she had large violet eyes, of a melancholy effect, and fine honey-colored hair, flowing smoothly over her ears. she looked excessively meek and always a little apprehensive, as if accustomed to reproaches, yet never quite hardened to them. one easily supposed her to be an orphan.
she lived with an aunt, her mother's half-sister, considerably older and less pleasing than her mother in that charming woman's brief day. her cousins were all older than she; the girls were so perfect in every respect that intimacy between her and them was out of the question; the son, a big, blunt young man, was mostly away, and, when at home, too much taken up with other interests to be more than just aware of the violet eyes. so,[143] life was very dull for emmeline—"emmie" she was familiarly called.
she went often of an evening to her mother's grave, and, sitting beside it, reflected how it was in keeping with the general sadness of things that there should be no prospect of any change for her in all the years of her life, no change from the present weary round of aunt and cousins, of sterile duties and insipid pleasures.
and there, by her mother's grave, came the very change she was sighing for. she sat on the sward, musingly watching the square tower of the church grow gray against the delicate, flushed sky, when she became aware of a stranger going from stone to stone in the fading light, examining the inscriptions. at first she was afraid. while she debated whether to hide or flee, the stranger approached, and in a foreign voice and accent asked some common question about the place. she could not answer readily for a foolish shame mixed with terror. she got to her feet, blushing, then turning pale. it could be none other than the astonishing fiddler who[144] had played the night before in the hall at colthorpe, and who could, they said, make your hair rise on end by the power of weird, unearthly music, or your eyes dissolve with tenderness—as he chose. she stared without speech into his dark, peculiar face. and he, seeing that she was discomfited, instead of apologizing and withdrawing, undertook, in a tone as persuasive as his violin's, to set her at ease. and when a few days later he disappeared from that part of the world, the violet eyes disappeared too.
aunt lucretia in time received a letter, asking her forgiveness and announcing emmie's marriage.
she did not grant her forgiveness until several years later, after due savoring of sad, black-bordered letters from emmie, imploring kindness. her husband, after a brief illness, was dead; her little boy and she were left alone, without anything in the world. she acknowledged her fault so humbly; she owned so freely that her marriage had been excessively—deservedly—wretched; she longed so desperately to be taken back into her old[145] home, that lucretia found herself relenting. her daughters were now married and lived at a distance; she felt daily more and more the need of a female companion. her son, after reading the young widow's pitiful appeals, protested that it would be inhuman to refuse her a shelter. it was decided that she should be allowed to come, and in time the big, blunt gregory, of whom she had been afraid in old days, went a long stretch of the journey to meet her, for that had seemed to him requisite, though to his mother superfluous. he even crossed the arm of sea that she must presently be crossing, with no apparent purpose but to cross it again with her.
when the boat was well out at sea and the passengers had disposed themselves in patience about the deck, he marched up and down, as did several of the others, and, while avoiding to look like one in search, sought diligently the remembered face of his cousin.
it was a cheerless gray day. the sea was quiet; the boat pitched but slightly. he was not long unsuccessful; when he had satis[146]fied himself that she was not in the crowd on the windside, he went to lee and saw her sitting almost alone. she might have gone there for warmth. she did not seem to notice that cinders and fine soot were raining down upon her. he found himself disinclined to accost her at once; he went to lean where he could watch her without pointed appearance of curiosity.
she looked mournful in her black things—not the new, crisp crape of well-to-do bereavement, but a poor gentlewoman's ordinary shabby black. her cheeks had lost their pretty roundness; the effect of her eyes was more than ever melancholy. the pale little face, set in its faint-colored hair, framed in its black bonnet, might pass a hundred times unnoticed: it had little to arrest the attention; but attention, by whatever chance once secured, must be followed by a gentle, compassionate interest in the breast of the beholder. this emotion felt gregory.
she sat on one of the ship's benches, hugging her black wrap about her, hiding in it her little gloveless hands. a bundle was on[147] her lap, at her feet a large bag. she looked wearily off over the crumpled leaden plain, and now and then called: "dorastus! dorastus!"
at that, a toddling bundle came towards her, never near enough to be caught, and toddled off again, coming and going busily, with muttered baby soliloquy. he was a comical little figure, clumsily muffled against the cold, with a pointed knit cap drawn well down over his ears. if he ignored her call, she rose and fetched him, shaking his little hand and bidding him not to go again so far from mother. he dragged at his arm, squealing the while she exhorted, and almost tumbled over when she let him loose. then he resumed his interrupted play.
after a time he seemed to tire of it. he came to his mother and, touching the bag at her feet, unintelligibly demanded something. she shook her head. he seemed to repeat his demand. "no, no, dorastus—mother can't!" she said, fretfully. then this dot of humanity made himself formidable. gregory watched in surprise the little imperious face[148] become disquietingly like an angry man's. he hammered with both small fists on his mother's knee, and stamped and loudly sputtered. she caught his arms for a moment and held them quiet; mother and child looked each other in the face, his strange, unbabyish, heavy-browed eyes flaming, hers lit with a low smouldering resentment. he struggled from her grasp, and at last, as his conduct was beginning to attract attention, she stooped, vanquished, and, bruising her fingers on the awkward buckles, undid the bag.
gregory at this point approached and spoke to her by name. she lifted her face, her eyes full of helpless tears. she reddened faintly on recognizing him. she handed the boy a diminutive toy-fiddle from the bag. pacified, he retired at a little distance and, while his mamma and the gentleman entered into conversation, scraped seriously, the tassel on the tip of his cap bobbing with his funny little airs de tête.
"how good of you, how good of you—how comforting to me!" she said, her forlorn[149] face softly brightening; "i was getting so tired of taking care of myself! i have never travelled alone, and—and i am so timid—"
how different seemed the old house to emmie returning! she settled down in it with the sense of passionate contentment. i can imagine in a dove restored to the cote after escaping the fowler's snare and the rage of wintry storms. how shut it was against the cold! how safe from arrogant men demanding money! life in it now seemed to her one round of luxurious pleasures: one could sleep undisturbed, tea and buttered bread came as regularly as the desire for them; flowers bloomed at every season on mantel-shelf and table; the grate glowed as if to glow were no more than a grate's nature. there was undeniably the domestic tyrant still; but what a mild one by comparison! aunt lucretia might be peremptory and critical and contradictory: to emmie in these days she personated a benevolent providence. it is possible that the lady's disposition had softened towards her niece: her superior daughters were removed, and the little widow[150] with her manifold experiences was unquestionably a person more interesting to have about than the moping girl of yore.
the two ladies, sitting together with their wools, in undertones talked over emmie's married miseries. she was as ready with her confidences as aunt lucretia with her listening ear. there seemed no end to what she had to tell or the number of times she might relate the same incident and be heard out with tolerance. she was glad of some one to whom to unburden her heart of its accumulated grievance; she could not but be a little glad, too, now it was well over, that so much that was unusual had happened to her, since it lent her this importance. aunt lucretia gave a great deal of good advice—said what she would have done in like case; emmie accepted it with as much humble gratitude as if it had still been of service. she concurred with all her heart in her aunt's unqualified condemnation of her first lapse from the respectable path—her elopement; she declared with perfect sincerity that she was puzzled to explain how it all happened—certainly before[151] a week had been over the folly of it had stared her in the face.
the young widow, when she had taken her aunt through scenes of rage and jealousy that made that matron's nostrils open as a war-horse's, and had shown up the petty tyrannies and meannesses of a bad-tempered, vindictive, vain man, afflicted with a set of morbidly tense nerves, would sometimes inconsistently betray a sort of pride in the fact that she had been adored by this erratic being, whose ill-treatment of her came partly from that fact; also a certain pride in the assurance she had had on every side, of his being a great artist who might have risen to fortune had he been blessed with a different constitution. a prince had once, in token of his appreciation, bestowed on him a jewelled order; emmie wished she had not been forced to sell it when he was ill. she herself could not judge of his playing—she could not abide the sound of a violin—but the star might be accounted a proof of his ability.
"you were too meek, my dear," said[152] lucretia, conclusively, after a tale of oppression; "i should have taken a stand."
"dear aunt," said emmie, pensively considering her relative's size and the cast of her features, "i think you would. he would have been afraid of you. if i displeased him, he said i was rebellious because i felt myself bolstered up by the admiration of whoever in the inn had happened to give me a passing glance, and he would torment me until i swore i loved him with every thought of my life. sometimes, when he had made me cry, he would cry, too—i hate that in a man, aunt!—and go on tormenting me until i said i forgave him—"
"ah, i should have taught him a lesson!"
"yes, aunt, you would. but i swore whatever he pleased. if i was sulky, he was as likely as not to sit up all night, wailing on his violin when i wanted to sleep. he always took remote chambers at inns, for the privilege of playing at night, if he pleased. if i complained, he said that if i had liked the music it would have soothed me to sleep, and if i did not like it, it was well i should be[153] kept awake. he was very sore on the point of my not being in love with his music."
"i should like to see a man play the fiddle in my bedroom!" said aunt lucretia, with a face of danger.
and emmie, from this lady's example and counsel, got a retrospective courage that enabled her in memory, now that she was well-fed, well-dressed, and possessed of the assurance that goes with those conditions, to bring the stormy scenes with her husband to an end more honorable to herself. she could imagine herself even braving him—when, perhaps, would come in sight dorastus. then her heart would sink in consciousness of its folly. there was no contending for her with a nature like that. that baby could bend her to his will even as the father had done. he was so little now that she could not strive with him to any enduring advantage; and when he would be bigger, she felt it already, no revolt of hers would be of use. the tyranny was handed down from father to son, with the sensitiveness and the jealousy. she look[154]ed over at the little, intrepid face sometimes with a sort of slave's aversion: every day he would be more like that other; he kept him disagreeably alive now in her memory with the tricks of his face, the difficulties of his temper. she only hoped, in an unformed way as yet, that before he grew to make himself heavily felt something might have arisen for her protection.
she made him pretty things with a mother's full indulgence, caressed him in due measure, and gave dutiful attention to his every request; but deep in her heart and in her eye was a reservation. and in him, though he could hardly frame speech, seemed an inherited suspicion of this want of loyalty in her, a consciousness of her appeal to something outside, against him. in his baby rages he seemed aware, by an instinct beyond his understanding, that she did not care for them, except that they made her uncomfortable, and he beat her with all his fierce little strength for it. she belonged strictly to him, and there was always treachery in the air; so he must be foes with all surrounding her, and[155] most severe with herself, whom he idolatrously loved.
often, if they were alone and she did nothing to cross him, but treated respectfully his every whim, he rewarded her gravely with such tokens of his devotion as he could devise. if they were out under the trees, he would make a hundred little voyages and from each bring back some treasure, flower or pebble, that he dropped in her lap, watching her face to see if she were appropriately pleased. if she were busy with her stitching and after a time forgot to acknowledge his gift, he would make known his disgust by taking everything from her and stamping it under foot; but if she wisely kept her whole mind on him, and gave him praise and smiles, and admired his offerings, he would multiply his efforts to please her, get her things the most difficult and perilous to obtain, stones that were heavy, insects that were frightful, parade before her every little accomplishment, be débonnaire and royal, and expose his true worshipping heart to his servant.
woe if in such moments of expansion[156] gregory came out on the lawn and took the empty seat on the rustic bench beside emmie! the child would know nothing of a divided allegiance, and showed his sense of outrage by a prompt attack on both, whom he seemed to think equally conspirators against his peace. they stood his babbled vituperation and baby blows with smiling patience for a little, trying to converse coherently under them; then, when he burst into angry tears, with a sigh the mother bore him off to be lectured and calmed, resuming her conversation with gregory at a more opportune moment. before gregory she never spoke of her husband.
with the passing months her cheek got back its freshness, her eye its clear brightness. now a haunting fear awoke in her breast: aunt lucretia was wearying of her presence. she had heard all of her injuries till the story was stale. she was beginning to find fault with her just as of old, to set her back in her place now and then with the former terrible abruptness, and that place a very low one. the poor little[157] woman accepted all abjectly, shuddering at the possibility of being again cast on the world with her child. she went about with reddened eyelids and a look of pathetic nervousness, hushing dorastus whenever he lifted his voice, doing her pitiful best that neither should give offence. gregory could not look on in patience: he laid the gentle afflicted creature's tremors forever by asking her to become his wife.
his mother left the house and went to abide with her daughters. but in time she became reconciled to what was unalterable and returned to her ancient seat of government, allowing her age to be cheered by the sight of her favorite child's happiness. little sons and daughters, his wife gave him four, among whom prevailed straw-colored hair and eyes of the admired flower tint. the old house was gay as at early dawn a tree full of gossiping birds.
so to emmie was raised a mighty salvation; against dorastus arrayed themselves innocent yellow heads, like so many insuperable golden lances.
[158]
when the children were called into the drawing-room to be shown to the company, a visitor was sure to ask, "and who is this little man?" meaning dorastus; so unlikely did it appear that he could be of his mother's kindred. to the golden hen, her golden brood. how in seriousness call a chick the little black creature with the large beak and the piercing eyes?
and as unlike his brothers as he was physically, so unlike he remained in disposition. by all the children as by dorastus himself the difference in kind was felt. he remained solitary among them and at odds with all. they set him down a domineering, bad-tempered thing, and he summed them up scornfully as a pack of pudding-heads. it was not plain to any one why he thought himself superior: his actual accomplishments were somewhat less than ordinary. bullet-headed, downright hector, his brother nearest in age, could beat him at any sport, and when their differences brought them to blows was rather more than half sure of victory over his senior, inferior to[159] him in size and art; martin was cleverer than he at his books; the little girls even could give him points in conduct—yet his attitude of every minute insisted upon it that he was better than any of them, and that his mother was more particularly his mother than she was theirs. emmie, it is true, did not reprove him quite as she did hector; he was allowed more than the others the full swing of his temperament. his step-father punctiliously refrained from meddling with him, and if he made trouble with his temper and his pride emmie warned her nice-natured children not to irritate him, to make allowances for him. insensibly that qualified the relation between dorastus and his mother. that negative indulgence he felt, however dimly, did not prove him a favorite: it made him a sort of alien. he became more reserved in his demands upon his mother. there were too many yellow heads for one boy to contend with successfully by ordinary means. he still held to it bravely in his attitude towards his brothers and sisters that he was better than they, and that his mother belonged ex[160]clusively to him, but herself he troubled less and less with his jealousy and his claims. it might have seemed at last almost as if she were become indifferent to him. absorbed by her domestic cares, she had scarcely perceived the change.
the cares were many, but pleasant in their nature. gregory was steadily, lazily kind, the children were healthy, she herself was in the beautiful full bloom of life—she found it good. she had almost forgotten the bitter taste of her beginnings, when one night, startled from a deep sleep, she lay in the dark awhile and wondered that she should dream so clearly of hearing the long, low wail of a violin. it had recreated about her in an instant the atmosphere of old days. she lay as she had lain often enough, with lead upon her heart, a dead sense of there being no escape in view from this slavery, this poverty, this succession of weary travel and third-rate inns, this nerve-racking sound of the violin penetrating through the brain as a red-hot needle—no release from this unrelenting master, this terrible added burden of baby.[161] she shook herself free from what she thought the remaining effect of a nightmare; she had seemed for a moment to smell the very essence her first husband used on his hair, mixed with the flat odor of the small dutch inn-chamber in which dorastus was born. she turned over on her side to sleep again, when she became assured that she heard a violin. she listened through her thick heart-beats, a thrill of superstitious horror stiffening her skin. she knew it unreasonable, but could not dispel her fear. she rose sitting in bed, becoming at last fully awake. still she heard the violin, sounding faintly, as if from some distant part of the house. then she thought. it had been these long years in the garret, the treasured amati he had made her swear to keep for his child. the child had found it.
she could not fall to sleep again, she must satisfy herself.
she slipped her feet into their shoes, got her dressing-gown about her, and crept through the shadowy corridor, up the stair, to where dorastus slept. since he would be[162] the master, whoever shared his room, which was obviously unfair to his room-mate, he had been allotted a little chamber by himself in a somewhat remote part of the house.
as she approached it, the sound of the violin came more and more clear to her. she stopped and leaned against the balusters, yielding to a soul-sickness that had its rise in she scarce knew which, memory or foreboding. she listened curiously. it was strange playing, though simple, subdued to not wound the night silence; unordinary as it was, there was nothing tentative about it, the hands seemed going to it with a fine boldness, a delicate natural skill. the mother felt not a moment's joy.
she came to the door, opened it noiselessly, and stood in the doorway with her candle shining upward in her wide eyes, her solemn face.
dorastus stopped playing, and said, with a gleeful, short laugh, "i knew it would make you come!"
as emmie had expected, he held the amati. he had thrown off his jacket and[163] tie and stood in his shirt-sleeves, with his neck bare. his dark eyes were burning and dancing; his black hair was ruffled and pushed up on end; his face was hotly flushed. his whole attitude had in it something new, finely expressive of conscious power.
"i knew it would make you come!" he said, with a triumphant nod.
she entered and set down her light on the little chest of drawers. "you ought not to play at night," she said, faintly. "it disturbs people's sleep."
"it wouldn't wake them!" he exclaimed, scornfully, "and if it did i shouldn't care, as long as they didn't come and bother. i wanted to call you, to make you come to me. i was sure i could. are you cold, little mother dear? get into my bed."
he laid down his instrument; he came where she stood, with her silken hair tumbling over her shoulders, and felt her chilled hands.
"no, no," she said, irritably, taking them from him, "it is unheard of, playing at this[164] hour of the night. i must go." but she went mechanically to sit on the edge of his bed, that had not been lain in that night, and still kept towards him that wondering, dismayed face.
"how did it sound?" asked the boy, whose excitement seemed to dull his perception, so that he remained unchilled by her want of warmth. "did it say plainly, arise, wrap your sky-blue gown about you, never mind tying up your gold hair, light your light, and come gliding through the shadow of the sleeping house, to your dear son, the only one who loves you, in his solitary room, far from all the others? that is what i meant it should say, but towards the end i meant it to say something else, towards the end it was explaining. did you understand that part?"
"how did you find it?" asked emmie, still in her faint voice. "why did you take it without asking our permission? who taught you to play on it?"
the boy laughed again his gleeful laugh. he got on to the bed beside her and sat[165] with his chin in his hand, his glowing face full of pride in himself. "ah, how i found it, when it was up in the garret? it was like that story of the greek fellow—what's his name?—dressed like a girl. when the peddler brought shawls and ribbons and things, and a sword hidden among them, he took the sword, and the peddler knew by that sign that he was a man. in the garret there were old hoop-skirts, and broken mousetraps, and bird-cages, and boxes full of religious books and things—but my hand went straight to the violin!"
"tell me the truth, dorastus," spoke his mother, wearily.
"well, then, after talking with a certain person, i concluded that it must be there. i looked for it and found it, months and months ago. i took it and learned to play, to give you a surprise. do you think i can ever play as my father did?"
"whom have you heard speak of your fathers playing, dorastus?"
"aha! there is some one who remembers him at this very place—who heard him[166] just once and never forgot it. i might as well tell you: it is the brother of the inn-keeper's wife at colthorpe; he used to be the hostler, but is too old now. he plays the violin himself, at weddings, sometimes, and dances—but not much, dear. he taught me, but i have gone far ahead—oh, far ahead of him now! he knows when it is good, however, and you should hear what he says of me and my playing. you must see him and ask him. he had climbed up from outside into the window when once my father played at colthorpe, and he can speak of it as if it had happened yesterday. (he says that i am very like my father, that any one would know me who had seen him. he knew, before asking, whose son i was. only, my father wore his hair long; well, i will wear my hair long!) he says that, as he played, every trouble he had ever had came back to him, even the death of a dog, and he could not help crying—but he liked it; he enjoyed feeling bad. and he says that it made him see plain before him, but not very plain either, a lot of things he[167] had only heard folks talk about—the shepherds in the east, for instance, with the angels singing good-will in a hole in the clouds. and he knew for sure, he says, how it would have felt if the girl he wanted hadn't married some one else and gone to live away, but had taken him. i asked him, the other day, if i could make him feel those things. he said, 'not yet, not quite yet;' but he thought i was beginning. he has a number of music sheets; i can read the notes much quicker than he already, though he taught me. but i don't care for those; there must be others much better than those! those are nothing! i like better what i make up myself than i do those. did you notice—but no, you must have been too far—how quickly i can play some passages? my left fingers go like a spider, and it is so easy for them! giles says my hand is like my father's—he remembers it—a true violinist's hand. i feel that it can do anything, dear—anything! and i mean that it shall do such things! look at it, mother!" and he held up the thin, unboyishly delicate,[168] angular hand, stronger in appearance than the rest of his body. "is it like my father's? you are the one, of course, that remembers best. is it like my father's?"
"oh, yes—yes!" she almost moaned.
he did not seem to perceive her impatience, but contemplated his own hand a little while, calmly sure that he must be an object of pride to her now. "it is quite unlike hector's, at least. i should like to see him try to play with his pink paws!"
"he might not be able to play," said emmie, "but he will, i dare say, do something quite as useful."
"there is nothing quite so useful!" cried the boy superbly, and laughed again in his perverse glee. "it is more useful than anything you can invent to say that hector is going to do. hector! hector will be a rabbit-raiser; he likes rabbits better than anything. but i will come with my violin and make the rabbits stand up on their hind-legs and stare; i will play softly, wheedlingly, going slowly backwards towards the woods, and they will all come after me, without stop[169]ping for a nibble. i will lead them away, away, all the flock of little, round-backed, skipping things—just as i made you get out of bed and come up here."
"i came to tell you to stop, foolish boy. i didn't want you to wake the others. it was very inconsiderate in you—very inconsiderate. and i am not sure that i am pleased with you for taking a thing so valuable—it is worth a great deal of money—unknown to me, or for doing things in secret, or for having dealings with people i know nothing of—hostlers and inn-keepers' wives. you certainly play nicely—"
"ah, did you truly think i did, mother?" he asked, eagerly. "you ought to know; you used to hear himself. now, tell me, dear—"
"but i am not at all sure"—she interrupted him, lamely querulous—"that the violin—you have been so underhanded, and i see now how you waste your time—it explains your being so bad with your lessons. i am not at all sure that the violin ought not to be taken from you."
"i shall not give it up!" dorastus said[170] instantly, and it might be perfectly understood that he would struggle with his last breath to keep it, doing as much damage as in him lay to his opposers.
emmie, quite pale, looked into his face, that had fully returned from its mood of happy pride, and he looked into hers, as they had looked already when he was but a baby. then, seeing what she had always seen, she tossed up her hands with a little helpless, womanish motion, and complained: "oh, i am so cold, and i feel so ill! it is like a horrid dream—and i am miserable." she rose and pulled her things about her to go, tears shining on her cheek.
dorastus, who had leaped up and laid his hand resolutely on his violin and bow, if they should be in any immediate danger, watched her with a strange face. his jaw was iron. when, as she reached the door, he unclinched his teeth to speak, his face worked in spite of him and tears gushed from his eyes. "you never understand anything!" he exploded, in a harsh, angry voice all his pride could not keep from breaking. then, with[171] the indignant scorn of a child for a grown-up person who seems to him out of all nature dull—"go!" he said, beating his arms violently about, "go! go!"
so dorastus retained the violin, and defiantly played on it, in and out of season. his mother's failure to be pleased with his playing seemed to have cut her off, in his estimation, from all right to an opinion. it is true that after the first night she armed herself with patience towards a situation she could not change. she did not cross the boy more than her conscience positively enjoined; he might play since he pleased, but must not neglect his studies in pursuit of a vain pastime.
in spite of her, his studies suffered. he felt no humiliation now that hector or any should be ahead of him with books; he could have been far ahead of them if he had chosen, but they could under no circumstance have done what he did. of these things he was proudly convinced, and he declared them without hesitation. his almost untutored playing took on a strange audacity, a fantas[172]tical quality that made it pleasing to none in the household. that did not disturb him; he pursued triumphantly in the direction repugnant to them, taking their disapproval to naturally point to its excellence. sometimes, half in scorn, he would play for the little girls the simple melodies they knew, to show them that he could do that, too, if he chose; full tenderly could he play them and delight their gentle hearts, but he preferred, if he could catch an unprejudiced soul for audience, a housemaid for instance, to set her opposite to him and play to her from his head, then question her as to what the music had made her think of, helping her to detail her impressions, expressing his contempt freely if the music had not had on her the desired effect, but hugging her if she happened to answer as he wanted.
whenever he had a holiday, or took one, he disappeared with his instrument, returning with a conqueror's mien, out of place in a boy with whom every one is displeased, and who has had nothing to eat. it was felt by all how he was in these days not friends with[173] anybody, nor anybody friends with him. it suited his pride to carry off the situation as if he had been a king among boors.
her eldest child's conduct began at last to be something of a grievance to emmie. she appealed to no one for help to reduce him to obedience. she would not have dared do that; an intimate sense forbade it, a scruple which would have had no voice, perhaps, had she loved him more. she excused and up-held him in her little wars with lucretia, and respected gregory's reluctance to interfere with him, founded in justice on the consciousness of a deep-seated, invincible dislike; but she fretted under his undutifulness and only refrained from satisfying the desire to attempt asserting her power over him, though it should be futile as ever, in the idea that, at the worst, he would soon be leaving home, with hector, for school, when the detested violin must be given up and stronger hands than her own find a way to bend his obstinate spirit. at the same time, in a corner of her heart, she felt unreasonably, unaccountably hurt, as perhaps she would have felt if[174] dorastus's father had suddenly ceased from his persecutions and she had known by that sign that, worm as he was, he had ceased to care for her.
"this is all very well; but when you get to school—" phrases begun on that line became frequent in dorastus's ear as the time approached. he heard them with a singularly bright eye.
the two boys set out for school together, under the guardianship of the tutor. consternation fell on the family when it was known that dorastus had been missed on the way. the boy was traced to london; there he was easily lost among the millions of its inhabitants.
while the question was in discussion whether it behooved gregory himself to travel to london and institute a search for the runaway, came a letter from the boy, making it easily decent for his step-father to leave the stinging weed to get its growth where it might without being a nuisance, and reconciling his mother to letting him take his chances as he pleased, since he was so sure[175] they were brilliant—very brilliant, those chances.
his certainty of himself, his enthusiasm, were such that gradually they communicated themselves in a degree to her. why not? after all, his father, they had said, was a great man; princes had honored him. an involuntary respect crept through her for dorastus's daring. it seemed advisable at least to give him the opportunity he wanted; the more that the process of finding him, bringing him back in what to him would seem ignominy, and thereafter keeping watch over him, was uncomfortable to think of.
his letter was to his mother, a mixture of boyishness and manliness, more frank than any speech she had had from him in a long time. it vaguely stirred her heart; for it seemed to restore to her something that possessing she had not prized, but, careful economist, did not like to think lost.
"you must promise that i shall not be troubled by any attempt to get me back. i will do anything terrible if i am trapped. don't you see that i couldn't go to school[176] with hector, who is younger? we should be put in classes together, for a while at least, and i couldn't stand it. besides, i haven't the time, i have so much to do! besides, i couldn't go on living with those people forever. i don't mean that you shall, either. i won't tell you all now, but after a time you may know that there is to be a house much better than theirs for you to live in, with me. you shall have everything much better. but i will not tell you more. only, you can be perfectly sure of it. you will not think that i came away without caring about leaving you. i was afraid you would guess something if i hugged you before them as i wanted to, but i had been to your room in the night, and any of your gowns you put on is full of your son's kisses. if i thought you would show this letter, i think that i should never in my life write you again. if you should send me any money, i should return it at once or destroy it, so please don't do it, it would make me angry. i know that we had nothing when we came to their house, except the violin. one of the servants told[177] me how we came. what do you suppose keeping me all these years has cost? when i can, i mean to give them double; you can tell him so, if you choose. i can't now, but what i can do is to take nothing more from them. you need not be anxious about me. i am prepared, because i have long known what i meant to do, and i can take care of myself. i have met several persons already who know of my father; it seems to be something here to be his son, though not at home, except to one man, and he a hostler. well, i will show them—you, too, dear mother. i don't mean to vex or grieve you, mother, dear. if i have vexed you, i know i shall make you forgive me some day, before long, perhaps, when i shall have made you understand. you can write me at the tartar's head, but if you hunted me there, or information concerning me, you would never find me, i vow."
other letters came from time to time, written in fine spirits always, referring, but mysteriously, to fine successes. emmie felt a certain modesty about these letters. she[178] communicated what was in them with reserve, and adopted towards inquirers the tone of discretion that the letters had with herself. but she found herself often brooding over the contents. they charmed the imagination; they sounded like things one read. it was so remarkable, this circumstance of a poor boy, a boy of her own, arriving in a great city, with little but his violin, and by sounds merely forcing the things one values to come to him, as he had spoken fancifully once, she remembered, of making a flock of rabbits follow him into the woods. he wrote little very definite, but dropped telling hints of how he had played before this great man and that man of importance, and this one had said—the other had promised. he had been called upon to perform at a certain levee, and out of his fee had bought the things he was sending; he had money to spare. and there came a parcel of presents for emmie and the little girls, by which all were greatly impressed. dorastus's rank in the memory of his family rose a degree. now, on looking back, each knew that he had always foreseen how,[179] with that powerful will, dorastus must be able to hew his way through difficulties and compel circumstances to serve him. he was looked on rather as a man than a boy, even as he looked on himself. his mother was grateful to him for seeming to efface the weak foolishness out of her first marriage: she was justified in her latter days, and proved a virgin full of good sense. she wrote dorastus encouraging letters. her good words got glowing answers: surely it would not be long; he was working with all his might. but they must be patient, for success as a material recompense was slow; and he hinted with the effect of a sigh at rivalries, at the density of the public mind. yet talent must inevitably triumph in the end and manly effort meet its reward.
when hector came home for his holidays he found it just a little stupid to have been a good boy. the personage in the general mind seemed to be his undisciplined half-brother. he contrived, however, in the course of weeks, to fix a good deal of attention on himself. he restored the balance to[180] his mother's mind. dorastus sank into his natural place in relation to her other children. she waited in serene patience—sometimes with a passing touch of scepticism, the reflection of some outsider's attitude, oftener with childish perfection of faith—for the developments he announced in letters somewhat decreasing in frequency, but preserving their early tone of hopefulness.
so time passed. the unusual became the usual and lost consideration, according to its habit.
then the sisters-in-law, those perfect daughters, mothers, and wives, came to visit the head of the house in the home of their girlhood. they brought maids and children and chattels manifold.
now these ladies had been in london, and emmie heard much from them of the glories and greatness of that city; she had long opportunity to learn respect for their manners and gowns, which alike came from there. they had not happened upon dorastus; they could not remember hearing of him, and as that seemed to make it plain to emmie they[181] had not been in the most polite places, they explained that the city was so large and populous you might not come across a person in a lifetime.
they left on a rainy autumn morning. emmie, with her forehead against the glass, watched their carriages dwindling, dwindling. gone, with all their patterns for gowns, with the last sweet thing in worsted-work; gone, with their fashionable conversation, the art of which she had not had quite time yet to master. but even if she had become perfect in all, as they, of what use could it have been to her here? she asked, turning from the dripping window-pane.
she moved with an air of being the moon by day. the sickness of the decaying year seemed to have got into her blood; she felt as if she herself were the perishing summer, which had somehow been wasted. she said over her children's ages with a sort of terror, a sense of time having stolen a march on her; she was vaguely panic-stricken to think there was so little of the good time of life left before her. she sought the mirror to divert[182] her mind with trying on again the bonnet the sisters had bestowed on her, pronouncing it so becoming. under the severe gray light the face she saw reflected held more than ever to her discontented eyes a forecast of the cheerless coming days when the rose should be withered, the gold gone. the deadly quiet of the country, the silence of the well-regulated house, suddenly seemed to her an outrage, a roof incontrovertible that no one cared what happened to her. gregory in particular did not care. else would he not have comprehended that movement and novelty and gayety alone could at this pass save her from the insidious oncreeping evil that encouraged hard lines between the pale cheek and the drooping mouth? clearly he did not care. he cared for nothing but not to be disturbed after dinner. in this connection she thought over many a subtle wrong she had been putting up with for years. she thought of dorastus, from whom this husband, with his royal indifference, allowed her to be so long separated; dorastus, who as she looked to[183] him, turning from the lukewarm, apathetic tribe surrounding her, seemed an embodiment of swiftness and strength, a tempered steel blade to rely on, a flame at which to warm the numb hands of the heart. ah, well, he was making a home for her with him, yonder in the living city. she lost sight of the mirror into which she was staring; she saw that home. suddenly it seemed to her she could not live longer without seeing her boy. she rose with the energy of true inspiration. it was such an obviously legitimate desire, this desire to behold again her own flesh and blood, that she need not be at pains to fabricate palliation or excuse for it. she sought gregory directly. she was weary and ill, she had dreams at night, he did not know how hard her life had become. she wanted to see dorastus.
gregory yielded.
they came to london. they took rooms at a quiet hotel known to him of old.
the novelty of all, the anticipation, made emmie feel young again. her violet eyes were still childishly clear, her hair was pretty[184] still; little was missed of the beauty of her youth but its slender lightness.
"no, no; you must leave it all to me," she said, when gregory would have accompanied her in her search for dorastus. "i have a clue which i will not betray. he has shown, dear fellow, that he might be trusted to take care of himself. i will bring him home to dine with us. you may take seats for the pantomime."
so the good gregory put her in the care of a trusted driver, and saw her started on her adventure.
now she was driven—it seemed to her they were hours on the way—to the tartar's head, a coffee-house of not very imposing appearance, in a crowded part.
before reaching her destination she almost wished she had let gregory come: it was so noisy; the air was so dingy it deadened one's spirits despite wealth of delightful prospects; and she must face various unknown, perhaps unfriendly, faces before finding his face—after which all would be well.
she descended from the carriage with a[185] little flutter, then with the haste of rout got into it again, and requested the driver to bring some one to her, as if she had been a great person.
a young man came out to take her commands, a well-oiled young man in side-whiskers and a broad shirt-front.
had not letters been received there addressed to so-and-so?
the young man was more than polite. inquiries were made. such letters had been received. the person to whom they were addressed called for them.
"i am his mother," said emmie, lamely, for she had prepared another course than this simple one, a course involving strategy. "does he not live here? where does he live?"
the young man continued very obliging. he made further inquiries and came back looking a little blank. the person came himself and left no direction for forwarding his letters; a letter had once been waiting several weeks.
"does no one here know him?" asked his[186] mother, nearly in tears. of a sudden this city seemed to her terribly large, and terribly full of people who cared nothing for any distress of hers. "he plays on the violin—he plays very beautifully on the violin."
a possibility of intelligence dawned in the obliging young man's face, and he ran in-doors again. he came back with a hopeful air. "yes, your ladyship. there is an old man belonging to the place knows him. he took him a letter once when he couldn't come himself, being laid up. he didn't want to tell at first, saying how he'd sworn. but i let him know your ladyship was the young man's mother, and he told. it's a bit far."
the waiter stepped up to the coachman and gave him instructions. emmie rewarded his obligingness with bounty in proportion to her relief at all proving so easy. of course some one knew him. it was part of his boyishness to suppose he could hide, after his light had begun shining through the bushel, too.
she looked out through the misty pane[187] at the bright passing shop-windows; there seemed to her thousands in a row, and hundreds of carriages rolling along with her. she liked the city again exceedingly, and was glad to hope she might be there often after a time; it was so various, it put life into one. if only the murky cloud would lift that rested on the chimney-tops, and the rain stop making more the gray slime on the flags.
it was a long distance. she looked out until she was tired and confused; then leaned back and meditated pleasantly for a time, then looked out again, with a little shock of disappointment at seeing no more bright windows.
they were going more slowly; the streets here were narrow, the air seemed dingier, the houses and people looked miserable.
she watched with a saddened interest these that she fixed upon as the poor city-people in their poor quarters. she was sorry for them, but she would be relieved when they were left behind for the gayer thoroughfares, or the roomier, more cheerful suburbs.
[188]
now at the entrance of a narrow court the carriage stopped. she wondered what could be hindering its progress, and fidgeted while the coachman left his box and came to the door. he opened it with a stolid face and held his finger to his hat, waiting for her to alight.
"but—but"—she stammered, eying the poverty-stricken appearance of the place, "this cannot be it!"
"the directions were clear, ma'am; i've followed them," said the man, with respectful firmness. "this is as near as i can get to the house; there's no room to turn around in the court."
emmie leaned back a moment, determined not to stir from her cushions—the mistake was on the face of it too stupid.
the coachman stood waiting, a man of patience carved in wood. emmie eyed him helplessly; then, seeing that the imposing creature would be satisfied with no less from her, with the abruptness of impatience she alighted, and rustled into the dark court, peering upward for the number.
there it was. she knocked, and listened,[189] with a heart in which strange things seemed to be happening. to the capless woman who opened she stammered a name, looking for the relief of being told instantly that none of that name lived there.
"three pair back, ma'am," said the woman, who appeared like a cook, actual, past, or potential. "but he's not in. there's no telling how soon he will come. what name did you say? drastus what? sibbie-mole? oh no, ma'am. beg pardon. i listened as far as drastus, and answered because it's such a curious name. ours name is fenton. but, let's see. what manner of young man might yours be? like a foreigner, with a large nose and black eyes, and plays the fiddle, and wears his hair long? dear me, ma'am, the very same! his room's three pair back. you wish to wait for him? this way, then, ma'am."
emmie, in whom all processes of thought had stopped in amazement, followed the landlady as best she could up three flights of dark stairs, and entered through the door flung open for her.
[190]
they stood in a little room that received the day through a sky-light. emmie dropped, sitting on the edge of the narrow bed and knotted her little gloved fingers together in silence. she was so pale that the landlady felt alarmed and asked if she were feeling ill. she shook her head, and continued looking about fearfully and in wonder.
there was little to see, nothing that might not have belonged to any one in the wide world as well as to that boy; not one of these sordid appurtenances reminded her of him, except the music on the table—but any fiddler might have just such music.
she rose to her feet as if jerked by a hidden string, and walked stiffly towards the door, saying, "it is evidently not the one. this one's name is drastus fenton, you say. the one i seek is dorastus sibbemol. good-morning, ma'am."
but near the door she stopped, her eyes widening upon an object set upright in the corner—a black wooden box, very old, scarred and worm-eaten, mournfully resembling a child's coffin.
[191]
she went back to the bed, and limply leaned against the wall. she stared over at the box, with its peculiar wrought-iron hinges and handle.
"has he been here long?" she asked, faintly, at last, of the blowzy woman who was looking at her with some concern, and at the same time, in view of the lady's respectability, trying to smooth down her untidy hair.
she thought a moment and judged he might have been there half a year.
emmie wrung her hands in an aimless way. she felt little of pain as yet, or indignation; only vague throes and convulsions of change, a working of all the atoms in heart and brain trying to adjust themselves to something new.
"and he is poor!" she murmured.
"well," said the landlady, exculpatingly, "we are all poor folks here, ma'am. he mostly pays his rent—i don't ask much, but when he's behind i'm not hard on him. he's a good lad," she went on, and as she was a sizable woman, after a gesture of deferential apology she took a seat, to support her[192] in her view of lingering to angle with information until she caught a little enlightenment. "a good lad, but that proud! he thinks he'll be as rich as a dook some day, with his little fiddle!" she shook her head in compassion and chuckled fatly over a household joke of long standing. "he's all right in his head, ma'am, except on that point. a poor lad that plays in the streets is none so likely to pick up a fortune. and such tunes as he plays! i've always been told i'd an uncommon ear for a catch, but to catch head or tail of them is beyond me!"
"he plays in the streets!"
"yes, poor dook—come rain, come shine. sometimes he has a good day, sometimes a bad one; but times is hard—it's not very good at best. he's not one of them pretty-impudent italian boys with wheedling brown velvet eyes. he looks too scornful, and despises folks more than is for his own good. i have felt hurt at it myself, ma'am, and i may say i'm not touchy. when i've known that he was a bit hard up and he looked hollow, and i've asked him in neighborly to have a bite[193] with us, he has answered me almost as if he hated me for it—and gone hollow."
his mother drew in her breath sharply.
"might you be a friend of his?" asked the landlady. "once when he was sick abed, and i came up to say a good word, he got sociabler than usual, and spoke of a lady, a lady of quality, who'd heard him play—i thought likely it was before he came here with his coat so seedy—a lady who thought he was very fine. perhaps i don't understand about fiddle-playing, and he is all he says. might you be the lady?"
"yes, yes, yes!" said emmie, scarcely knowing what she said.
the landlady looked much interested. "well, now, i thought as much, for i don't think he's any one in the world belonging to him. he's a good lad, ma'am," she said again, with a good-natured impulse to make hay for a fellow-creature while this, possibly a sun, was shining. "he deserves better than he gets, if i do say it. he works at them music-books for hours sometimes, at night, till the man below is fit to go mad.[194] but i tell him i can't put out a lodger that pays more frequent than he, and when i speak to drastus he says he'll leave, though he should have to sleep on the pavement—he must play when he pleases. he says that it's because he can't play as other fiddle-men do, from a book and in a particular way, that he can't get nothing to do but play in the streets. so he must learn, and learn he will, and he scrapes away like a meeting of cats on the roof. i'm sorry he's out, ma'am. what did you want with him, now? couldn't i give your message—or must you wait yourself?"
"i will wait—i will wait."
"he may not be home till night. he sometimes even—"
"oh, leave me, my good woman!" moaned emmie. "what else can i do but wait?"
and the landlady, taking pity on what seemed to her an inordinate perturbation of spirit, left the visitor to herself, returning now and then to listen, and bringing up once an inquiry from the coachman.
emmie remained sitting on the edge of[195] the bed. after a time she rose and looked with pointless minuteness at everything in the room, opening every drawer and reading every paper. she found all her letters tied in a bundle and wrapped in a silk neckerchief of her own, old, and that she had never missed. he had few possessions, and they made the heart sick to pore over.
the light faded off the dull glass overhead. with chilled fingers she felt for the candle and lighted it. the landlady, coming up at dark, insisted on bringing her a cup of tea. the good creature had so disciplined her curiosity concerning the history implied in this gentlewoman's presence here that her delicacy now in endeavoring to discover was touching. yet it went unrewarded. she stayed for the satisfaction of seeing the lady, who she thought looked fairly ill, refresh herself; and when it was delayed, tried by example to institute in the atmosphere that cheerfulness which is conducive to a better appetite—until asked again, with an imploring glance from eyes like a shot dove's, to go, for the sake of pity to go.
[196]
emmie now took down the few clothes she had seen on the hooks, with a vague idea that they required mending. she spread them out over her lap one by one, and passed her hand mechanically over the threadbare places where the black was green, over certain fringes about the holes, her heart feeling extraordinarily large and empty and silent. the rings on her cold hand glittered in the stroking movement, four rich rings with various stones, gregory's gifts. four—but she had five children.
she stretched herself suddenly on the bed with her face in the old coat, the chill of the room slowly seizing upon her as she lay. she prayed in a distant, half-conscious way, without the least illusion that such words could persuade any one, for god to unmake everything that had happened to her, to let her have died, and dorastus too, at his very birth; for them to have both been lying in the remote dutch god's-acre these many years. for one fleeting moment memory gave back to her perfect an impression never before recalled. she seemed to have been roused[197] from a stupor deeper than sleep; her eyes dwelt without wonder on what she thought to be a cathedral, with colored windows ablaze—it dwindled, until it was a mere night-light glimmering. then shadowy people placed a little bundle in her arms. she tingled as an instrument whose every string is touched, a coolness rippled from her head to her feet, she knew a state never known before or since, a sense of unlimited wealth, a tenderness ineffable, a trembling outgoing of all her being to this handful of life. she heaved a great, faint sigh, and with effort unspeakable bent till her lips were pressed as to a warm rose-leaf. she sank to sleep, weak unto death, but blissfully happy—waking stronger and in a different mood.
she wished she might not have waked, but been buried with her poor first baby in her arms, having ceased to be in the single moment wherein she completely loved it. nothing that had happened to her since then seemed to her sweet; all was sicklied through by the consciousness of a crime gone before and daily confirmed, a woman's most mon[198]strous, miserable crime—not loving enough. nothing could make her withered, yellowed, cheapened life right now—she should have died at that moment. she said this over and over again to the powers that hear us, until all meaning had faded from it. she started, with a sense of something going out—she thought it must be the candle and she should be left in the dark. she sat up, frightened and freezing.
the candle was burning quietly. then, as she scrutinized the shadows ahead, loath to stir, she became aware of her rings having grown loose, they were in danger of dropping off; of her clothes having grown loose, they let the cold in under them; she felt a prickling at the temples, as if it were the gray creeping through her hair; she felt her features becoming pinched and old, beauty dropping from them like a husk. she wanted to cry then with a childish self-pity, but no tears would come; she did not know how to start the flood that she longed for to relieve her. she felt that she could only have screamed.
she got up to rid herself of this congeal[199]ment, and paced the room from corner to corner with sweeping black gown that told of the dusty things it had that day brushed.
company had come to the man below; they were making a great deal of very jolly noise. the candle guttered drearily; a reek of warm cabbage climbed up the stairway to her nostrils. she looked up on hearing a soft tapping—the black sky-light was spattered with silver tears, like a pall.
she walked up and down, waiting and listening, everything taking more and more the quality of a dream wherein the most unnatural things grow ordinary. she had felt with a numbed sort of cowardly loathing that every moment brought her nearer to a black stream of realizing grief and remorse into which willy-nilly she must descend; but now it seemed in accordance with every known law that she should be here, destined to go on walking so forever, never arriving, nor anything ever changing. she heard herself say aloud in a light, indifferent tone, "he will never come. he will never come."
for a moment she remembered gregory,[200] whose image seemed to rise out of the dim past: gregory in the warm light of the hotel coffee-room, where dinner was set on a little table for three, dinner with wine-glasses of two shapes, and fruit and confectionery in crystal dishes. the thought worked upon her as a sweet smell in sea-sickness. all that had to do with gregory seemed of negative importance; let him wait and wonder and worry. she felt hard-hearted towards him and all prosperous things.
a burst of voices reached her through the floor; they were rough and hoarse, their mirth had turned to wrangling. it was so horribly lonely here! if they were suddenly possessed to climb the stairs, to burst in upon her! there was a crash of glass—she screamed; then a laugh—she shuddered—and the noise grew less. she breathed again, but, feeling her knees weaken, went back to the bed, and sat listening in fascination for the murmuring sounds to develop again into a quarrel.
suddenly, without the warning of gradually approaching sounds she had prepared herself for, she heard footsteps just outside.
[201]
she knew them. an impulse to flee seized her. she looked about for a place to hide in, a place to get through, to jump from. she could not bear to see him, she felt as a murderess whose victim's ghost is upon her. his image flashed before her, pinched with hunger and cold, worn, embittered with disappointment, terrible with its long unrequited love turned to hatred—gray, with glassy eyes.
she looked wildly, but she could not move. besides, it was too late, a hand was on the door.
as it opened, a deep stillness fell upon her, a suspension of all.
a spell seemed to snap with his coming into the range of the candle-light; it was as to a child locked all night in a graveyard the cock-crow that lays the ghosts and heralds the day. she took a feeble breath and her heart gave a warm little throb. the very face! only, a young man's face rather than a boy's, thinner and bolder than ever, but, thank heaven! not pathetic, not heart-breaking—but with red where red should be, with living light in the eyes.
[202]
he held his violin; he was meanly clad, and his woollen muffler was of a cheap and dismal tint no mother would have chosen for him.
he looked in surprise at the lighted candle, and quickly cast his eyes about, frowning to see who had taken this liberty. he caught sight of her, blinked and narrowed his eyes, to distinguish.
she could not make a sound, or bring a vestige of expression to her face, or lift the pale little hands from her black lap—but sat transfixed under his questioning stare.
he took a few steps, uttered a jubilant shout, and dashed towards her with outstretched arms—but he stopped before reaching her. he gave a glance around the horrible little room, a glance at her face with the eyes full of stern sadness, of reproach for the many, many lies he had told her. abruptly he turned his back to her and dropped on his knees beside the table, saying furiously in disjointed syllables as he pressed his working face against his arms. "you won't understand! you never understand any[203]thing! i think sometimes that you are a fool!"
but he felt her soft icy hands tremble about his head, he felt her fluttering breath in his neck. she was kneeling beside him, saying in choked whispers in the intervals of lifting her poor lips from his wet face, "don't speak!—don't speak!"
she was straining him to her with a passionate tenderness never shown another being, raining on him the sweetest kisses.
both fell to crying as if their hearts would break.
