Читать книгу The Tyranny of the Dark - Garland Hamlin - Страница 17

"SERVISS LISTENED WITH GROWING AMAZEMENT"ToList

When the final stormy note was still, Viola remained on her stool, as though waiting for her critic to applaud.

Serviss broke the silence by exclaiming: "See here, you people are making game of me. You are both professionals in disguise. Come now, 'fess up," he challenged Clarke. "You are Señor Del Corte, barytone of the Salt-Air Opera Company; and you, Miss Lambert, belong to the Arion Ladies' Orchestra. I have found you both out!"

The girl smiled with pleasure, but Clarke remained so unassailably serious that Serviss was moved to further deeps of audacity. "Don't tell me you are a comedian, also! You certainly have me guessing. Who are you, really?"

Clarke answered, resentfully: "I am the pastor of the Presbyterian church in this village, as Miss Lambert has told you, and she is my organist."

Again that thump three times repeated sounded upon the door. Serviss, baffled and silenced by Clarke's impenetrable gravity, and by something inexplicably submissive, yet watchful, in the face of the girl, felt himself confronted by an intangible, sinister, and inescapable influence. The young clergyman seemed to darken and oppress both women. It was as if they were all leagued in a conspiracy to deceive and cajole. This bewilderment lasted but a moment, and he rose from his chair with a spring. "Well, now, play something else—give us a bit of rag-time; that last piece has left us all a little dashed—try a cake-walk."

Clarke interposed. "Miss Lambert does not play those trashy melodies. I consider them essentially irreligious."

Serviss resented the preacher's tone, but quickly answered: "They're not exactly reverent, I'll admit; but without them American music would be but a poor reflection of the German."

As if to save his reputation the preacher sang "The Palms," and sang it magnificently; and the girl accompanied him with such accuracy and good judgment that Serviss was able to infer long hours of practice, and this did not please him.

"His influence on her and on this household is not good," he decided. "That chap is decidedly morbid. If he is married, so much the worse. He's far too handsome to be a safe guide to an impressionable young girl. There is some mystery here," and he recalled that Viola's face was troubled when first he saw it. And at the close of this song, without a glance at the preacher, he offered a parting hand to Viola. "If I can be of any aid in putting you in touch with a teacher in New York, please write me. I think you have my card. You play with astonishing power and brilliancy. You would certainly interest a man like Greer."

Her face flamed with color—all her sullen restraint vanished, all her girlish charm came back. "Oh, do you think so? Do you suppose I could get him to teach me?"

"I don't say that—he is a very busy man—but I think you are decidedly to be encouraged. But I may be able to hear you again before I go. I want to hear you play alone."

"I wish you would come again." There was a subtle entreaty in her voice, almost a prayer; and in her uplifted face was expressed the respect and confidence of a child. His heart was moved with pity as well as with admiration, and, turning to the mother, he added: "I shall probably remain over Sunday, and it would be a pleasure if I might come again to your pretty home."

Mrs. Lambert's face glowed with pleasure. "It will be a great honor to have you, sir."

In this spirit he went away, without again taking Clarke's hand, with a last glance at the girl's face as she stood at the open door to let him pass. He turned from the gate with a sense of having been permitted a glance into the very heart of a secret drama which might at any moment become a tragedy. His interest was profoundly stirred, his sympathies wholly enlisted in behalf of this girl, so young and so aspiring.

As he stood above the roaring water he formulated a theory with regard to the relationship of the personalities he had just left behind him. "The girl is being persecuted by this man Clarke, who is madly in love with her. She has an inner repugnance to him; but he is a clergyman, and that means a great deal to a girl in the adoration stage. Her mother, a nice, religious sort of person, favors the preacher, of course; but the father probably despises him. Clarke is evidently losing his hold on the rock-ballasted keel of his creed, and in his shipwreck he may carry that girl down with him; such cases are all too common. If he is married, he is all the more dangerous. But it is not my duty to interfere." He ended, resolute to put the whole problem from him: "The girl has legal guardians—on them rests the blame if she is corrupted. To reform this world has never been my call."

But he could not rid himself of a growing sense of responsibility. His mind returned again and again to the complication into which he had suddenly been thrust. "Perhaps this desire on the part of the girl to go away to study is only an instinctive desire to escape. It would be like that preacher to have a worn, little, commonplace wife. What can Lambert be thinking of to let such a man come into his home and direct the daily life of both his wife and daughter? He is neglecting his plain duty."

He fell asleep, fancying himself on the way up the trail to the mine, and when he woke to find the good, rectifying rays of the morning sun filling his room the theories of the night were absurd. He desired to see the girl again, not to warn her of her peril, but because she was piquant and lovely, as befitted her romantic surroundings.