“Good morning,” said Jerome, affably, stroking his dog and advancing upon Philip and Amalie. “A glorious morning. I think Charlie is drunk with it.”
Philip offered shyly: “He’s such a nice little dog, so friendly.”
“Is he? Hasn’t he nipped you yet? He has a bad temper.” Jerome smiled down at the poor boy. He could not quell his familiar repugnance for Philip’s deformity, but as he had also an easy and indifferent pity for Alfred’s son he did not find it difficult to be kind to him. He pulled Charlie’s ears. “Charlie, like his master, is famous for his temperamental ugliness.”
Amalie’s face changed. It became faintly derisive, and she bit her lip as if to keep from bursting out laughing. Jerome, who had glanced at her blandly, saw this, and his eyebrows drew together. But Philip did not find Jerome absurd. He looked up at the man with the gentle seriousness that so distinguished him. “Oh, no, Uncle Jerome. There is nothing ugly about you. Or Charlie.” He had spoken impulsively, and now he colored with embarrassment. He turned to the woman. “We’ve been having such a nice time, haven’t we, Miss Amalie?”
“We have been,” she said pointedly. She picked up her skirts.
Philip’s acute sensitiveness caught something wrong in this situation. He looked timidly from Jerome to Amalie, and then back to Jerome.
“Are you going in, Miss Amalie?” he asked, in a pleading voice. “You remember, you promised to walk down to the pines with me, and throw some corn for the birds.” He fumbled in his pockets, brought out a striped bag of grain, and looked at it uncertainly.
“Shall we go, then?” asked Amalie, lifting her skirts a trifle higher.
Again, Philip glanced from one to the other.
“Will you go with us, Uncle Jerome?”
Jerome hesitated. He began to grin. “Thank you. I will.”
Amalie stiffened. The color dimmed in her cheeks. But she smiled at Philip. “I have just remembered, my love. I have some small tasks to do, and so, I know, you will excuse me. You have your Uncle Jerome, now.” She paused, watching the pleasure fade from the boy’s large dark eyes. She sighed. “Tell me you do not mind, dear Philip,” she pleaded.
“Oh, no,” he replied quickly, always eager not to hurt or offend. “I am only sorry for myself. But you have spent hours with me, and I must not be selfish.” He made himself smile, and now he went to her, as if irresistibly drawn, and timidly touched her arm. She bent and kissed his cheek and, without another glance at Jerome, walked swiftly away around the angle of the house, to the rear.
Jerome bowed to her retreating back, but she did not see the gesture. Then Jerome and the boy walked slowly down the slope towards the pines. Philip began to scatter the corn, in silence. Charlie struggled in Jerome’s arms, and Jerome put him down. Charlie floundered ahead of them, with renewed excitement, wondering what new game was about to be played.
They reached the pines. They stood all about them now, tall and black, furred with snow, casting their clear black shadows on the smooth whiteness. Philip cleared a spot or two with his foot, stamped it down, and put the corn upon it. Charlie went to sniff, barked, retreated with disappointment.
The man and boy then stood side by side, looking down at the valley which curved below. They could hear the faint barking of a dog, disembodied and clear. Charlie pricked up his ears, then began to bark wildly, darting and retreating with the most furious ebullition, challenging the distant intruder to combat, inviting him to come up and share this wondrous experience. Jerome watched him and laughed.
“Charlie’s such a fool,” he commented. “He is delirious at discovering that there are others like himself in the world.”
“I think it makes all of us delirious, when we find that out,” said Philip, in a low voice.
“What?” said Jerome. He looked at Philip with sharp interest. What an odd thing for a boy of fourteen to sayl He was incredulous and pleased. “Who told you that, Philip?”
“Well, Miss Amalie and I have talked.” Philip’s sensitive color rose in his thin face, which was marked by introspection and patient suffering. His eyes lighted at the mention of Amalie’s name. “We have such fine talks. She helps me with my music, too, for hours at a time.”
“Indeed. Is she a wonderful musician, too?”
Philip dug his foot in the snow. “She can’t read a note, she tells me. But she plays marvelously, and has the most excellent ear. Her criticisms are far better than Mr. Baxter’s. Mr. Baxter is my teacher, you know. He comes for a week, every two months, and stays with us. He is from Philadelphia. Grandpapa is very kind. He loves music, and he says that he is determined that I shall be a fine musician, for his own enjoyment.”
“So you quite approve of Miss Amalie as a new stepmamma, eh?”
Philip turned to him quickly, and again his eyes were alight. “Oh, so much, Uncle Jerome! I am so happy. Sometimes, at night, I dream she has gone away and left me forever, and then I am quite ill the next day. I couldn’t bear it if she ever left me,” he added, with profound and touching simplicity.
The clever slut! She had taken pains, then, to ingratiate herself with this poor lad, and fasten him to her side as an ally. Jerome looked down at his cousin’s son and frowned. But he had nothing to say.
“She helps me with everything,” Philip went on. “She is a teacher, you know. When my tutor left, Miss Amalie volunteered to take his place. Long before she came up here to live, she used to climb the hill, afternoons, until Papa began to send the carriage for her. She is so kind. So very, very kind. I—I love her.” His face turned scarlet, but his eyes did not waver away. They gazed at Jerome proudly.
“Kind,” thought Jerome. The poor deformed creature has had little experience with kindness, apparently. Alfred would be scrupulously just and attentive to his son, of course. Dorothea would consider it her “duty” to care for Philip. Mr. Lindsey, who had often openly confessed that he did not enjoy the young, might be languidly amiable and benign to the boy, provided that Philip did not too often intrude upon his meditations. But tenderness—that would be too much for any of them. Yes, the baggage was shrewd, thought Jerome, admiringly. She had found the chink in the armor of all her potential enemies. But she had not found any chink in the armor of Dorothea or of Jerome.
Philip was sighing. “Soon, I must go away to school. That will be in September, I am afraid. I hated the thought. I did not want to go away. But Miss Amalie has persuaded me that I must. And she has promised that I shall come home on all the holidays, and that she will visit me often. It is Mr. Van Goort’s school, in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia is not too far away.”
“Of course not,” said Jerome, absently. “It will really be pleasant for you, Philip.”
He stared attentively at the boy, and now he experienced a faint pang. The poor, poor little devil. He saw Philip’s profile, sensitive and delicate, and with such an expression of purity and patience and gentleness. Yet, there was strength there, too, in spite of the evidences of prolonged meditation and thought and intellect. And there was more than a hint of passion in the flared nostrils and about the firm mouth. Jerome suddenly felt drawn to him, and wondered.
“Tell me more about Miss Amalie,” he said kindly. “You see, I know so little about her, and no one tells me anything.”
Philip gazed down the valley. He said, in a low voice: “She was very poor, you know. She had to work very hard. Miss Amalie has great courage. She laughs a great deal, and when I asked her why, she told me that a man has only two choices: to laugh or to die. She says she prefers to laugh. I am afraid that I used to be—very drawn in on myself. She taught me how to laugh.” He drew a deep breath. “Miss Amalie is the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. Sometimes, I can’t believe it. We play together, and walk and ride together, and she tells me the strangest tales about the people she has known and about her work. But she doesn’t hate anyone, and that is so odd. I think that, in her place, I must have hated many people.”
Oh, the clever, cleve
r strumpet! He could see her now, playing upon the sympathies of this naïve and cloistered boy, and displaying such courage and high-heartedness! He, Jerome, had underestimated her. She was formidable. He felt his blood quicken and his breath come a little faster.
“Miss Amalie has been to Philadelphia,” Philip was saying. “She has heard the operas, and seen the plays. Of course, she sat, she says, in the last row, but that did not matter. She tells me that those who sit in the last rows in the balcony are the only ones who really appreciate operas and plays. They are willing to be uncomfortable and cold, if only they can go.”
“What a remarkable lady this is!” exclaimed Jerome, laughing.
But Philip had not heard him. His mouth was tense with passion, his eyes ablaze with it. “She reads to me. We have developed a story of our own, and sometimes she tells me a chapter, and the next night I invent another. It is very amusing and exciting. She came to my room last night, and had a new chapter. It was all about a new hero who has come into the story. He is a very blasé and worldly man, and thinks himself charming and so very witty, and all the time he is very comical. We laughed a great deal about it. He is so very pretentious, and thinks himself very wicked.”
He had begun to laugh. His whole meagre little face was alight with mirth. He was so engrossed in his recital that he did not see how ugly and flushed Jerome had become.
“Oh, it was so amusing, Uncle Jerome! We invented witticisms, and each one was funnier than the last. I ached as if I had been bruised, when she finally said good night. And then I kept waking up in the night, and had to cover my face with the pillow, so that no one would hear me laughing.”
Jerome whistled for Charlie, and the little dog came to him reluctantly, still ferociously growling at his distant enemy. Jerome picked him up.
“So, we have a wit in the house, also,” he said.
“It is better than a play, to talk to Miss Amalie,” Philip assured him artlessly, his eyes bright with reminiscence.
The sparrows, now that the two had considerately withdrawn, had discovered the grain. They swarmed down in shrilling droves, and pecked and whirred about. The man and the boy watched them. Philip was delighted. Jerome did not see the birds. His temples were pounding with fury and mortification and hatred.
“I am afraid,” he said indulgently, “that Miss Amalie is a poor judge of character.”
Philip was baffled at this. Jerome turned to climb the slope again, and Philip followed. But now the boy was silent. There was something wrong again. He admired Jerome deeply, but was slightly afraid of him. Jerome, too, was often very “kind.” Philip distressedly hoped that he had not offended him in some way.
Upon reaching the house, Philip apologetically explained that he must now take his afternoon nap. Miss Amalie insisted upon it, and it had done him much good. Jerome dismissed him agreeably. He stood alone in the sun-filled warm hall, stroking his dog. Then he lifted his head alertly.
The doors of the music room were folded shut. But from behind them flowed strong and passionate music, subdued yet intense. His trained ear immediately caught all the flaws in it, all the errors in technique. But it was music played by the hands of discerning strength and vitality, and what it lacked in technique and finish was more than compensated for by vitality and truth and unconventional beauty.
He silently folded back the doors. Now the music rushed out at him like a great wind of unrestrained vehemence and emotion. The pianist knew nothing of measure and flow, that was certain. But that did not matter. Jerome was overwhelmed by the grandeur and loveliness of the sounds that beat upon him.
The music room was austere and chill, despite the fire that burned on the black marble hearth. The dark floor was bright and polished, and completely uncovered, so that its great width and length glimmered in the light that streamed through the high and narrow windows, which were framed in dull blue brocade tied back with golden cords. A few dim chairs of frail carved mahogany and blue and rose brocade stood in their own gleaming reflections on the floor, and against the walls were ranged ranks of small gilt chairs ready for any musicale which Mr. Lindsey might arrange for his friends. The walls near the windows were banked with ferns and small palms and rubber plants in big majolica pots, and they filled the cool air with a fresh smell. Dorothea’s harp, all gilt and marble, stood to Jerome’s left, near the windows. In the far corner, at a distance from the wall, stood the great pianoforte with its covering of French shawl and silver fringe. There was a dais, empty now, on which paid musicians performed, upon engagement from Philadelphia, or even from New York. Mr. Lindsey loved music, and Jerome remembered many musicales from his childhood and boyhood. He remembered, too, the dances Mr. Lindsey used to give, when Jerome was at home, and he was suddenly transported back to those bright and festive evenings when he and his young friends had waltzed and bowed in grave measures to entrancing tunes. He could hear, again, young laughter and gay voices, and could see the swaying hoops of the girls, and their shining faces, and the ruffles of the local young bloods who squired them.
The music room was empty, now, except for the young woman at the piano. Her plain brown dress was innocent of bustle, and fitted her wonderful figure superbly as she sat upon the stool. The afternoon light lay on her shining black hair, which fell in a ringletted mass on her shoulders. Her back, which was straight and held in a natural and perfect posture, leaned slowly from side to side with the motions of her white hands. Her profile was rapt and withdrawn, her lips parted, her eyes raised and glowing with purple lights. From beneath her fingers poured the cataract of bewitching sound. She was happy. She was alone. She was entranced with her own music.
Jerome sat down upon one of the brocaded chairs. He quelled the restless Charlie with a warning pressure of his hand. He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. He stared intently at Amalie, who was oblivious of him and of everything else.
So, this is what she was! All that “high-heartedness” and “courage” were only assumed, for effect. All that mean and vicious wit, which passed as harmless gaiety! She was here, revealed in all her innate turbulence and discord and infuriated passion, all her uncontrolled strength and indomitable defiance of anyone who dared to challenge her ruthlessness and will. The music was powerful still, but now the discord was stronger, the chords were more inexorable. It was beautiful, yes, but primitive, even savage. Jerome smiled and idly stroked one of Charlie’s silken ears. He caught a melody, heard it repeated, understood it was the theme. It had a primordial intensity and insistence. He no longer smiled. His pulses, against all his will and desire, followed the relentless rhythm, so that they sounded, to him, like accompanying and helpless drums, drawn into a vortex of mounting frenzy.
There was something coarse and riotous in the music, thought Jerome, something unbridled and even violent, for all its heroic undertones. But his hand became still, motionless, on the dog’s head, and he saw, for a vivid moment, a mountain peak outlined in lightning, and heard, from its caverns and its chasms, the roaring echo of the thunder, the screaming defiance that gushed from the lower crags.
Then the Gothic insurgence suddenly ended on a great swell, like a shout, and the silence that followed reverberated with remembered sound.
Amalie still sat at the piano, in the posture of playing, but her hands moved over the keys slowly, without evoking a whisper. Then she started uncontrollably, for Jerome had begun to clap, loudly and slowly.
She swung about on the bench and looked at him, and he saw her startled affront, her anger.
“Really, that was remarkable, even singular,” he said. “I congratulate you on your teachers, Miss Amalie.”
She did not speak, but only looked at him. Then, very quietly, she stood up and closed the piano.
“Something by Wagner, perhaps, or Beethoven?” he suggested, idly beginning to stroke the dog again.
She turned to him and said softly: “Why can’t you let me alone?”
He smiled at her meditatively. “Now, that is a
question I have been asking myself,” he answered, with a great air of candor. “Is it your wit, perhaps? Or your charm? Or your great gifts? Or your delectable conversation? Or your exquisite manners which so fascinate me? Doubtless, it must be your manners. They are so—so extraordinary.”
All at once, her face turned scarlet with some suppressed emotion. “Why can’t you let me alone?” she asked, and her voice was low and hoarse. “What have I done to you? What enmity have I expressed for you? What malice have I inflicted upon you?”
“You can do, and have done, nothing to me, gracious lady,” he said, looking up at her amiably. “But, now that we are so frank, let me say that perhaps I resent you here. I resent you on the stairway where my mother walked. I resent you at her piano. I resent you at her table. I find the idea insupportable, that you will sit in her place at her table. You will forgive me, I know, for these ridiculous sentiments.”
She had become quite white, while he had been speaking. And now she smiled, and the smile was not beautiful.
“I think,” she said, “that you might mention all these things to Alfred.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, no, indeed! A dog will not be persuaded to give up his luscious bone. Have you ever attempted to withdraw such a bone from a dog? One gets one’s fingers nipped, quite properly.”
She ran her hand over the closed piano. “Let me warn you, dear Mr. Lindsey. You will indeed get your fingers nipped, if you continue. But, again, I suggest you discuss these interesting matters with Alfred. Or have you tried?”
But he did not answer, continuing only to stroke the dog and smile up at her with deliberate and knowing insult.
Now her voice and breath became hurried. “You say you resent me here. Why? Let us come out with it. Because I am poor, and not genteel? Because I have had to work for a living? Because I have no background? Because what I have I have gotten with my bare hands? Because I have asked no quarter, and no pity? Then, Mr. Lindsey, you must hate most Americans. You must resent nearly all of them.”