Part 9 (1/2)

Lady Iltyd kissed him in return.

”My own dear boy,” she said, ”you will please me very much if you overcome that bad habit of losing heart over difficulties.”

”He may learn more things than music in learning the violin,” she thought to herself.

But as Basil went upstairs to bed, fiddling at his invisible violin all the way, and whistling the tune he liked to fancy he was playing, _he_ said to himself: ”I do mean to try, but I _can't_ believe it is so difficult as mother says.”

PART II

THAT same afternoon an elderly woman was sitting alone by the window of a shabby little parlour over a grocer's shop in the High Street of Tarnworth. She had a gentle, careworn face--a face that looked as if its owner had known much sorrow, but had not lost heart and patience. She was knitting--knitting a stocking, but so deftly and swiftly that it was evident she did not need to pay any attention to what her fingers were doing. Her eyes,--soft, old, blue eyes, with the rather sad look those clear blue eyes often get in old age,--gazed now and then out of the window--for from where she sat a corner of the ivy-covered church tower was to be seen making a pleasant object against the sky--and now and then turned anxiously towards the door.

”He is late, my poor Ulric,” she said to herself. ”And yet I almost dread to see him come in, with the same look on his face--always the same sad disappointment! Ah, what a mistake it has been, I fear, this coming to England--but yet we did it for the best, and it seemed so likely to succeed here where there are two or three such good schools and no music teacher. We did it for the best, however, and there is no use regretting it. The good G.o.d sees fit to try us--but still we must trust Him. Ah, if it were only I, but my poor boy!”

And the old eyes filled with slow-coming tears.

They were hastily brushed away, however, for at that moment the door opened and a young man, breathless with excitement, hurried into the room.

”Mother!” he exclaimed, but before he could say more she interrupted him.

”What is it, my boy? What is it, Ulric?” she exclaimed. ”No bad news, surely?”

”Bad news, mother dear? I scarcely see what more bad news _could_ come to us. As long as we have each other, what is there for us to lose? But I did not mean to speak gloomily this morning, for I have brought you _good_ news. Fancy, mother, only fancy--I have got a pupil at last.”

”My Ulric--that _is_ good news!” said poor Frau Wildermann.

”And who knows what it may lead to,” said the young man. ”I have always heard that the _first_ pupil is the difficulty--once started, one gets on rapidly. Especially if the pupil is one likely to do one credit, and I fancy this will be the case with this boy. Mrs. Marchcote--it is through her kindness I have been recommended--says he has unusual taste for music. He has been longing to learn the violin.”

”Who is he?” asked the mother.

”The son of Sir John Iltyd--one of the princ.i.p.al families here. I could not have a better introduction. I am to go the day after to-morrow--three lessons a week, and well paid.”

He went on to explain all about the terms to his mother, who listened with a thankful heart, as she saw Ulric's bright eyes and eager, hopeful expression.

”He has not looked like that for many a long day,” she thought to herself, ”and the help has not come too soon. Ulric would have been even more unhappy had he known how very little we have left.”

And she felt glad that she had struggled on without telling her son quite the worst of things. What would she not have borne for him--how had she not struggled for him all these years? He was the only one left her, the youngest and last of her children, for the other three had died while still almost infants, and Ulric had come to them when she and her husband were no longer young, and had lost hopes of ever having a child to cheer their old age. So never was a son more cherished. And he deserved it. He had been the best of sons, and had tried in his boyish way to replace his father, though he was only twelve years old when that father died. Since then life had been hard on them both, doubly hard, for each suffered for the other even more than personally, and yet in another sense not so hard as if either had been alone. They had had misfortune after misfortune--the little patrimony which had enabled Frau Wildermann to yield to Ulric's darling wish of being a musician by profession, had been lost by a bad investment just as his musical education was completed, and it seemed too late in the day for him to try anything else. And so for a year or two they had struggled on, faring not so badly in the summer when living is cheaper, and Ulric often got engagements for the season in the band at some watering-place, but suffering sadly in the long, cold German winters--suffering as those do who will not complain, who keep up a respectable appearance to the last. And then came the idea of emigrating to England, suggested to them by a friend who had happened to hear of what seemed like an opening at Tarnworth, where they had now been for nearly two months without finding any pupils for Ulric, or employment of any kind in his profession for the young musician.

So it is easy to understand the delight with which he accepted Lady Iltyd's proposal, made to him by Mrs. Marchcote.

It would be difficult to say which of the two, master or pupil, looked forward the more eagerly to the first music-lesson. Basil dreamed of it night and day. Herr Wildermann on his side built castles in the air about the number of pupils he was to have, and the fame he was to gain through his success with Lady Iltyd's boy. Poor fellow, it was not from vanity that his mind dwelt on and so little doubted this same wonderful success!

And in due course came the day after to-morrow, neither hastened nor r.e.t.a.r.ded by the eagerness with which it was looked forward to.

”What a beautiful home! The child cannot but be refined and tender in nature who has been brought up in such a home,” thought Herr Wildermann, ready at all times to think the best, and more than usually inclined to-day to see things through rose-coloured spectacles.

He was walking up the long avenue of elms, leading to the Hall. The weather was lovely, already hot, however, and he would have liked to take off his hat and let the breeze--what there was of it, that is to say--play on his forehead. But he had not a free hand, for he was loaded with no less than three violins, his own and two others, what are called half and three-quarters sized, as, till he saw his little pupil, he could not tell which would suit him. He did look rather a comical object, I daresay, to the tall footman at the door, but not so to the eager child who had spent the last hour at least in peeping out to see if his master was not yet coming.

”Mother,” he exclaimed, rus.h.i.+ng back into the room, ”he's come. And he's brought loads of violins.”

”_Loads_,” repeated Lady Iltyd, smiling down at her boy, whose rosy cheeks and bright eyes were still rosier and brighter than usual; ”well, among them it is to be hoped there will be one to suit you.”