Читать книгу Vivienne - Rita - Страница 7

Table of Contents

"There is sweet music here that softer falls

Than petals from blown roses on the grass." ....Tennyson.

THE notes of the organ were pealing through the music-gallery at Renonçeux.

From the gardens below the faint, soft breeze, laden with fragrance, swept softly in at the open window. All the drowsy, sunlit silence was full of odours of flowers. The terraces were deserted, and the rose aisles were left to the bees and butterflies in the stillness and hush of the hot noontide hour.

The music thrilled and quivered in the silence, as if it were some living voice tremulous with passion, weighted with joy akin to pain in its depth, and fervour, and happiness. It haunted the stillness without and within; it fell on the ear of a girl lingering in the picture-gallery beyond those heavy velvet portières; a girl standing awed, entranced, with parted lips and great, dark, changing eyes, and a faint scarlet bloom on her cheeks that came and went with the breathless agitation of the moment. Involuntarily she moved nearer and nearer those doors whence came the magic of that wonderful melody. Stirred and moved but by one impulse—to be nearer it.

A light touch and the doors opened, and she stood within the shadowy room, trembling at her own temerity, yet incapable of retreat. The light from the stained glass windows fell on the gilded pipes of the organ, and on the head of the player whose back was towards her, and who was quite unconscious of her presence. The great melodious waves of sound filled the room with their wonderful power, and he, wrapped in the vague, enchanting dreams that music always brought him, never heeded the shadow that fell across the sunlight, the soft footstep crossing the oaken floor—never thought for a moment that he was not alone.

The rich harmonies suddenly grew soft and subdued; a few weird, solemn minor chords changed the whole character of the music. No longer glad and triumphant, but sweet, and sad, and mournful, it thrilled out its tender melody; and the face of the player was very grave, and the face of the listener very pale. The last notes died away in the stillness, the white, fragile hands left the keys, and then—suddenly—a deep-drawn sigh that was almost a sob fell on his ear, and turning hastily round he saw a figure leaning against the embrasure of one of the windows—a woman's figure half revealed, half indistinct in the shadows where she lingered so timidly. When she saw she was observed she came hurriedly forward.

"You will think me very bold, monsieur," she said, blushing deeply; "I had no right to intrude here; but I was in the gallery adjoining, and I heard you playing. I listened till I could not resist coming in here. It is so long since I heard music like yours. It took me back to the old days, and the old life—and I forgot all else, monsieur." Her voice seemed to Albert Hoffmann as the low chime of silver bells. The faint foreign accent lingering in its tones was inexpressibly charming.

"Do not apologize any more, mademoiselle," he said, wondering who this girl could be, with her wonderful beauty, her graceful speech, her shy, half-bashful air. "I am sure you were perfectly welcome to listen as long as you pleased. Are you," he hesitated slightly—"are you staying at the château?"

She looked at him with great, astonished eyes, as if she thought he spoke in mockery.

"I, monsieur?" she exclaimed, glancing involuntarily down at her shabby garments, and the thick dusty boots covering her dainty feet; "no; how could any one in my station be a guest at Renonçeux? I only came over with gran'mère to-day, and while she stayed to chat with her nephew, the chef de cuisine here, the housekeeper gave me leave to look at the pictures, as all the visitors were away. That is how I heard you playing, monsieur!"

"Are you very fond of music then?" inquired Albert, thinking what a picture she made, with the crimson and violet hues of the stained glass weaving out a fanciful robe for her graceful figure, and the rippling masses of her half-bright, half-dusk hair glistening in the rays of the sunlight.

"I love it," she said quietly, though her eyes shone and flashed with a wonderful eager light. "I have always loved it since my childhood."

"I wonder who she can be," thought Albert, more and more puzzled every moment, and feeling half embarrassed by her presence. He was always shy with women.

"Is this the first time you have come to Renonçeux?" he said presently.

"Yes," she answered; "I have not lived here long. My home is in that little cottage just off the high road and beyond the wood. I live there with Gran'mère Beauvoir."

"Have you no parents of your own, then?"

"No," she said sadly. "Gran'mère has adopted me, but I have no claim upon her except my friendlessness."

She ceased abruptly, and Albert longed to hear again that rich, sweet voice, whose music lingered in his heart like a sense of new-born joy.

Yet he scarcely liked to question her about herself. She seemed at once so shy, so proud, so full of womanly dignity and girlish frankness.

The poverty and coarseness of her dress only seemed to display the grace of her figure to fuller advantage. She had the tall, slender, voluptuous form of the south; the dreamy, passionate eyes; the soft, mournful smile, the broad, thoughtful brow we see in an Italian face; but the fairness of the skin betrayed some other origin also, and gave a rarer charm to the dark eyes, the dusky gold-flecked hair.

"You are not French, mademoiselle, I see," said Albert, presently; "your accent betrays that."

"Oh, no," she answered quickly; "Italy is my birthplace. But it would be hard to decide what I am," she continued, with a faint smile. "My father was French, I believe, my mother of English extraction, though born in Italy like myself. It is little enough I know about either of them."

"Are they not living now?" said Albert, so gently, so sympathizingly, that it robbed the question of anything like curiosity.

"No," she said sadly; "my mother died shortly after I was born; my father I know nothing of."

Albert was silent.

Those few words spoke a whole history; it might be of shame, it might be of error; but whichever it was, the pure dawning life of the young girl before him was shadowed by that nameless sorrow.

She vaguely understood its meaning; the simple history she had told the young artist was the only history she knew; all else had been kept from her by the love and watchfulness of the only friend she possessed in the world, the old faithful peasant-woman, her foster-mother Manon Beauvoir; and the nameless, motherless child, had grown up to womanhood with the proud instincts, and the vague longings of a high-born, lofty nature, yet with only poverty and friendlessness for her portion, and the unproven error of her dead mother's past for her heritage.

"I lived in Italy for many years," she said presently. "In Bologna, in Pisa, in Florence. Gran'mère was very poor, but we managed to live comfortably: somehow one needs so little in Italy. I was very happy. I learnt all I could. Gran'mère managed that I should be educated, and I was always fond of reading; and the good sisters at the convent where she worked taught me as much as they could. But still I fear I am very ignorant."

"And your name?" asked Albert presently, as she paused.

"Vivienne St. Maurice. It was my mother's name. After her death, my father told Gran'mère that he was going away for a few weeks on a journey; that she was to take charge of me until his return; and he left her money enough for all necessaries during his absence. From that day he never returned. Gran'mère heard no more of him. Whether he is living or dead she does not know to this day. But pardon me, monsieur; I am wearying you with my foolish confidences."

"Indeed, no," said Albert eagerly, "I like to listen to you. I wish I could do anything to help you. Did your father leave no clue to his movements, give no hint of where he was going? Perhaps something may have happened to him, some evil, some accident. It is strange he should disappear so entirely."

The girl shook her head sorrowfully.

"I know no more," she answered. "Perhaps if any one great or influential had sought for him, or striven to trace his history, I might have gained some clue ere this, but Gran'mère knew no one, and we had no friends to interest themselves about us; and so the years have passed, and I am a child no longer, and the life I lead seems against all the instincts of my nature; and yet,—what other can I hope for?"

The simple pathos of the words touched her listener's heart; their restrained pain, their wistful longings were so full of sadness. He turned from the appealing eyes, so child-like in their sorrow, so womanly in their gentle patience, their infinite regret.

This girl interested him strangely. Little as he had ever thought of women, there was something about her that charmed and touched him indescribably; she was so fair, so pure, so child-like; it seemed hard to think that one so young was already touched by life's suffering; already shadowed by the world's reproach.

Not caring to answer her last words he turned to the music-desk before him.

"Can you play?" he asked softly; "you seem fond of music?"

"I used to play the organ; not a grand one like this, monsieur, but I fear I have forgotten the little I learnt by this time."

"It is a pity your love has not been fostered and encouraged. Music is such a joy in itself, I think. Judging from your face, mademoiselle, I should say you appreciated it for its own sake. Am I right?"

"Indeed you are. I scarcely know why I love music so dearly. Perhaps because I was brought up in a land where it is inherent in almost every soul," she answered; "one hears it everywhere in Italy. In the peasants' voices, in the muleteers' songs, in the great nobles' houses, in the cathedrals and churches, in the streets of the poor, in the palaces of the rich. When I was a little child of five years old I used to go to St. Eustache, a church in Florence. I would creep up to the organ-gallery and listen to the music and the singing for hours together. At last an old man noticed me, he was the organist there; a grave, gentle, kindly man, whose whole heart was full of music, whose whole life had been spent in service of his art. He taught me to play, and trained my voice, and let me come and sing when he practised his choir. I know most of the grand masses and all the beautiful chants they used to sing, by heart."

She paused, and then went on more sadly, with the pain of some wistful memory in her sweet young voice.

"From the time I left Italy I have had no opportunity to follow music or study it as I should wish. I sing to myself, for I can never forget what I have learnt; but oh! I miss the organ, and the dear old master who taught me all I know, all I shall ever know, I fear. Your playing, monsieur, was to me as a glimpse of my lost paradise again."

"You are very good to say so," he answered. "Do you know the mass I was playing?"

"Mozart's—the third, I think. Yes, I know it, monsieur. Shall I sing the 'Agnus Dei' to you?"

She asked the question as simply and naturally as if it was an ordinary request. There was no shyness, no hesitation on her face; nothing but the glow and enthusiasm of an artiste for the art she reverenced.

"Do, pray!" said Albert eagerly; "I should like to hear your voice."

She obeyed immediately. The first notes as they rang out through the vast gallery, rich, clear, impassioned, fairly startled Albert as he heard them.

Her voice was of rare and exquisite beauty, mournful, thrilling, yet so sweet withal that the young artist felt like one entranced by its beauty, spell-bound by its power. She sang the old Latin words with her pure Italian accent, her whole fervour of heart and soul thrown into their meaning, interpreting the whole divine truths of a master mind, as though its genius tired her own.

Albert listened in amazement. Music gave her the one charm that could sway his soul, and touch his nature—the one spell which made her beauty irresistible, and seemed to bring the divinity he had only seen in dreams and imagined in idyls, before him as a living presence. Never had he felt as he felt now, when he heard the tender sweetness of that perfect voice floating sadly and faintly away with the last chords of the closing harmonies. His hands left the keys. His eyes, rapt, passionate, awe-struck, rested on her face.

"It was perfect—sublime! Who taught you to sing like that?"

"Nature, I suppose," she said, smiling a little at his enthusiasm. "Do I really sing well?"

"Sing well? Your voice is perfectly marvellous," cried Albert enthusiastically. "You have a gift great and glorious beyond all words. Friendless, nameless, obscure, with that. Why the world would give you eternal fame if it heard you!"

"Is that true?" she questioned breathlessly, as if unable to believe his praise, and all the hopes which sprang to life with its utterance.

"True, mademoiselle? Indeed it is; why should you doubt it? Are you so ignorant of your own powers?"

"I think so," she said, with a faint smile. "No one ever told me what you have done, monsieur. Gran'mère always said I was her nightingale, and my old master used to prophesy that my voice would be a grand one some day, but I never thought it might do for me what you say, monsieur,—give me fame, wealth, friends. Ah! I thought I would be always poor as I am now."

She lifted her eloquent eyes to his face with all a child's gratified vanity and gladness shining in their depths. That look startled Albert, and distressed him too. Had he been wise in telling her, her power? Was not the life he had spoken of attended by dangers hitherto unimagined by her in her dreaming childhood, her innocent faith? A child with the beauty of a woman, ignorant of peril, unconscious of harm, nameless and obscure, would not the world be full of danger to such a one?

Involuntarily he stretched out his hand and laid it on her own.

"Child," he said gently, "you are safer in your poverty; you are richer in your innocence and purity than ever the world can make you. Do not weary your young heart with futile wishes; with hopes that if realized, may, after all, fail in giving you content. The world, for all its allurements, is full of troubles and griefs that in your present life you need never know—of heartaches and miseries that now you cannot even imagine."

"I do not care for that," she answered, proudly drawing herself away from his touch. "I want to be great—famous—loved. At least, I should not be scorned as a peasant then."

He paused a moment, saddened by her words.

"You would not leave the friend who has sheltered and protected you so long for the imaginary glories of the world, were the choice given you now—would you?" he asked at length.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed; "nothing would tempt me to leave Gran'mère; she has been all in all to me; she took me from my dead mother's arms; she tended, nursed, and sheltered me. She worked for me through all the years I was helpless. Oh no, monsieur! I would never forsake her. Only if I have any gift, any talent as you said, why should I not use it for her in her old age as she has used her strength and given the labour of her hands for me? Surely it is not wrong to wish to repay her if I can?"

"Not wrong, certainly. But for the life that would give you fame, I doubt her counselling you to leave your present one. If she knows anything of the world she knows the perils of the stage."

"But the great singers I have seen in Italy were always so happy and so rich," cried the girl eagerly. "They always looked as if they had not a care or a grief in the world. And then to see them on the stage, so lovely, so graceful. The brilliant lights, the rapturous applause, the enthusiastic praises of vast crowds rewarding all their efforts! Oh! monsieur, a life like that must be paradise."

"With the serpent's sting in the roses—Yes. I was foolish to tell you of such a possibility as the life you name. I have made you discontented. Sing to me again and forget this grave conversation. Will you try this?"

He drew a MSS., part of his own opera, from among a heap of music, and first playing the melody over for her to catch it, waited for her to sing. The girl hesitated, a little shy of beginning, but seeing his expectant look she complied with his wish, and the young artist heard his own aria performed faultlessly and correctly for the first time since it had left his pen. Although the music was new to the girl, her quick ear caught it immediately, and the sweet rich notes thrilled out once more, stirring the young artist's heart with keen delight, with still greater wonder.

"Thank you," he said simply, when she had ceased. "I had no idea my own music could be so exquisite as you have rendered it."

"Is that yours?" she asked, in astonishment. "Oh, monsieur, how beautiful! That is for an opera, is it not?"

"Yes," he said, smiling at her surprised face. "My first attempt."

"Then you write music, too, and you play so magnificently! Ah, monsieur, what happiness you have given me to-day!"

"I hope you will come again," he said quickly. "I shall always be glad to play to you—still more glad if you will sing to me. A voice like yours is rare; I could never tire of listening to it; it seems hard it should be wasted in obscurity," he added musingly, as his eyes wandered again to the girl's fair, downcast face.

"And yet you first counselled that very obscurity as safety; methinks you are changeable, monsieur," said Vivienne, smiling archly at him.

She had been puzzled and disappointed by his words. It seemed hardly fair that he should breathe a hope so exquisite in her ears one moment, to dash it to the ground the next. In her unconsciousness of all harm, her ignorance of all danger, the life of a stage singer, with its dazzling allurements, had seemed a perfect paradise of delight, promising untold bliss to her young heart. The world was a golden realm of joy, and hope, and gladness; what could harm or hurt her there she wondered, and a grave shadow passed over the sunny fairness of her face as she thought of Albert's discouragement.

He noticed it quickly, and was angry with himself for his own inadvertent words, spoken on the impulse of the moment. For some minutes an embarrassed silence reigned between them both, while he hesitated to answer her last remark.

"Changeable am I?" he said at length. "Indeed I am not. If a time ever comes when I can serve you I will do so, but I will not urge upon you a life which, dazzling and alluring as it is, carries great peril and sore temptations to one young, friendless, beautiful as you are. If you wish, however, I will speak to the countess about you. It may be in her power to do something for you or your gran'mère. You live just out of the wood, I think you said; that cottage with the large pear-tree before it, I suppose."

"Yes, monsieur. It belonged to a sister of gran'mère's, and at her death her nephew, who is chef de cuisine at the château, as I told you before, bade gran'mère come and live there if she liked rent free. So we came to France then, and settled down at Renonçeux, and——"

"Vivienne! Vivienne!"

The name rang out through the adjacent gallery reminding the girl of the length of her absence and startling her by its suddenness.

"That is gran'mère calling," she said hurriedly. "Oh, how long I must have been away. A thousand thanks to you, monsieur, for all your kindness. Adieu!" and ere he could speak a word to detain her she fled swiftly away through the curtained doors, and left Albert Hoffmann alone once more.

Yet could he ever be alone again in that room, while her presence haunted it, and would so haunt it from this hour?

The slow hours waned, the shadows grew deeper, weaving fantastic images on the oaken floor, and shadows of the future, stranger than any thrown by the lingering light and waning day were gathering and shaping themselves around the silent figure bending there over the closely written score, whose chief attraction now lay in the fact that she had sung it.

"Who can do it justice now?" he murmured, as he placed the sheets tenderly and carefully together. "It will never, never sound the same to me again."

And the girl whose face haunted him could think of nothing but his promise. Its glamour of hope was before her eyes, as she told the history of the past hour to gran'mère, who softly chided her for giving her confidence to a stranger, and trusting in his words with so little maidenly reserve. But the gentle rebuke was unheeded, for the girl's eyes were dazzled by the promised glory of a new life, and no warning could chill her fervent belief in Albert's promises.

As she passed on to her house (such a poor and humble home it was after the magnificence of the château of Renonçeux) her heart seemed gay and light as a child's, sweet snatches of song rose to her lips, gay and glad, as those of the birds above her head; but her eyes for once seemed heedless of the beauty around her.

The old triumph had begun, the triumph of the world over the innocence and peace of an unstirred, dreaming heart. New hopes, new thoughts, new ambitions had sprung up to life within her. Would they be pure, unsullied, noble still? Would the tranquil rest and the innocent dreams be worth more than the glories her heart whispered of now?

Perchance they might, but being a woman the chances lay in favour of ambition—not of the rest of heart and content of mind which must be sacrificed to obtain it.