were in her, and was determined, to make use of them for the attainment of the great object of her life. The sudden shyness that had come upon her, threatening to overthrow • her hopes and hinder her plans, had caused .her more serious trouble thanj she had been able to confess. . The publicity ( of

the career that'; lay before her, though personally hateful to her, was yet the only means she knew of - by which she could : now hope to be discovered by the friends of her childhood. If she should find it painful to be seen nightly in a theatre, would it not repay her to find' that "Kevin (still of course in search of her, like the prince in his story) might at any moment stray by chance into so public a place and behold her. She had long since come to the conclusion that Kevin’s mother and father must be dead, while he himself was a wanderer in search of her, travelling footsore in distant countries, perhaps, following one false clue after another, and out of ,nil reach of those who could tell him anything about her. What other state of things could account for the fact that her letters to Killeevy had never been answered ?

This idea of the probable break up of the old home had been placed before her by Lord Wilderspin, who thought the benefits he was conferring on the young girl and the prosperous future he was insuring her, were more than compensation for any passing pain she might feel. Of late she had ceased to speak much of her childhood’s friends, and his lordship and others remarked the change with satisfaction. They believed the time had passed when happiness could be the result of a meeting with such people. A young girl of so refined a nature, carefully educated, and accustomed for several years to the society of well-bred people, could not but feel dismay and embarrassment if called on to renew a familiar intercourse with uncultured peasants.

But Fan’s thoughts were not his thoughts and her ways were not his ways. Accepting his explanation in thorough good faith, she had tried to be reconciled to the inevitable, and if she did not talk so much of Kevin as formerly, it was only because tact and good taste warned her not to obtrude on those who were otherwise so good to her subjects personal to herself, and in which they felt so little interest. A few words spoken on one occasion by Lord Wilderspin had sunk deeply into her mind, and given a motive to her work and her life ; and with the hope thus given her she was fain to be content.”

‘‘When you are a famous woman,” he had said, “Kevin will hear of you. If you really want to meet him, make yourself known in the world.” She knew nothing of the secret reflection which followed his own speech in Lord Wildespin’s mind. “When that time comes,” he thought, “she will have learned to be ashamed of him.”

But the idea that she could ever live to be superior to Kevin bad never entered the young girl’s thoughts. That any amount of education and culture could raise her above a mind and heart so beautiful as. that which had made her childhood a poem had never even crossed her imagination. The next morning Captain Rupert, sauntering about the grounds and smiling to himself at the adventure of the night before, came upon a little group that took him by surprise. The two ladies seated under a tree in the shrubbery, at a part which commanded a fine view of woods and distant sea, were so unlike what he had expected to see that for a moment he did not identify them. With broad-leaved hats tipped over their eyes they were both engaged-in needlework, while an open book lying on the grass at their feet, and others half concealed in a bag close by, showed that they had provided themselves with a variety of ' occupation. At first sight he took the signora for a child, and was startled when she turned up her little wistful, weather-beaten face, and he saw that the floating ringlets contained as much silver as gold. And it was with no small difficulty that he recognised her companion as the heroine of last evening’s adventure. . j Where was the flowing mantle of hair that had so enhanced the beauty of the small gleaming face? It was all braided away into the one heavy plait, and her i fresh carnation cheeks were sheltered only by the shade' of .her coarse straw hat- - Her plain ' untrimmed; linen > dress, short enough to. show the small foot, was

the garb of a school-girl; and extreme youth and unstudied candor were in, every line of her figure and attitude.

• Apologising for his accidental intrusion, Captain Rupert introduced himself. The signora was too simple In her nature to feel very much impressed by his unexpected appearance, too unconventional in her ways to think of putting on the primness of the duenna; and Fan, after the first moment of surprise, smiled on him in artless good ■ humor, noway dissatisfied with the chance that had brought them into pleasant company. “It is long' since I have seen ladies working in open air,” said Captain Wilderspin. “In India they are obliged to do their stitches indoors.' I see you are fond of reading,” taking up the open book. “Well, I confess Shakspeare is a little too much for me. Are you fond of poetry?” with another critical glance that tried to find a resemblance in the simple young girl before him to the bewitching performer of last night. “Yes,” said Fan, “but not of all I meet with in books. I like the kind that one lives in one’s own life. I think the best of it never gets written at all.” “I agree with you exactly,” said Captain Rupert, tossing away the book, and smiling at the naive manner in which Fanchea delivered herself of the above sentiment. “Why waste a morning like this reading another . person’s description of just such a morning while skies and woods in their reality are under your eyes; or a rhapsody on some one’s mistress’s eyebrow (that has been mouldering in the dust a hundred years), while a lovely face, still unsung, is blooming in all its freshness by your side ? Do you not agree with me, signora ? ’ ’

“Perfectly: and yet — there are inner beauties which the poets help us to discern. When we lift our eyes from the book, the landscape is more lovely for the subtleties of meaning that the poet has discovered in it. the tender conceits with which he has colored it ; and the most charming face is more lovable to us when Ave have heard of the goodnesses that lurk behind it. What Nature gives to us we are grateful for and delight in, but what Nature gives to the poet he returns to her and to us a hundredfold.”

The signora spoke with a slight quiver in her voice and vibration of her whole small form which always accompanied the utterance of some of her most earnest thoughts. Under other circumstances Captain Rupert would have said to himself that the little elderly lady was talking platitudes ; but now he was not attending to her at all, only looking at a new expression that came into Fan’s eyes while she reflected that neither of her companions had followed her thought. The poetry she had meant to indicate was such as could not be explained or described in a well-turned sentence to make pleasant conversation for a summer morning’s lounge. It involved all the subtle mysteries of life, and because it brought with it meanings which she could only half understand, and which caused her infinite wonderment, therefore it was that the thought of it brought that shade under her eyes which attracted Captain Wilderspin’s attention. The range poetry which she found in life was associated in her mind with strong ties of love broken, which somehow or other would have to be mended, with an island-strewn ocean over which the white birds flew like brilliant thoughts, and which was sailed by the creations of a fancy that somewhere, even now, was enriching the world, where she knew not, but in some place whither she must go. Her poetry was knit up with music, exile, pain, despair, hope, peace, order, and harmony; and to it belonged both her future and her past. As the shadow of her thought deepened under her eyes, the soldier, who was tired of everything, found himself /more interested in her than he had been before: and while, the signora’s little speech about poetry quivered away on the breeze unheard, he was saying to himself that this child with the peach-like cheeks and eyes of Irish blue, now frank, smiling, and eager to talk to him, and now retiring visibly into a dream of her own; ' was going -to prove even more delightful than th§ fascinate bio- songstress of the ve-ga.llerv. ■' ~“Q3 X - ' - " " -t ’ Vs* ‘ " ' v :

■ vf^“The signora and I have both been talking wide of the mark, he said, catching her eye as she looked up from her work. “Tell me what sort of poetry you were thinking of?” • , , "" - “I could not unless I knew you better. It would be : very difficult for me to explain what I mean to anybody; but with a stranger I could not attempt it.”

“If I should ever come to be looked on as a very old friend, do you think you would tell me then?” “I should do my best, if you had not forgotten to want to hear,” said Fan, laughing. At the sound of her gay laugh, Captain Rupert was forcibly reminded of the close of last night’s scene, and felt a sudden renewal of his desire to discover whether she had really been aware of his presence or not.

“You sing?” he said, abruptly, with a keen glance which he thought capable of detecting any subterfuge. “Oh, yes,” said Fan. Do I not, Mamzelle? I came into the world to sing. I get up in the morning to learn to sing, and I go to bed at night that I may get old enough and strong enough to sing what I have learned. To sing is the purpose of my life.” “If you always sing as you did last night in the picture-gallery, your purpose is attained.” p Fan threw back her head and gave him such a look of wide-eyed consternation that all doubts of her ignorance vanished from his mind. “Did you hear me?” she asked, while the color slowly deepened in her cheeks and rose to her forehead.

“Pardon me; I was an unintentional eavesdropper. I had strayed into the place to say good-evening to a certain great grandmother of mine who was my earliest love. Until you began to sing, I took you for her ghost.

Fan drooped her head over her work in silence, while a look of trouble settled on her face.

“Pray do not be vexed,” said Captain Rupert, regretting that he had spoken, calling himself a bear for having so rudely enlightened her, yet gratified at sight of her confusion. “Oh, it is not that,” she said, snatching off her hat with a child-like movement, and fanning her glowing face with it, while the wind ruffled the light rings of hair that made her like the boy-angel in Raphael’s picture. “But 1 shall never be able to do it.” “Do what?”

“Sing before a living crowd.”

“My dear!” put in the signora.

“You must never be asked to do it!” cried the blase soldier, with an energy that took him by surprise.

“Sir Captain Wilderspin, I beg you will not put such ideas in her head !” urged the signora. “She is a child yet; but she will soon have to do the work of a woman. Another year or two will make a difference in her ideas.”

“They may—make a confounded difference,” muttered the Captain, looking at Fan’s clear eyes opened wide with surprise at his heat. “She will never disappoint your good uncle, his lordship,’’ continued the signora, all her ringlets quivering with excitement. “My uncle is a fool said Captain Rupert, quite forgetting himself. “Fanchea, it is time for our luncheon,” said the signora. < “Captain Wilderspin, we will wish you good morning.” ' The gentleman helped them to pick up their books and workbags, and bowed his farewell; and when they were gone he strolled down a shady alley, and, forgetting to light his cigar, , smiled at the idea of his having been actually in something like a passion. And all about a little girl and her governess. *

(To be continued.)

V We can always change, slowly and steadily, if we set our will to it. —Msgr, R. H. Benson.