Rose Galbraith (11 page)

“No. No, I don't think that, but Malcolm, I couldn't help feeling all the time he was here that he was sort of reticent and preoccupied. Why, sometimes when Sydney was talking brilliantly, he didn't even seem to hear her.”

“Yes?” said the father. “Do you know what he said to me? We were standing out by the car waiting for her to come downstairs the morning she left, and Gordon was looking a bit bored. I said, ‘Nice girl?' and he nodded unenthusiastically.

“‘O, yeah, nice all right. She's got a powerful lot of information stowed away in her sleek little brains, and she's quite willing to impart it. Knows all the answers and likes to tell 'em. And advice! Good night! You can get enough of that on almost any topic you can name to carry you safe through life!'

“He just got that far and she came smiling out, and he put on his courtesy manners and shut up, but he had a twinkle in his eyes. You know, Mamma, Gordie knows his onions! He doesn't miss a thing! You don't need to worry about him. When he gets a girl, she'll be all right!”

“Well, I hope so,” said the mother. “But somehow I thought it would be so nice if he took a girl we knew something about. A girl who had been brought up with nice ways. I didn't know she was like that. She seemed awfully pleasant and sweet, and her mother wasn't like that a bit. I knew her mother very well indeed.”

“Well, Mamma, you have to remember she had a father, too. Maybe he's like that, always setting you right on every topic in the world. You didn't know her father, did you?”

“No,” said the mother. “No, of course not. But children don't inherit everything from each side, you know. Well, I'm glad if it was that reason he didn't like her. I was just afraid he had got hold of some silly little nobody in New York, had his mind on her, and so couldn't see anybody else for the present. I worried a lot because he didn't tell me anything about what he was doing with his spare time. You know he always used to tell me about everything.”

“Yes,” said the father, “but you can't expect him to keep that up always. As he gets older he's bound to have a few reserves. We can't hope to have him running to us every time he meets a new girl. Besides, Mamma, he did tell you what he was doing with his spare time. He said he was reading a lot.”

“Yes, I know, but that wouldn't likely be all.”

“Well, there Mamma, you'd better learn your lesson too. You can't keep a fine young man like our son tied to your apron strings always. A girl's bound to come sometime. Perhaps he'll hold off a bit till he is sure of himself, but you'll know when it's right, and till then can't you trust him to the Lord? He's a good boy, you know, and he's the Lord's own.”

“Yes, I know!” sighed the mother, and smiled a quivery little smile, till Papa McCarroll came over and kissed her the way he used to do when he was courting her, and her eyes met his with peace.

“Yes,” she said sweetly, “I suppose you're right, and I know I oughtn't to fret. God has been good to us, giving us such a wonderful son. You know, I feel he's just like his father.” And she gave her husband a worshipful look.

“Now why did you have to spoil it all by that last sentence, Agnes? You know the only wise thing I ever did was to marry you, and I've always been proud to think that my son was so much like his wonderful mother!”

And then the picture faded out in peace and quietness.

R
ose was very quiet at the table. She felt that the whole outlook on things had been utterly changed by the few words her uncle had spoken. And it was all the worse, because in all probability the guest had overheard both her last words and what her uncle had said to her. She felt she could not bear to look at the man, and it seemed as if the shame she felt must certainly show. Her cheeks were still burning with embarrassment. She did not know how becoming it was to her, nor how it brought out the blue of her eyes till they matched her frock.

But it presently became evident that it was not necessary for her to take part in the conversation. It was not expected of her. They were talking on without her, above her head, out of her knowledge. It was as if she were a naughty child being reproved by being ignored.

The dinner was very good, but Rose did not feel like eating. It seemed as if she had swallowed a stone. She tried to appear to be eating, but no one seemed to notice her in the least, and she felt so exceedingly uncomfortable that in spite of herself, a deep resolve was formed in her young soul to get out of this place at once. Tomorrow morning, if she could.

Only tomorrow was Sunday, and there might not be service to help her on her way. Could she get through the Sunday? Her mother had told her that her family were ardent church people, going through all the forms and ceremonies, though without much knowledge of real spiritual values. A look at either aunt or uncle would make that plain almost at first glance, she thought.

And the guest? She didn't like his face at all. A narrow, thin, cadaverous countenance with high cheekbones, and eyeballs that protruded somewhat. Yet those eyes could look right through one, and every time she looked up she saw him looking at her. It made cold chills go down her back, as if he might be a wizard who could cast a spell over her and waft her away to a grim castle where she would be a prisoner and no one would be able to find her. Able? The word startled her. Who would want to take the trouble to search for her? Not these indifferent relatives certainly, who were mostly concerned lest they might have to spend a little for her or perjure themselves perhaps to get her suitably married so that she would do credit to the family.

Through her bitter thoughts she looked up once to find her aunt looking speculatively at her, and at last, in a pause, while they were waiting for the dessert to be brought in, she deliberately aimed a question at her.

“Would you like to see your mother's piano?” she asked, whether as a favor, or for ulterior reason Rose could not be sure.

Rose looked up with a great eagerness growing in her eyes.

“Oh!” she said, “is it here? I would so much like to see it. She told me all about it, of course. It almost seems as if I had seen it myself. The little line of inlaid wood along the edges. Even the lettering. Mother drew it for me, so I know just how it is. I have the paper with me on which she drew it.”

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.”