Part 14 (1/2)
”I shall be happy to avail myself of the privilege of uttering so charming a name. Does Miss Gabriella play?”
”No, no, that is not right yet, Ernest; you must drop the Miss. Do not answer him, Gabriella, till he knows his lesson better.”
”Does Gabriella play?”
The name came gravely and melodiously from his tongue. The distance between us seemed wonderfully diminished by the mere breathing my Christian name.
”I do not,” I answered, ”but my love of music amounts to a pa.s.sion. I am never so happy as when listening to Edith's voice and harp.”
”She has never taken lessons,” said Edith; ”if she had, she would have made a splendid musician, I am confident she would. Dear mother, when we go to the city next winter, Gabriella must go with us, and she must have music-masters, and we will play and sing together. She has taught in that old academy long enough, I am sure she has.”
”I think Gabriella has been taking some very important lessons herself, while teaching in the old academy, which chances to be quite new, at least her part of it,” answered Mrs. Linwood; ”but I have no intention of suffering her to remain there too long; she has borne the discipline admirably.”
As I turned a grateful glance to Mrs. Linwood, my heart throbbing with delight at the prospect of emanc.i.p.ation, I met the eyes, the earnest, perusing eyes of her son. I drew back further into the shadow of the curtain, but the risen moon was s.h.i.+ning upon my face, and silvering the lace drapery that floated round me. Edith whispered something to her brother, glancing towards me her smiling eyes, then sweeping her fingers lightly over the harp-strings, began one of the songs that Ernest loved.
Sweetly as she always sang, I had never heard her sing so sweetly before. It seemed indeed ”Joy's ecstatic trial,” so airily her fingers sparkled over the chords, so clearly and cheerily she warbled each animated note.
”I know you love sad songs best, Ernest, but I cannot sing them to-night,” she said, pus.h.i.+ng the instrument from her.
”There is a little German air, which I think I may recollect,” said he, drawing the harp towards him.
”You, Ernest!” cried Edith and his mother in the same breath, ”you play on the harp!”
He smiled at their astonishment.
”I took lessons while in Germany. A fellow-student taught me,--a glorious musician, and a native of the land of music,--Italy. There, the very atmosphere breathes of harmony.”
The very first note he called forth, I felt a master's touch was on the chords, and leaning forward I held my breath to listen. The strains rose rich and murmuring like an ocean breeze, then died away soft as wave falls on wave in the moonlight night. He sang a simple, pathetic air, with such deep feeling, such tender, pa.s.sionate emotion, that tears involuntarily moistened my eyes. All the slumbering music of my being responded. It was thus _I_ could sing,--_I_ could play,--I knew I could.
And when he rose and resumed his seat by his mother, I could scarcely restrain myself from touching the same chords,--the chords still quivering from his magic hand.
”O brother!” exclaimed Edith, ”what a charming surprise! I never heard any thing so thrillingly sweet! You do not know how happy you have made me. One more,--only one more,--Ernest.”
”You forget your brother is from a long and weary journey, Edith, and we have many an evening before us, I trust, of domestic joy like this,”
said Mrs. Linwood, ringing for the night-lamps. ”To-morrow is the hallowed rest-day of the Lord, and our hearts, so long restless from expectation, will feel the grateful calm of a.s.sured happiness. One who returns after a long journey to the bosom of home, in health and safety, has peculiar calls for grat.i.tude and praise. He should bless the G.o.d of the traveller for having given his angels charge concerning him, and s.h.i.+elding him from unknown dangers. You feel all this, my son.”
She looked at him with an anxious, questioning glance. She feared that the mysticism of Germany might have obscured the brightness of his Christian faith.
”I _am_ grateful, my mother,” he answered with deep seriousness, ”grateful to G.o.d for the blessings of this hour. This has been one of the happiest evenings of my life. Surely it is worth years of absence to be welcomed to such a home, and by such pure, loving hearts,--hearts in which I can trust without hypocrisy and without guile.”
”Believe all hearts true, my son, till you prove them false.”
”Faith is a gift of heaven, not an act of human will,” he replied. Then I remembered what Richard Clyde had said of him, and I thought of it again when alone in my chamber.
Edith peeped in through the door that divided our rooms.
”Have we not had a charming evening?” she asked.
”Yes, _very_,” I answered.