Part 13

She murmured assent, and followed him with a vaguely uneasy glance as he crossed over to the grand piano and sat down. I had never heard him either play or sing; in fact so far as his accomplishments went, I knew nothing of him as yet except that he was a perfect master of the art of horsemanship. With the first few bars he struck I half started from my chair in amazement;--could a mere pianoforte produce such sounds?--or was there some witchery hidden in the commonplace instrument, unguessed by any other performer? I stared around me, bewildered,--I saw Miss Charlotte drop her knitting abstractedly,--Diana Chesney, lying lazily back in one corner of the sofa, half closed her eyelids in dreamy ecstasy,--Lord Elton stood near the fire resting one arm on the mantelpiece and shading his fuzzy brows with his hand,--and Lady Sibyl sat beside her mother, her lovely face pale with emotion, while on the worn features of the invalided lady there was an expression of mingled pain and pleasure difficult to describe. The music swelled into passionate cadence,--melodies crossed and re-crossed each other like rays of light glittering among green leaves,--voices of birds and streams and tossing waterfalls chimed in with songs of love and playful merriment;--anon came wilder strains of grief and angry clamour; cries of despair were heard echoing through the thunderous noise of some relentless storm,--farewells everlastingly shrieked amid sobs of reluctant shuddering agony;--and then, as I listened, before my eyes a black mist gathered slowly, and I thought I saw great rocks bursting asunder into flame, and drifting islands in a sea of fire,--faces, wonderful, hideous, beautiful, peered at me out of a darkness denser than night, and in the midst of this there came a tune, complete in sweetness and suggestion,--a piercing sword-like tune that plunged into my very heart and rankled there,----my breath failed me,--my senses swam,--I felt that I must move, speak, cry out, and implore that this music, this horribly insidious music should cease ere I swooned with the voluptuous poison of it,--when, with a full chord of splendid harmony that rolled out upon the air like a breaking wave, the intoxicating sounds ebbed away into silence. No one spoke,--our hearts were yet beating too wildly with the pulsations roused by that wondrous lyric storm. Diana Chesney was the first to break the spell.

"Well, that beats everything I've ever heard!" she murmured tremulously.

I could say nothing,--I was too occupied with my own thoughts. Something in the music had instilled itself into my blood, or so I fancied, and the clinging subtle sweetness of it, moved me to strange emotions that were neither wise, nor worthy of a man. I looked at Lady Sibyl; she was very pale,--her eyes were cast down and her hands were trembling. On a sudden impulse I rose and went to Rimânez where he still sat at the piano, his hands dumbly wandering over the keys.

"You are a great master"--I said--"A wonderful performer! But do you know what your music suggests?"

He met my fixed gaze, shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head.

"Crime!" I whispered--"You have roused in me evil thoughts of which I am ashamed. I did not think that was possible to so divine an Art."

He smiled, and his eyes glittered with the steely brightness of stars on a wintry night.

"Art takes its colours from the mind, my dear friend;"--he said--"If you discover evil suggestions in my music, the evil, I fear, must be in your own nature."

"Or in yours!" I said quickly.

"Or in mine;"--he agreed coldly--"I have often told you I am no saint."

I stood hesitatingly, looking at him. For one moment his great personal beauty appeared hateful to me, though I knew not why. Then the feeling of distrust and repulsion slowly passed, leaving me humiliated and abashed.

"Pardon me, Lucio!" I murmured regretfully--"I spoke in haste; but truly your music almost put me in a state of frenzy,--I never heard anything in the least like it----"

"Nor I,"--said Lady Sibyl, who just then moved towards the piano--"It was marvellous! Do you know, it quite frightened me?"

"I am sorry!" he answered with a penitent air--"I know I am quite a failure as a pianist--I am not sufficiently 'restrained,' as the press men would say."

"A failure? Good God!" exclaimed Lord Elton at this juncture--"Why, if you played like that in public, you'd drive everyone frantic!"

"With alarm?" queried Lucio, laughing--"Or with disgust?"

"Nonsense! you know what I mean very well. I have always had a contempt for the piano as an instrument, but by Jove! I never heard such music as yours even in a full orchestra. It is extraordinary!--it is positively magnificent! Where in the world did you study?"

"In Nature's conservatoire;"--replied Rimânez lazily. "My first 'maestro' was an amiable nightingale. He, singing on a branch of fir when the moon was full, explained with liquid-noted patience, how to construct and produce a pure roulade, cadenza and trill,--and when I had learned thus far, he showed me all the most elaborate methods of applying rhythmic tune to the upward and downward rush of the wind, thus supplying me with perfect counterpoint. Chords I learned from old Neptune, who was good enough to toss a few of his largest billows to the shore for my special benefit. He nearly deafened me with his instructions, being somewhat excitable and loud-voiced,--but on finding me an apt pupil, he drew back his waves to himself with so much delicacy among the pebbles and sand, that at once I mastered the secret of playing _arpeggi_. Once too I had a finishing lesson from a Dream,--a mystic thing with wild hair and wings--it sang one word in my ears, and the word was unpronounceable in mortal speech,--but after many efforts I discovered it lurking in the scale of sound. The best part of it all was, that my instructors asked no fees!"

"I think you are a poet as well as a musician,"--said Lady Sibyl.

"A poet! Spare me!--my dear young lady, why are you so cruel as to load me with so vile an imputation! Better be a murderer than a poet,--one is treated with much more respect and courteous consideration,--by the press at anyrate. The murderer's breakfast-menu will be given due place in many of the most estimable journals,--but the poet's lack of both breakfast and dinner will be deemed his fitting reward. Call me a live-stock producer, a horse-breeder, a timber-merchant,--anything but a poet! Why even Tennyson became an amateur milkman to somewhat conceal and excuse the shame and degradation of writing verse!"

We all laughed.

"Well, you must admit," said Lord Elton, "that we've had rather too much of poets lately. It's no wonder we're sick of them, and that poetry has fallen into disrepute. Poets are such a quarrelsome lot too--effeminate, puling, unmanly humbugs!"

"You are speaking of the newly 'discovered' ones of course," said Lucio--"Yes, they are a weedy collection. I have sometimes thought that out of pure philanthropy I would start a bon-bon manufactory, and employ them to write mottoes for the crackers. It would keep them out of mischief and provide them with a little pocket-money, for as matters stand they do not make a farthing by their books. But I do not call them 'poets' at all,--they are mere rhymers. One or two real poets do exist, but, like the prophets of Scripture, they are not 'in society,' nor can they get their logs rolled by any of their contemporaries. They are not favourites with any 'set'; that is why I am afraid my dear friend Tempest will never be accepted as the genius he is; society will be too fond of him to let him go down into dust and ashes to gather the laurel."

"It is not necessary to go down into dust and ashes for that," I said.

"I assure you it is!--" he answered gaily--"Positively imperative. The laurel flourishes best so,--it will not grow in a hot-house."

At that moment Diana Chesney approached.

"Lady Elton would like to hear you sing, prince--" she said--"Will you give us that pleasure? Do! Something quite simple, you know,--it will set our nerves straight after your terribly beautiful music! You'd hardly believe it perhaps,--but I really feel quite unstrung!"

He folded his hands with a droll air of penitence.

"Forgive me!" he said, "I'm always, as the church service says, doing those things I ought not to do."

Miss Chesney laughed, a trifle nervously.

"Oh, I forgive you!" she replied--"On condition that you sing."

"I obey!" and with that he turned again to the piano, and playing a strange wild minor accompaniment sang the following stanzas:

Sleep, my Belovëd, sleep! Be patient!--we shall keep Our secret closely hid Beneath the coffin-lid,-- There is no other place in earth or air For such a love as ours, or such despair! And neither hell nor heaven shall care to win Our loathëd souls, rejoicing in their sin!

Sleep!--for my hand is sure,-- The cold steel bright and pure Strikes through thy heart and mine Shedding our blood like wine;-- Sin's sweetness is too sweet, and if the shame Of love must be our curse, we hurl the blame Back on the gods who gave us love with breath And tortured us from passion into death!

This strange song, sung in the most glorious of baritones, full and rich, and vibrating with power and sweetness, had a visibly thrilling effect upon us all. Again we were struck dumb with surprise and something like fear,--and again Diana Chesney broke the silence.

"You call that simple!" she said, half petulantly.

"Quite so. Love and Death are the simplest things in the world"--replied Lucio.--"The ballad is a mere trifle,--it is entitled 'The Last Love-Song' and is supposed to be the utterance of a lover about to kill his mistress and himself. Such events happen every day,--you know that by the newspapers,--they are perfectly common-place----"

He was interrupted by a sharp clear voice ringing imperatively across the room--

"Where did you learn that song?"

XIV

It was the paralysed Countess who spoke. She had managed to partly raise herself on her couch, and her face expressed positive terror. Her husband hurried to her side,--and, with a curiously cynical smile on his lips, Rimânez rose from the piano. Miss Charlotte, who had sat rigidly upright and silent for some time, hastened to attend upon her sister, but Lady Elton was singularly excited, and appeared to have gained a sudden access of unnatural vigour.

"Go away,--I'm not ill,"--she said impatiently--"I feel better,--much better than I have done for months. The music does me good." And addressing her husband, she added--"Ask your friend to come and sit here by me,--I want to talk to him. He has a magnificent voice,--and--I know that song he sang,--I remember reading it--in a manuscript album--long ago. I want to know where he found it--"

Rimânez here advanced with his gentle tread and courteous bearing, and Lord Elton gave him a chair beside the invalid.

"You are working miracles on my wife,"--he said--"I have not seen her so animated for years."

And leaving the two to talk, he crossed over to where Lady Sibyl, myself and Miss Chesney were all seated in a group, chatting more or less unrestrainedly.

"I have just been expressing the hope that you and your daughter will pay me a visit at Willowsmere, Lord Elton," I said.

His brows contracted a little, but he forced a smile. "We shall be delighted,"--he mumbled--"when do you take possession?"

"As soon as it is at all feasible"--I replied--"I shall wait in town till the next Levée is over, as both my friend and myself have arranged to be presented."

"Oh--ah--yes!--er--yes! That is always advisable. And it's not half such a troublesome business as a Drawing-room is for the ladies. It's soon over,--and low bodices are not _de rigeur_--ha--ha--ha! Who is your presenter?"

I named a distinguished personage, closely connected with the Court, and the Earl nodded.

"A very good man,--you could not have a better"--he said complacently--"And this book of yours,--when does it come out?"

"Next week."

"We must get it,--we must certainly get it,"--said Lord Elton, assuming interest,--"Sybil, you must put it down on your library list."

She assented, though, as I thought a trifle indifferently.

"On the contrary you must allow me to present it to you;" I said--"It will be a pleasure to me which I hope you will not deny."

"You are very kind,"--she answered, lifting her beautiful eyes to mine as she spoke--"But the librarian at Mudie's is sure to send it--he knows I read everything. Though I confess I never buy any books except those by Mavis Clare."

Again that woman's name! I felt annoyed, but took care not to show my annoyance.

"I shall be jealous of Mavis Clare," I said playfully.

"Most men are!" she replied quietly.

"You are indeed an enthusiastic partisan of hers!" I exclaimed, somewhat surprised.

"Yes, I suppose I am. I like to see any member of my sex distinguish herself as nobly as she does. I have no genius of my own, and that is one of the reasons why I honour it so much in other women."

I was about to make some suitable compliment by way of response to this remark, when we were all violently startled from our seats by a most horrible cry,--a gasping scream such as might be wrung from some tortured animal. Aghast at the sound we stood for a moment inert, staring at Rimânez, who came quickly towards us with an air of grave concern.

"I am afraid," he said softly--"that the Countess is not so well,--perhaps you had better go to her--"

Another shriek interrupted his words, and transfixed with horror we saw Lady Elton struggling in the throes of some sudden and terrific convulsion, her hands beating the air as if she were fighting with an unseen enemy. In one second her face underwent such hideous contortions as robbed it of all human semblance, and between the agonized pantings of her difficult breath, her half-choked voice could be heard uttering wild cries--

"Mercy!--mercy!--oh God--God! Tell Sibyl!--pray--pray to God,--pray--"

And with that she fell heavily back, speechless and unconscious.

All was instant confusion. Lady Sibyl rushed to her mother's side, with Miss Charlotte,--Diana Chesney hung back trembling and afraid,--Lord Elton sprang to the bell and rang it furiously.

"Fetch the doctor!" he cried to the startled servant--"Lady Elton has had another shock! She must be taken to her room at once!"

"Can I be of any service?" I inquired, with a side-glance at Rimânez, who stood gravely apart, a statuesquely composed figure of silence.

"No no,--thanks all the same!" and the Earl pressed my hand gratefully--"She should not have come downstairs,--it has been too exciting for her. Sybil, don't look at her, my dear--it will only unnerve you,--Miss Chesney, pray go to your room,--Charlotte can do all that is possible----"

As he spoke two of the men-servants came in to carry the insensible Countess upstairs,--and as they slowly bore her on her coffin-like couch past me, one of them drew the coverlet across her face to conceal it. But not so quickly that I could not see the awful change impressed upon it,--the indelible horror that was stamped on the drawn features,--horror such as surely never was seen except in a painter's idea of some lost soul in torment. The eyes were rolled up and fixed in their sockets like balls of glass, and in them also was frozen the same frenzied desperate look of fear. It was a dreadful face!--so dreadful in its ghastly immovableness that I was all at once reminded of my hideous vision of the previous night, and the pallid countenances of the three phantoms that had scared me in my sleep. Lady Elton's looks now resembled theirs! Sickened and appalled I averted my eyes, and was glad to see Rimânez taking farewell of his host, the while he expressed his regret and sympathy with him in his domestic affliction. I myself, approaching Lady Sibyl, pressed her cold and trembling hand in mine, and respectfully kissed it.

"I am deeply sorry!" I murmured--"I wish I could do anything to console you!"

She looked at me with dry calm eyes.

"Thank-you. But the doctors have always said that my mother would have another shock depriving her of speech. It is very sad; she will probably live for some years like that."

I again expressed my sympathy.

"May I come and inquire about you all to-morrow?" I asked.

"It will be very kind of you,"--she answered quietly.

"Shall I see you if I come?" I said in a lower tone.

"If you wish it,--certainly!"

Our eyes met; and I knew by instinct that she read my thoughts. I pressed her hand again and was not repulsed,--then bowing profoundly, I left her to make my adieux to Lord Elton and Miss Chesney, who seemed terribly upset and frightened. Miss Charlotte Fitzroy had left the room in attendance on her sister, and she did not return to bid us good-night. Rimânez lingered a moment behind me to say another word or two to the Earl, and when he joined me in the hall and threw on his opera-coat, he was smiling to himself somewhat singularly.

"An unpleasant end for Helena, Countess of Elton"--he said, when we were in our brougham, driving away--"Paralysis is perhaps the worst of all the physical punishments that can befall a 'rapid' lady."

"Was she 'rapid'?"

"Well,--perhaps 'rapid' is too mild a term, but I can find no other;"--he answered--"When she was young,--she is barely fifty now,--she did everything that could be done by woman at her worst and wildest. She had scores of lovers,--and I believe one of them cleared off her husband's turf-debts,--the Earl consenting gladly,--on a rather pressing occasion."

"What disgraceful conduct!" I exclaimed.

He looked at me with an expression of cynical amusement.

"Think so? The 'upper ten' quite condone that sort of thing in their own set now-a-days. It is all right. If a lady has lovers, and her husband beams benevolence on the situation what can be said? Nothing. How very tender your conscience is, Geoffrey!"

I sat silent, thinking. My companion lit a cigarette and offered me one. I took it mechanically without lighting it.

"I made a mistake this evening,"--he went on--"I should not have sung that 'Last Love-song.' The fact is, the words were written by one of her ladyship's former admirers, a man who was something of a poet in his way,--and she had an idea that she was the only person living who had ever seen the lines. She wanted to know if I knew the man who composed them, and I was able to say that I did--very intimately. I was just explaining how it was, and why I knew him so well, when the distressing attack of convulsions came on, and finished our conversation."

"She looked horrible!" I said.

"The paralysed Helen of a modern Troy? Yes,--her countenance at the last was certainly not attractive. Beauty combined with wantonness frequently ends in the drawn twitch, fixed eye and helpless limbs of life-in-death. It is Nature's revenge on the outraged body,--and do you know, Eternity's revenge on the impure Soul is extremely similar?"

"What do you know about it?" I said, smiling in spite of myself as I looked at his fine face, expressive of perfect health and splendid intellectuality--"Your absurd fancies about the soul are the only traces of folly I discover in you."

"Really? Well I am glad I have something of the fool in my disposition,--foolishness being the only quality that makes wisdom possible. I confess I have odd, very odd notions about the soul."

"I will excuse them--" I said, laughing--God forgive me, in my own insensate blind conceit,--the while he regarded me fixedly--"In fact I will excuse anything for the sake of your voice. I do not flatter you, Lucio,--you sing like an angel."

"Don't use impossible comparisons;"--he replied--"Have you ever heard an angel sing?"

"Yes!" I answered smiling--"I have,--this very night!"

He turned deadly pale.

"A very open compliment!" he said, forcing a laugh,--and with almost rough haste, he suddenly let down the window of the carriage though the night was bitter cold--"This vehicle is suffocating me,--let us have some air. See how the stars are shining!--like great crown jewels--Deity's regalia! Hard frost, like hard times, brings noble works into prominence. Yonder, far off, is a star you can hardly perceive; red as a cinder at times and again blue as the lightning,--I can always discover it, though many cannot. It is Algol,--judged by superstitious folk to be an evil star. I love it chiefly on account of its bad reputation,--it is no doubt much maligned. It may be a cold quarter of hell where weeping spirits sit frozen in ice made of their own congealed tears,--or it may be a preparatory school for Heaven--who knows! Yonder too, shines Venus,--your star Geoffrey!--for you are in love my friend!--come confess it! are you not?"

"I am not sure;"--I answered slowly--"The phrase 'in love' scarcely describes my present feeling...."

"You have dropped these,"--he said suddenly, picking up a fast fading knot of violets from the floor of the brougham and holding them towards me. He smiled, as I uttered an exclamation of annoyance. They were Lady Sibyl's flowers which I had inadvertently let fall, and I saw he knew it. I took them from his hand in silence.

"My dear fellow, do not try to hide your intentions from your best friend,"--he said seriously and kindly--"You wish to marry the Earl of Elton's beautiful daughter, and you shall. Trust me!--I will do everything I can to promote your desire."

"You will?" I exclaimed with unconcealed delight, for I fully recognised the influence he had over Sibyl's father.

"I will, I promise--" he answered gravely--"I assure you that such a marriage would be one after my own heart. I'll do all I can for you,--and I have made many matches in my time!"

My heart beat high with triumph,--and when we parted that night I wrung his hand fervently and told him I was devoutly grateful to the fates for sending me such a good friend as he was.

"Grateful to--whom did you say?" he asked with a whimsical look.

"To the Fates!"

"Are you really? They are very ugly sisters I believe. Perhaps they were your ghostly visitors of last night!"

"God forbid!" I ejaculated.

"Ah! God never forbids the fulfilment of His own laws!" he answered--"To do so He would have to destroy Himself."

"If He exists at all!" I said carelessly.

"True! If--!"

And with this, we separated to our different quarters in the 'Grand.'

XV