There was a kind of line of satisfaction on the grim old mouth of her aunt as Rose spoke. The guest sat back in his chair and watched her with indifferent attention, analyzing her, putting her in a category all by herself; and whether he was approving or disapproving was not apparent. Only the uncle took no part in the little byplay, seeming to have no interest whatsoever. He seemed almost distraught, as if some other weighty matter were absorbing his mind.
The pause was long. Rose almost feared she had somehow offended again, but at last her aunt said, as if she were granting a very great favor, “Very well, you shall see it. Of course, we have kept it in perfect repair. That’s one thing I’ve always insisted on.”
She shut her grim lips firmly and Rose could not help noticing that she cast a baleful look at her thin-faced husband, as if she were recalling battles and victories won on that score.
Were they really poor, Rose wondered? Then why didn’t they move to a cheaper house? Or, could it be that Uncle Robert was a little “close” with his money?
Then Aunt Janet spoke again, almost as if it were for the benefit of the guest.
“I wish you could have heard your mother play. She was a very wonderful player for a girl so young. I suppose you never heard her play?”
“Oh yes,” said Rose eagerly, “I heard her all my life. It was she who taught me to play.”
The aunt looked up astonished.
“You can play?”
“Oh yes, of course,” said the girl. “It’s the thing I love best to do, next to reading.”
The uncle looked up with almost approbation in his eyes, but the aunt was still astonished.
“But I don’t understand,” she said haughtily. “I don’t see how she could play without a piano. You had no piano, did you? Long ago she wrote me that she missed her piano.”
“Oh, but we soon had one!” said Rose proudly. “My father went without many things to get her that piano. And we had that when I was a baby. We didn’t live in a castle, but we had a piano!”
“Oh! I see!” said the aunt, almost as if she were offended, almost as if her ammunition had been stolen away from her.
Nevertheless, when the dessert was brought in she gave the order to the butler. “Thomas, light the candles in the east room and open the piano.”
The butler gave a quick, almost frightened glance toward Rose, and murmured stiffly, “Yes, my lady!”
After that Rose heard him go across the wide hall and into another part of the castle.
She was hoping that her uncle and the guest would not come with them when they went to see the piano. She and her aunt left them at the table with their wine glasses. But when they reached the great room of the castle where the piano was enshrined, there the men were, bringing up the rear, as if they were in a procession.
It was a huge room, stately and wide and high, and there were many ancestral paintings on the walls. The piano was at the far end. There was one enormous painting hanging over it, of a lovely young girl about Rose’s age. Rose saw them both, the piano and the painting, at once, and her eyes lifted to the eyes of the girl in the painting, drawn as if by mutual recognition.
“Oh, that is my mother!” she whispered, and moved forward toward the picture, her eyes looking into the eyes of her girl-mother.
And so she arrived at the piano and stood, looking up at the picture for a long moment, as if the picture and she would read each other’s thoughts. There was a radiance upon the daughter’s face that drew the eyes of the others in the room, even the butler, who paused at the entrance to see if anything was required of him before he vanished. There was something almost spiritual in the room, they all felt, as if the spirit of the mother might be hovering near, or others perhaps, even angelic beings. It was a moment in which all held their breath and watched. Even the grim uncle seemed held in suspense.
Then Rose dropped her eyes to the piano, let her hand rest softly on its satin surfaces, traced the inlaid line and the golden letters, then laid her fingers gently on the old ivories, yellow with age.
It did not seem to occur to her to ask if she might play it. Suddenly she dropped down upon the stool that stood in position, laid her hands lightly on the keys, touched a chord or two softly, like one who had a right to play there, and then she was off, into a sweet, surging, lovely sonata, one that her mother had played long ago. The sweet melody tinkled out gaily, wild and lovely, and filled the grim old castle rooms, casting a kind of spell on all who heard. It stole out through the halls and reached the ears of the servants, and when the first movement was finished the other servants had crept up in the dim shadows of the hall and were looking in, with tears in their eyes. The old woman, Maggie, who had taken Rose to her room, was weeping and listening, with her face aglow.
“That is the first piece your mother ever played,” stated the aunt in a hard, dry tone.
“Yes,” Rose said with a sparkle in her eyes, and looking up, she was surprised to find that tears were flowing down among the wrinkles on her aunt’s face.
Rose could not see the face of the guest. She was glad he was behind her. She wanted to forget him. It had seemed to her during dinner that he was watching her as a purchaser might be watching a horse he was about to buy, and she couldn’t forget that his father had wanted to marry her mother.
However, the delight of the piano was above everything else. When she reached the end of the movement, she paused an instant and went on with another and then another. Then she rippled off to Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven. The audience dropped down upon chairs and remained, silently listening. Even in the hall, the servants were seated out of sight, as if some holy service had come to their abode and summoned them from all thoughts of work or any other consideration of life. If she could have looked behind her and seen the faces, even the face of the cadaverous guest, Rose might have realized that some power beyond her own was in the room, and that she had reached her audience and was leading them to think perhaps of higher things than would have been their natural bent.
Rose had given to her music much of the time that other young people gave to fun and frolic. It had grown to be her great delight to practice. And her mother, who had been under rare teachers in her early youth and had not forgotten what she was taught, was a rare teacher herself. So Rose’s touch was clear and brilliant, her notes like dew and honey and rose leaves. Sunrise and sunset and the sea scintillated through her playing, visions of sky and woodlands and flowers. One could almost smell the meadows and hear the note of a bird trill as her music swept on.
And then suddenly she realized that she was playing all her old favorites, high classical music, and perhaps it was above her little audience. She dropped down to a softer strain and began to play old church hymns, melodies that spoke of love and salvation and life and death, melodies that touched experiences that every life had felt, until all at once she came to a sweet old Scotch melody or two that had been set to sacred words. Remembering how her mother had loved them, she played with her whole heart in her fingertips, and her own tears came too. Then she stopped as suddenly as she had begun and, lifting her hands, her fingers as it were still dripping with music, she whirled about upon the piano stool and faced their wondering looks with embarrassment.
“I beg your pardon,” she said shyly, with her sweet little smile. “I didn’t intend to monopolize the evening. I just felt so wild to play on my dear mother’s piano! And that picture up there made me feel as if she must be here listening, pleased that I was using what used to belong to her. This was one of the things my mother wanted me to come here for, to try her piano.”
She looked at Aunt Janet with her apology, but Aunt Janet was engaged in erasing the traces of tears and did not answer. Even her uncle was blowing his nose furiously. Who would have thought that that hard old customer would have been stirred emotionally by mere music!
It was the guest, after all, who felt the burden of an answer upon him.
“I am sure you have attained a large degree of excellence in the art
of music!” he said stiltedly. “I should think that even a professional musician might commend you. One wonders that a lady would care to take the trouble to reach that degree of perfection, but I suppose some do, and of course it would be pleasant for her family to hear her play upon occasion.” His voice was cold and hard, and one could see that he was struggling, with his ordinary vocabulary, to find suitable words, but he was really doing his best.
Rose swept him an indifferent flicker of a smile and said a cool “Thank you” and then turned away. Lord Warloch cleared his throat and said, “Quite so!” and Lady Warloch turned to Rose and said, “It is getting late, Margaret. You must be tired after your journey. Perhaps we had better retire and leave the gentlemen to have their conversation uninterrupted. We will bid you good night, Lord MacCallummore.” She swept from the room, signing to Rose to follow her.
At the door Rose turned back to flash a good night glance toward her mother’s picture on the wall and then gladly followed her aunt up the great stone staircase.
“You really play verra weel, you know,” said her aunt, lapsing into dialect as she stopped at the door of Rose’s room. “I had no idea you could play. It seemed—weel—quite like the days whin we baith were yoong.”
Aunt Janet was not quite over her emotion that the music had so unexpectedly brought upon her, and she was almost embarrassed before Rose. But she paused a moment at the door.
“I hope you are quite comfortable,” she added, getting back into more sophisticated words, “and should you be wanting anything, just ring the bell and Maggie will come. Good night!” She stalked down the hall to her own door, and Rose was dismissed.
Left alone, Rose closed her door and went and knelt down beside the bed, burying her flushed face in the cool pillow. She was fairly trembling with the excitement of the last hour. Oh, if only she could talk to her mother about it! She could almost see the shining of her mother’s eyes if she could have heard about how Rose had played on her own dear piano!
But the next best thing would be to talk to God about it. Mother was with God, and perhaps He would tell her about it. Or perhaps Mother herself had been able to look down and see the whole thing.
So she knelt and poured out her young heart in a sweet trusting prayer.
“Dear God, if You can let mother know about it, please do! Oh, it would help me so much to know she is looking down and seeing what I do. But anyway, I know You can be with me all through everything. And so, now, please, I thank You for such a mother as You gave me, and I thank You for letting me see that lovely picture of her as a girl, and for letting me play on her dear old piano. I thank You for making Aunt Janet keep it in tune all through the years. She must have loved Mother some to do that of course! I’m glad she told me about it.”
The prayer rambled on sweetly, Rose just talking softly to her Lord, as she might have talked to her mother if she had been alive. Alone in trying circumstances, she was realizing the presence of her heavenly Father as she had never realized Him before. Ah! It was good to talk to God that way!
When she arose from her knees she felt refreshed.
She was just about to unfasten her garments and make quick work of getting into bed when she remembered her little silk handbag, such a pretty little bag that her mother had made out of rosebud ribbon. It was exquisitely made, and she loved it, counted it among her precious treasures. She looked about on the bureau and floor for it, but it wasn’t there! She must have left it downstairs. Ah! Now she remembered! She had laid it on the piano when she sat down to play, and probably had left it there.
There was a dainty little handkerchief in it that her mother had given her on a birthday not long ago, and a tiny pink satin purse with a trifle of money in it. Not much, of course, but she couldn’t afford to lose any of it, and she would hate to lose the bag. It would be best to slip right down now and get it before the servants picked it up and perhaps thought it was of no account. She fastened her belt again primly and went swiftly over to the door, opening it cautiously.
The hallway seemed just as when she had come in, though she wasn’t sure just how long she had knelt to pray. She left her door slightly ajar and slipped out into the hall. The dim stairway wound broadly down against the castle walls, gray and forbidding in the dim flicker of half-burnt candles.
Guardedly she stepped forth, daring a step at a time. Suppose her aunt should open her door and demand to know where she was going! She had been ordered to bed. What would Aunt Janet think of her daring to go downstairs alone again, with the two men still down there? Would she call her bold?
But surely Rose could tell her what she was going for!
She dreaded terribly to come under the further condemnation of her aunt or her chilly old uncle. If she had only been sure about the servants, whether they would touch her bag, her bit of money, she would have let it go till morning. Yet perhaps even that might call condemnation down upon her for being so careless as to forget her bag.
Softly, slowly, she made her way down, anxious eyes to the right where, in a minute now, she would be able to see the great archway leading into the ballroom where the piano resided. Would the candles be extinguished yet? If not, there would be no trouble, surely. It would be but the work of a second to tiptoe lightly over the great Aubusson carpet, whose softness would drown her footsteps. But could she find her way if the candles were put out? Could she find the piano in the dark and the exact place on the piano where she had left the bag? Perhaps she should go back and get her little flashlight that Mother had made her pack in her bag. But no, she would go on and do her best. If the candles were put out, the piano would likely have been closed, and it would be already too late to do anything more about it tonight.
There were voices plainly to be heard now. They were coming from the library, behind the big room where she had been taken first. Her uncle and the guest were talking together and she could almost hear the words they were saying. She could hear!
“You say she has a fortune in her own right?” the guest was saying, and his voice had a greedy eager sound. “How much?”
She was startled that the words come to her so distinctly. They must be very near or else it was some trick of the walls, an echo. Oh, she must not be discovered by them. She shrank from them both, inexpressibly. She went more cautiously, casting anxious, furtive glances to the left side of the hall to be sure they were not standing there, just below the great staircase, but she could see no one, though the shadows were deep on that side of the hall. But the voices were sounding very close; a hollow sound though, as if the wall were tricky with echoes.
And who were they talking about?
Just then her uncle answered.
“I’m not sure of the exact figures, though I’m quite sure it is a considerable sum. She is very young, of course, and the estate may not all be settled upon her as yet. You know her mother has just passed away.”
“I see! I should want to be very sure, you understand! You know during the life of my father, I am at his mercy. I cannot be sure what he would do for me in case the marriage did not please him. And of course, since she is the daughter of the girl who jilted him—” His voice was suddenly hushed, and she could not hear the next words.
Suddenly she knew that they were speaking of her. They were daring to discuss a marriage between herself and this obnoxious guest!
Her knees grew weak beneath her, and yet she dared not stop there on the stairway. She was almost down the stairs now, and she could see a flickering light from the great room on her right. Oh, the candles must still be lighted. Perhaps she could get her bag and get back quickly while they were still absorbed in their conversation!
She fairly flew down the remaining steps, silently on her soft little slippers and dashing into the great dim room, flew across to the piano. Yes, there was her little pink bag like a rose full blown lying on the piano just where she had laid it.
Then suddenly she was aware of the presence of her dear girl-mother up there in the picture,
and she lifted frightened eyes and smiled toward her, her glance pleading that she would understand. And it almost seemed her mother smiled there in the dimness, in that one second of time that she dared to look, before she turned and fled back to the hallway and stealthily began to mount the stairs, very slowly now, because she must not let a sound of her footsteps reach down there where the two were talking with long pauses between their words. Then she suddenly stood frozen with horror.
“No,” her uncle was saying deliberately in his toneless voice, “I wouldn’t be able to find out the exact amount at once. She seemed to think her father would not want the matter discussed. I shall have to go very slowly. You know these Americans have strange ideas.”
“But I thought you said she was not an American. I thought she was pure Scotch on both sides. Galbraith, surely, is Scotch.”
“Yes, her father was Scotch, of course, as well as her mother, but she was born in America, and doubtless is tainted with American ideas. But I think there is no doubt but we shall be able to win her confidence soon. You know she has but just arrived this afternoon. She really does not know us yet.”
“Nonsense!” said the man. “I shall ask her. She certainly cannot expect me to marry her without knowing all there is to know. I shall arrange to take her for a ride, perhaps tomorrow. If necessary, I shall take her over and show her our castle, and then I shall ask her frankly. It seems to me we cannot get anywhere till that is settled. It is you who are so anxious to find a way for me to pay what you loaned to me, to settle quietly that unfortunate affair. I still feel your rate of interest is exorbitant. But if you are sure this girl’s fortune would cover the whole thing, I am prepared to go through with it. The girl herself is quite satisfactory, pretty and all that. But, understand, sir, it’s to your own interest to carry the matter through quickly.”
In a daze of horror, Rose arrived at the top of the stairs, and the slow deliberate sentences were suddenly cut off by the thick walls of stone and the formation of the hall.