Our Neighbours in the Corner House CHAPTER 12.
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My father had gone out after tea to make a professional call, and I was dreaming love's young dreams, in an atmosphere of melody which my own fingers were weaving, as I sat at the piano, when a visitor was shown into the parlor. I did not hear the entrance of anyone. A slight sound caused me to turn, and there stood Mr. Holman, not more than a pace from me, his face lighted up with an expression that showed him to have been an almost entranced listener to the music I was drawing from my fine-toned instrument.
I felt glad to see him; and the gladness went into my face and told my heart's story.
"Don't stop playing," said he, after I had laid my hand in his, with just a little maiden shyness — felt, not assumed. "I love music — that is, good music."
I turned to the piano and played and sang a tender love-song. Why did I do this? Of design? Oh no! The song came first to my thoughts, and I gave it to my voice without reflection. If I had meant to tell him what was in my heart, I could not have done it in more fitting words, and I became conscious of this as the last strain died on my lips. Then I felt alarmed lest he should have misunderstood me. Maiden delicacy was wounded at the thought. He did not speak after I had finished. In the silence, I ran my fingers over the keys to a lighter measure, and flung my voice spiritedly into a patriotic song. This he praised warmly; and then turning over the music, selected a nocturne by Chopin, and asked if I could play it. It happened to be one of my favorite pieces. I had practiced and enjoyed it so many times, that I could give the sentiment a tenderness equal, I had sometimes thought, to that which filled the composer's mind when he brought down the chords and melodies from that inner world to which his ear was opened.
"Do you like that nocturne?" I asked, as I laid the music open before me, looking around into his face as I spoke.
"Yes."
I took my eyes from his, and turned to read the pages that my fingers were to interpret for him. Softly, almost tremulously, I pressed the keys in the tender opening passages, and, as I progressed, entering into the theme, my touches obeyed my feelings and I almost lost myself in what seemed more like an inspiration than a performance. I had never played with such skill before. My listener gave but few words of praise; but I saw that his eyes were humid as I looked up into his face.
"It is my favorite piece," said I.
"And mine." He said no more.
"Our favorite piece!" That was spoken in my heart, perhaps in his also.
"How do you like this?" And I selected a few passages from one of Beethoven's Sonatas — passages that a true lover of music can never hear without feeling himself on the threshold of a new world of emotion.
"That must be from Beethoven," he said, as the last note died upon the ear. "How well you interpret him!" he added, as, bending over, he read the composer's name.
Ah, but these few words of praise were sweet! And so he loved music that I loved — music that spoke to a higher soul-sense than existed in common minds — music that stirred the heart in its profounder depths.
Then I tried his appreciation of Mozart and Haydn, and with all the success I desired. Passages that I loved, seemed to speak to him as they did to me, for he asked me to repeat them over and over again, each time showing, by his remarks, a taste and comprehension higher than I had found in anyone since parting with a school friend, whose intense love of music had helped me to enter beyond the outer court of harmony.
"Do you play?" I asked, in half surprise at finding his ear so critical.
"No," he answered, "but I love music."
I was turning the leaves of a book for another favorite piece, when my father's voice and tread in the hall sent the blood back, coldly, to my heart. The parlor door was pushed open, and he entered. I was sitting at the piano, and Mr. Holman stood bending over my shoulder, looking at the music.
"My father," said I, trying to speak without the betrayal of what I felt; rising from the piano and turning from it as I uttered my father's name.
Mr. Holman smiled in an unembarrassed way, and offering his hand, said with a degree of familiarity that showed him to be no stranger —
"Good evening Doctor!"
My father did not take the offered hand, but said —
"Good evening, Edgar." In the coldest and most unwelcome way, was this uttered.
My father sat down on a sofa. Mr. Holman sat down; and I took a chair on the opposite side of the room.
"It has been a pleasant day," remarked Mr. Holman.
My father growled, rather than spoke, an answer, which was as uncivil in language as in manner. I was pained and indignant.
Again our visitor made a remark, and again my father insulted him by a curtness of reply which could not help stinging a sensitive mind.
"Pardon me, sir," said the young man, "if I have intruded." And he arose as he spoke.
I started to my feet, with a face all crimson with mortification and anger. My father arose also, but with a cold, repellent manner — bowing to our visitor's remark, but not answering it in words.
"Good evening Doctor!" There was a gentlemanly dignity about Mr. Holman, as he returned the bow, that was in striking contrast with my father's conduct and aspect. Then he looked towards me; and our eyes met. I let him see more in mine, than I would have dared to do under any other circumstances; and I read in his eyes enough to satisfy my heart.
"Please remember," said my father imperatively, as soon as Mr. Holman had retired, "that if that fellow calls here again, you are not to see him."
I did not answer. The term "fellow," as applied to Edgar Holman, seemed such an outrage, that I felt too indignant to trust my lips in a response.
"Did you hear me?" demanded my father.
"It is not to be presumed that he will call again," said I, speaking with forced calmness, "after the treatment he has just received. Rather a strange return, it strikes me, for a life risked to save your child's life!"
My father was a little staggered at this, and I saw it. He had forgotten, I will believe, in his sudden displeasure at seeing Edgar, the great obligation we all owed him.
"I have my reasons, Edith, for not wishing you to encourage that young man's visits." He spoke less coldly.
"If you will state the reasons, father," said I, "you may help me to the means of obedience."
"What do you mean?" He turned upon me in a quick, stern way.
"Father," I spoke calmly, for I was growing more and more self-possessed every moment, "you lay upon me a necessity for saying what I would rather a thousand times leave unsaid."
The sternness of his face did not relax. I remained silent, hoping that he would see his own false position, and the danger of driving me into open antagonism. But it never seemed to enter his mind, that I was anything but a child — whose will must be subordinate to his will.
"Speak!" he exclaimed, at last.
I stood, still silent, for a little while, and then said, in a low, but quiet, distinct, and meaning voice,
"I am a woman."
He did not, at first, comprehend what I wished him to see.
"Ah, indeed!" He spoke just a trifle sarcastically. This quickened my pulses.
"Yes, sir, a woman; and in all matters where the heart is concerned, answerable alone to God! Forgive me for saying this, but you press me too hard."
The blood that had been burning in my father's face left it instantly, and he looked so pale that I became alarmed.
"Oh, sir," I said, in a distressed voice, as I came forward and caught one of his hands in mine, "I did not mean to hurt or offend you. Don't look so, father! You frighten me! Dear father!" and I laid my face upon him, and lost myself in tears and sobs.
"Ungrateful child!" He pushed me resolutely away, while I clung to him eagerly.
"I never thought to hear such words from child of mine!"
"Ingratitude! you marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when you show in a child,
Than the Sea Monster!"
And he pushed me firmly still away.
But my father overacted his part in giving this quotation from Shakespeare. His tone was theatric enough to jar upon my finely adjusted ear. It seemed to me like trifling. And so I yielded to the repulsive hand that was against me, and let it bear me back as far as it would. The color was coming into his face as I looked up into it again; but I think mine must have been as white as marble, for something in it appeared to startle him.
"Go to your room," he said, with less unkindness of tone. "We will talk of this another time."
But I did not stir.
"Go, my child." His voice was gentler.
"Not yet, father," I said. "Better talk now, while in the way of this subject. It can do no good to wait." And I sat down.
My father looked perplexed. He saw that in me, which he had never seen before. I had said to him that I was a woman, and the meaning of my words was beginning to dawn upon his mind. He knit his brows and bent his eyes, with recovering sternness, upon me. But I was not intimidated. I felt that a struggle for womanly freedom had been forced upon me, and that I must conquer.
"It was not like you, father, to treat anyone as you treated that young man tonight," said I, coming to the issue with a kind of desperate courage. "If there is anything wrong about him — then let me know what it is. If his life or principles are bad, or if there are any facts in regard to him that should be thrown up as a barrier to acquaintanceship — then speak of them to me father. They shall not be disregarded."
"Is not my word of disapproval enough?" he asked. "If I say to my daughter, 'Do not receive a certain visitor,' is not that sufficient?"
"It might be under some circumstances," I replied, firmly. "It is not in this."
"Blind, self-willed girl!" He lost himself in passion again. I sat without replying, my thoughts growing clearer and clearer, and my feelings calmer.
"I am older than you are." My father, when he spoke again, tried to address my reason and my pride. "I have seen more of the world. I understand character better. My judgment is more matured. It is from this superior state, that I now speak to you, and warn you, as you value your best interest in life, to beware of this young man. Keep yourself free from all entanglements. You are young, and can make, in time, the best alliance our city has to offer, if you will. Look up — not down. What is this Holman, but a clerk? A mere adventurer from the East! Don't stoop to him, when you may win the best and noblest! Wait — wait. Hold yourself a little in reserve until you can meet the best men of our city — men who dwarf, by comparison, this little presuming upstart into insignificance."
If my father had sought to create an interest in my mind favorable to Mr. Holman, he could not have taken a more effectual way. How blind he was! He knew human nature better than this. But his impatience threw all right perception into obscurity; and so, while he endeavored to destroy my first impressions, he only made them stronger.
We parted for the night without coming to a mutual good understanding. He tried to extort a promise that I would repulse Edgar Holman if he made any advances towards me; but I answered that gratitude alone would require that I should always treat him with considerate kindness. He had saved my life. Against this, my father had no conclusive reasons to urge, because there was nothing to be said against the spotless character of the man who had come so suddenly between him and worldly ambition.
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