 | CHAPTER VIII. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
“SALOME, where did you learn to sing? I was astonished
this morning when I heard you.”
“I have not yet learned, — I have only begun to
practise.”
“But, my child, I had no idea you owned such a voice.
Where have you kept it concealed so long?”
“I was not aware that I had it until a month ago, when it
accidentally discovered itself.”
“It is very powerful.”
“Yes, and very rough; but care and study will smooth and
polish it. Miss Jane, please keep your eye on Stanley until I
come home; for, although I left him with his slate and arithmetic,
it is by no means certain that they will not part company the
moment I am out of sight.”
“Where are you going?”
“To carry back some work which would have been returned
yesterday had not the weather been so inclement.”
In addition to the package of embroidered handkerchiefs,
Salome carried under her arm a roll of music and an instruction-book;
and, when she reached the outskirts of the town, turned
away from the main street and stopped at the door of a small
comfortless-looking house that stood without enclosure on the
common.
Two swart, black-eyed children were playing mumble-peg with a
broken knife, in one corner of the room; a third, with tears still
on its lashes, had just sobbed itself to sleep on a strip of faded
carpet stretched before the smouldering embers on the hearth;
while the fourth, a feeble infant only six months old, was wailing
in the arms of its mother, — a thin, sickly woman, with consumption's
red autograph written on her hollow cheeks, where the
skin clung to the bones as if resisting the chill grasp of death.
As she slowly rocked herself, striving to hush the cry of the
child, her dry, husky cough formed a melancholy chorus, which
seemed to annoy a man who sat before the small table covered
with materials for copying music. His cadaverous, sallow complexion,
and keen, restless eyes, bespoke Italian origin; and,
although engaged in filling some blank sheets with musical
notes, he occasionally took up a violin that lay across his knees,
and, after playing a few bars, laid aside the bow and resumed the
pen. Now and then he glanced at his wife and child with a
scowling brow; but, as his eyes fell on their emaciated faces,
something like a sigh seemed to heave his chest.
When Salome's knock arrested his attention he rose and advanced
to the half-open door, saying, impatiently, —
“Well, miss, have you brought me any money?”
“Good morning, Mr. Barilli. Here are the ten dollars that I
not advance one cent of my tuition-money. When the month
ends you will receive your wages, but not one day earlier.”
“I beg pardon, miss; but, indeed, you see —”
He did not conclude the sentence, but waved his hand
towards the two in the rocking-chair and proceeded to count
the money placed in his palm.
“Yes, I see that you are very destitute, but charity begins at
home, and I have to work hard for the wages that you have
demanded before they are due. Good morning, madam; I hope
you feel better to-day. Come, Mr. Barilli, I have no time to
waste in loitering. Are you ready for my lesson?”
“Quite ready, miss. Commence.”
For three-quarters of an hour he listened to her exercises,
which he accompanied with his violin, and afterwards directed
her to sing an air from a collection of songs on the table. As
her deep, rich contralto notes swelled round and full, he shut
his eyes and nodded his head as if in an ecstacy; and, when
she concluded, he rapped his violin heavily with the bow, and
exclaimed, —
“Some day when you sing that at Della Scala, remember the
poor devil who taught it to you in a hovel. Soaked as those
old walls are with music from the most famous lips the world
ever applauded, they hold no echoes sweeter than that last trill.
After all, there is no passion — no pathos — comparable to a
perfect contralto crescendo. It is wonderful how you Americans
squander voices that would rouse all Europe into a
furore.”
“I am afraid your eager desire for pupils biases your judgment,
and invests my voice with fictitious worth,” answered
Salome, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Ha! you mean that I flatter, in order to keep you. Not
so, miss. If St. Cecilia herself asked tuition without good pay,
I should shut the door in her face; but, much as I need money,
I would not risk my reputation by praising what was poor. If
one of my children — that miserable little Beatrice, yonder —
only had your voice, do you think I would copy music, or teach
up in your throat, and some day, when you are celebrated, at least
do me the justice to tell the world who first found the treasure;
and, out of your wealth, spare me a decent tombstone in the
Campo Santo of — of —”
He laughed bitterly, and, seizing his violin, filled the room
with mournful miserere strains.
“How long a course of training do you think will be necessary
before the inequalities in my voice can be corrected and
my vocalization perfected?”
“You are very young, miss, and it would not do to strain
your voice, which is well-nigh perfect in itself; but, of course,
your execution is defective, — just as a young nightingale cannot
warble all its strains before it is full-feathered. If you study
faithfully, in one year, or certainly one and a half, you will be
ready for your engagement at Della Scala. Hist! see if you
can follow me?”
He played a subtle, chromatic passage, ending in a trill, and
the orphan echoed it with such accuracy and sweetness that
the teacher threw down his bow, and, while tears stood in his
glittering eyes, he put his brown hand on the girl's head, and
said, earnestly, —
“There ought to be feathers here instead of hair, for no
nightingale, nestled in the olive groves of Italy, ever warbled
more easily and naturally. Don't go out to the world as Miss
Owen, — make it call you Rosignuolo. Take the next page in
the instruction-book for a new lesson, and practise the old scales
over before you touch the new, — they are like steps in a ladder,
and save jumps and jars. God made your voice wonderful, and,
if you are only careful not to undo his work, it will develop
itself every year in fresh power and depth. Ha! if my poor
squeaking Beatrice only had it! But there is no more music
stored in her throat and chest than in a regiment of rats. Good
day, miss. Your lesson is ended, and I go to buy some wood
for my miserable shiverers.”
He seized his hat and walking-stick and quitted the house,
leaving his pupil to gather up her music and conjecture, meanwhile,
his real destination.
His dissipated habits had greatly impaired her faith in the
accuracy of his critical acumen touching professional matters,
and, as she rolled up the sheet of paper in her hands, Salome
approached the feeble occupant of the rocking-chair, and said,
rather abruptly, —
“Madam Barilli, you ought to know when your husband
speaks earnestly and when he is merely indulging in idle flattery,
and I wish to learn his real opinion of my voice. Will
you tell me the truth?”
“Yes, miss, I will. I am no musician, and never was in
Europe, where he studied; but he talks constantly of your voice,
and tells me there is a fortune in it. Only last night he swore
that if he could control it, he would not take a hundred thousand
dollars for the right; and then, poor fellow, he fell into
one of his fierce ways and boxed my little Beatrice's ears,
because, he said, all the teachers in the Conservatoire could not
put into her throat the trill that you were born with. Ah, no,
he flatters no one now! He has forgotten how, since the day
that I was coaxed to run away from my father's elegant home
and marry the tenor singer of an opera troupe and the professor
who taught me the gamut at boarding-school. Miss, you may
believe him, for Sebastian Barilli means what he says.”
“One hundred thousand dollars! I promise him and you
that if one-half of that amount can be `trilled' into my pocket
you shall both be comfortable during the remainder of your
days.”
“Mine are numbered, and will end before your career begins;
and, when you sing in Della Scala, I trust I shall be singing up
yonder behind the stars, where cold and hunger and heart-ache
and cruel words cannot follow me. But, miss, when I am
gone, and Sebastian is over at the corner trying to drown his
troubles, and my four helpless little ones are left here unprotected,
for God's sake look in upon them now and then, and
don't let them cry for bread. My own family long ago cast me
off, and here I am a stranger; but you, who have felt the pangs
Oh, miss, the poor who cannot pity the poor must be hard-hearted
indeed!”
The suffering woman pressed her moaning babe closer to her
bosom, and, taking Salome's hand between her thin, hot fingers,
bowed her tear-stained face upon it.
Grim recollections of similar scenes enacted in the old house
behind the mill crowded upon the mind of the miller's daughter,
hardening instead of melting her heart; but, withdrawing
her fingers, she said in as kind a tone as she could command, —
“The poor are sometimes too poor to aid each other, and pity
is most unpalatable fare; but, if your husband has not grossly
deceived himself and me with reference to my voice, I will
promise that your children shall not suffer while I live. For
their sake do not despond, but try to keep up your spirits, else
your husband will be utterly ruined. Gloomy hearthstones
make club-rooms and bar-rooms populous. Good-by. When I
come again, I will bring something to stimulate your appetite,
which seems to require coaxing.”
She stooped and looked for a minute at the gaunt, white face
of the half-famished infant pressed against the mother's feverish
breast, and an irresistible impulse impelled her to stroke back
the rings of black hair that clustered on its sunken temples;
then, snatching her music and bundle, she hurried out of the
close, untidy room, and, once more upon the grassy common,
drew a long, deep breath of pure fresh air.
Autumn, with orange dawns, and mellow, misty moons, when
Melt down the amber sky,”
purple with clustering grapes on leafless branches; and wintry
days had come, with sleety morns and chill, crisp noons, and
scarlet sunset banners flouting the silver stars in western skies,
where the shivering, gasping old year had woven —
Against the cold.”
None of the earlier years of Salome's life seemed to her half
so drearily long as the four monotonous months that followed
Dr. Grey's departure; and, during the intervals between his brief
letters to his sister, the orphan learned a deceptive quietude of
manner, at variance with the tumultuous feelings that agitated
her heart; for painful suspense which is borne with clenched
hands and firmly-set teeth is not the more patient because
sternly mute.
Which suffered least, Philoctetes howling on the shores of
Lemnos, or the silent Trojan priest, writhing in a death-struggle
with the serpent folds that crushed him before the altar of
Neptune?
If any messages intended for Salome found their way across
the ocean, they finally missed their destination, and reached the
dead-letter office of Miss Jane's vast and inviolate pocket; and,
while this apparent neglect piqued the girl's vanity, the blessed
assurance that the absent master was alive and well proved a
sovereign balm for all the bleeding wounds of amour propre.
In order to defray the expense of her musical tuition, which
was carried on in profound secrecy, it was necessary to redouble
her exertions; and all the latent energy of her character developed
itself in unflagging work, which she persistently prosecuted
early and late, and in quiet defiance of Miss Jane's
expostulations and predictions that she would permanently
impair her sight.
Paramount to the desire of amassing wealth that would
enable her to provide for Jessie and Stanley rose the hope that
the cultivation of her voice would invest her with talismanic
influence over the man who was singularly susceptible of the
magic of music; and, jealously guarding the new-found gift, she
spared no toil to render it perfect.
Fearful that her suddenly acquired fondness for singing might
arouse suspicion and inquiry, she rarely practised at home
unless Miss Jane were absent; and, having procured a tuning-fork,
she retreated to the most secluded portion of the adjoining
forest and rehearsed her lessons to a mute audience of grazing
cattle, sombre pines, nodding plumes of golden-rod, and shivering
with nature, she warbled as unrestrainedly as the birds who
listened to her quavering crescendos; and more than once she
had become so absorbed in this forest practising, that twinkling
stars peeped down at her through the fringy canopy of murmuring
firs.
In fulfilment of a promise given to Stanley, with the hope of
stimulating him to more earnest study, Salome one day took a
piece of sewing and her music-book, and set off with her brother
for the sea-shore, where he was sometimes allowed to amuse
himself by catching crabs and shrimps. The route they were
compelled to take was very circuitous, since strangers were now
forbidden to stroll through the grounds attached to “Solitude,”
which was the nearest point where land and ocean met. Following
a cattle-path that threaded the bare brown hills and
wound through low marsh meadows, Salome at length climbed a
cliff that overhung the narrow strip of beach running along the
base of the promontory, and, while Stanley prepared his net, she
applied herself vigorously to the completion of a cluster of lilies
of the valley which she had begun to embroider the preceding
night.
It was a mild, sunny afternoon, late in December, with only
a few flakes of white curd-like cirri drifting slowly before the
stiffening south wind that came singing a song of the tropics
over the gently heaving waste of waters —
“Where the green buds of waves burst into white froth flowers.”
Two glimmering sails stood like phantoms on the horizon; and
a silent colony of snowy gulls, perched in conclave on a bit of
weed-wreathed drift floating landward, were the only living
things in sight, save the childish figure on the yellow beach
under the bleaching rocks, and the girlish one seated on the
tallest cliff, where a storm-scarred juniper, bending inland,
waved its scanty fringe in the fresh salt breeze.
No note of human strife entered here, nor hum of noisy
business marts; and the solemn silence, so profound and holy, was
broken only by the soft, mysterious murmur of the immemorial
golden sands.
Clasped in the crescent that curved a mile northward lay the
house, and grove, and grounds of “Solitude,” looking sombre in
the distance, as the shadow of surrounding hills fell upon the
dense foliage that overhung its quiet precincts, and toned down
the garish red of the boat-house roof, which lent a brief dash of
color to the peaceful picture. Beyond the last guarding promontory
that seemed to have plunged through the shelving strand
to bathe in blue brine and cut off all passage along its base, a
strong well-trained eye might follow the trend of the coast even
to the dim outlines and thread-like masts, that told where the
distant town hugged its narrow harbor; and, in the opposite
direction, low, irregular sand hills and brown marshes crept
southward, as if hunting the warmth that alone could mantle
them with living verdure.
As the afternoon wore away, the sinking sun dipped suddenly
behind a wooded eminence, which, losing the warm purples it
had worn since noon, grew chill and blue as his rays departed;
and, weary of her work, Salome put it aside and began to practise
her music lesson, beating time with her slender fingers on
the bare juniper-roots, from which wind and rain had driven
the soil. Running her chromatic scales, and pausing at will to
trill upon any minor note that wooed her vagrant fancy, she
played with her flexible voice as dexterous violinists toy with
the obedient strings they hold in harmonious bondage to their
bows.
Finally she pushed the exercises away, and began a fantasia
from “Traviata,” which she had heard Mr. Barilli play several
times; and so absorbed was she in testing her capacity for vocal
gymnastics that she failed to observe the moving figure dwarfed
by distance and pacing the sands in front of “Solitude.”
The rich, fresh tones which seemed occasionally to tremble
with the excess of melody that burdened them played hide-and-seek
among the hills, startling whole choruses of deep-throated
echoes, and attending and retentive ocean, catching the strains
on her beryl strings, bore them whither — and how far? To
them for seraphic utterances? To toiling mariners, tossed
helplessly by fierce typhoons, who, pausing in their scramble for
spars, listened to the weird melody that presaged woe and
wreck? To the broken casements of fishermen's huts, on distant
shores, where anxious wives peered out in the blackening
tempest, and shrank back appalled by sounds which sea-tradition
averred were born in coral caves, mosaiced with blanching
human skulls? What hoary hierophant in the mysteries of
cataphonics and diacoustics will undertake to track those trills
across the blue bosom of the Atlantic or the purplish billows of
the Indian Ocean?
The wind went down with the sun; silver-edged cirri lost
their glitter, and swift was
Of orange lustre through these azure spheres
Where little clouds lie still like flocks of sheep,
Or vessels sailing in God's other deep.”
In that wondrous and magical after-glow which tenderly
hovers over the darkening face of the dying day, like the
strange, spectral smile that only sheds its cold, supernatural
light on lips twelve hours dead, Salome's fair face and graceful
pose was as softly defined against the western sky as some
nimbussed saint or madonna on the golden background of old
Byzantine pictures. Her small straw hat, wreathed with scarlet
poppies, lay at her feet; and around her shoulders she had closely
folded a bright plaid flannel cloak, which tinted her complexion
with its ruddy hues, as firelight flushes the olive portraits that
stare at it from surrounding walls, and the braided black hair
and large hazel eyes showed every brown tint and topaz gleam.
Leaning her arms on the top of her music-book, she rested
her chin upon them, and sat looking seaward, singing a difficult
passage, in the midst of which her nimble voice tripped on an E
flat, and, missing the staccato step, rolled helplessly down in a
legato flood of melody; whereupon, with an impatient grimace
she shut her eyes, weary of watching the wave-shimmer that
them, there stood just on the edge of the cliff, as if poised in
air, a woman whose face and form were as sharply cut in profile
on the azure sea and sky as white cameo features on black
agate grounds.
Around the tall figure shining folds of silver poplin hung
heavy and statuesque, and over the shoulders a blue crape
shawl was held by a beautiful blue-veined hand, where a
sapphire asp kept guard; while a cluster of double violets
fastened behind one shell-like ear breathed their perfume among
glossy bands of gray hair.
Nor fulness; yet it had a ghostly grace,
Pathetically pale,”
round white moon that was lifting its full disk out of the line
where air and water met — she stood motionless.
Lifting her head, Salome shivered involuntarily, and grew a
shade paler as she breathlessly watched the apparition, expecting
that it would fade into blue air or float down and mingle with
the waters that gave it birth. But there was no wavering
mistiness about the shining drapery; and, presently, when she
turned and came forward, the orphan, despite her sneers at
superstition, felt the hair creep and rise on her temples, and,
springing to her feet, they faced each other. As the stranger
advanced, Salome unconsciously retreated a few steps, and
exclaimed, —
“Gray-eyed, gray-haired, gray-clad, gray-faced, and rising out
of that gray sea, I suppose I have at last met the gray ghost
that people tell me haunts old `Solitude.' But how came such
a young face under that drift of white hair? If all ghosts have
such finely carved, delicate noses and chins, such oval cheeks
and pretty brows, most of us here in the flesh might thank fortune
for a chance to `shuffle off this mortal coil.' Say, are you
the troubled evil spirit that haunts `Solitude'?”
“I am.”
The voice was so mournfully sweet that it thrilled every
nerve in Salome's quivering frame.
“Phantom or flesh — which are you?”
“Mrs. Gerome, the owner of `Solitude.'”
“Oh, indeed! I beg your pardon, madam, but I took you for
a wraith! You know the place has always been considered unlucky
— haunted — and you are such an extraordinary-looking
person I was inclined to think I had stumbled on the traditional
ghost. I am neither ignorant nor stupidly superstitious;
but, madam, you must admit you have an unearthly appearance;
and, moreover, I should be glad to know how you rose from the
beach below to the top of this cliff? I see no feathers on your
shoulders — no balloon under your feet!”
“I was walking on the sands in front of my door, and, hearing
some very sweet strains that came floating down from this
direction, I followed the sound, and climbed by means of steps
cut in the side of this cliff. Since you regarded me as a spectre,
I may as well tell you that I was beginning to fancy I was
listening to one of the old sea-sirens, until I saw your rosy face
and red lips, far too human for a dripping mermaid or a murderous,
mocking Aglaiopheme.”
“No more a siren, madam, than you are a ghost! I am only
Salome Owen, the miller's child, waiting for that boy yonder,
whose sublimest idea of heaven consists in the hope that its
blessed sea of glass is brimming with golden shrimp. Stanley,
run around the cliff, and meet me. It is too late for us to be
here. We should have started home an hour ago.”
“Who taught you `Traviata'?”
“I am teaching myself, with what small help I can obtain
from a vagabond musician, who calls himself Signor Barilli, and
claims to have been a tenor singer in an opera troupe at
Milan.”
“You ought to cultivate your voice as thoroughly as possible.”
“Why? Is it really good? Tell me, is it worth anything?
No one has heard it except that Italian violinist; and, if he
praises it, I sometimes fear it is because he is so horribly dissipated
his wine-glasses and the gurgling of his flask. Do you know
much about music?”
“I have heard the best living performers, vocal and instrumental,
and to a finer voice than yours I never listened; but
you need study and practice, for your execution is faulty. You
have a splendid instrument; but you do not yet understand its
management. Where do you live?”
“At `Grassmere,' a farm two miles behind those hills, and in
a house hidden under elm and apple trees. Madam, it is very
late, and I must bid you good-evening. Before I go, I should
like to know, if you will not deem me unwarrantably impertinent,
whether you are a very young person with white hair,
or whether you are a very old woman with a wonderfully young
face?”
For a moment there was no answer; and, supposing that she
had offended her, the orphan bowed and was turning away, when
Mrs. Gerome's calm, mournful tones arrested her:
“I am only twenty-three years old.”
She walked away, turning her countenance towards the water,
where moonlight was burnishing the waves; and, when Salome
and Stanley had reached the bend in their path that would shut
out the view of the beach, the former looked back and saw the
silver-gray figure standing alone on the silent shore, communing
with the silver sea, as desolate and as hopeless as Buchanan's
“Penelope,” —
Stare seaward, whether it be storm or calm.”
| CHAPTER VIII. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" | |