“You want to see the figure work,” he said goodhumoredly. “Very well. What shall it be?”
Miss Cairns, ignorant of music, but unaccustomed to appear ignorant of anything, was at a loss. “Something classical then,” she ventured. “Do you know Thalberg’s piece called ‘Moses in Egypt’? I believe that is very fine; but it is also very difficult, is it not?”
He started, and looked at her with such an extraordinary grin that she almost began to mistrust him. Then he said, apparently to himself, “Candor, Jack, candor. You once thought so, perhaps, yourself.”
He twisted his fingers until their joints crackled; shook his shoulders and gnashed his teeth once or twice at the keyboard. Then he improvised a set of variations on the prayer fr<>m “Moses” which served Miss Cairns’s turn quite as well as if they had been note for note Thalberg’s. She listened, deeply impressed, and was rather jarred when he suddenly stopped and rose, saying, “Well, well: enough tomfoolery, Miss Cairns.”
“Not at all,” she said. “I have enjoyed it greatly. Thank you very much.”
“By the bye,” he said abruptly, “I am not to be asked to play for your acquaintances. Don’t go and talk about me: the mechanical toy will not perform for anyone else.”
“But is not that a pity, when you can give such pleasure?”
“Whenever I am in the humor to play, I play; sometimes without being asked. But I am not always in the humor, whereas people are always ready to pretend that they like listening to me, particularly those who are as deaf to music as they are to everything else that is good. And one word more, Miss Cairns. If your friends think me a mere schoolmaster, let them continue to think so. I live alone, and I sometimes talk more about myself than I intend. I did so today. Don’t repeat what I said.”
“Certainly not, since you do not wish me to.”
Jack looked into his hat; considered a moment; then made her a bow — a ceremony which he always performed with solemnity — and went away. Miss Cairns sat down by herself, and forgot all about her lecture. More accustomed to store her memory than to exercise her imagination she had a sensation of novelty in reflecting on the glimpse that she had got of Jack’s private life, and the possibilities which it suggested. Her mother came in presently, to inquire concerning the visitor; but Miss Cairns merely told who he was, and mentioned carelessly that the class was to go on as before. Mrs Cairns, who disapproved of Jack, said she was sorry to hear it. Her daughter, desiring to give utterance to her thoughts, and not caring to confide in her mother, recollected that she had to write to Mary. This second letter ran thus:
Newton Villa, Windsor.
6th September.
“Dearest Mary — I am going to give you a severe scolding for what you have done at Mr. Jack. He has just been here with your wicked letter, furious, and evidently not rembering a bit what he said last day. About the class, which he positively denies having given up; but he is very angry with you — not without reason, I think. Why will you be pugnacious? I tried to make your peace; but, for the present, at least, he is implacable. He is a very strange man. I think he is very clever; but I do not understamd him, though I have passed my life among professors and clever people of all sorts, and fancied I had exhausted the species. My logic and mathematics are no avail when I try to grapple with Mr Jack: he belongs, I think, to those regions of art which you have often urged me to explore, but of which, unhappily, I know hardly anything. I got him into good humor after a great deal of trouble, and actually asked him to play for me, which he did, most magnificently. You must never let him know that I told you this because he made me promise not to tell anyone and I am sure he is a terrible person to betray. His real character — so far as I can make it out — is quite different than what we all supposed — I must break off here to go to dinner. I have no doubt he will relent towards you after a time: his wrath does not endure forever. —
Ever your affectionate,
Letita Cairns
Miss Cairns had no sooner sent this to the post than she began to doubt whether it would not have been better to have burnt it.
CHAPTER VIII
The autumn passed; and the obscure days of the London winter set in. Adrian Herbert sat daily at work in his studio, painting a companion picture to the Lady of Shalott, and taking less exercise than was good either for himself or his work. His betrothed was at Windsor, studying Greek with Miss Cairns, and music with Jack. She had carried her point with Mrs. Beatty as to the bandmastership; and Jack had been invited to apply for it; but he, on learning that a large part of his duty would be to provide the officers of the regiment with agreeable music whilst they dined, had unexpectedly repudiated the offer in an intemperate letter to the adjutant, stating that he had refused as an organist to be subject to the ministers of religion, and that he should refuse, as a conductor, to be the hireling of professional homicides. Miss Cairns, when she heard of this, in the heat of her disappointment reproached him for needlessly making an enemy of the colonel; embittering the dislike of Mrs Beatty, and exposing Mary to their resentment. Jack thereupon left Newton Villa in anger; but Miss Cairns learned next day that he had written a letter of thanks to the colonel, in which he mentioned that the recent correspondence with the adjutant had unfortunately turned on the dignity of the musical profession, and begged that it might be disassociated entirely from the personal feeling to which he now sought to give expression. To Miss Cairns herself he also wrote briefly to say that it had occurred to him that Miss Sutherland might be willing to join the singing class, and that he hoped she would be asked to do so. Over this double concession Miss Cairns exulted; but Mary, humiliated by the failure of her effort to befriend him, would not join, and resisted all persuasion, until Jack, meeting her one day in the street, stopped her, inquired about Charlie, and finally asked her to come to one of the class meetings. Glad to have this excuse for relenting, she not only entered the class, but requested him to assist her in the study of harmony, which she had recently begun to teach herself from a treatise. As it proved, however, he confused rather than assisted her; for, though an adept in the use of chords, he could make no intelligible attempt to name or classify them; and her exercises, composed according to the instructions given in the treatise, exasperated him beyond measure.
Meanwhile, Magdalen Brailsford, with many impatient sighs, was learning to speak the English language with purity and distinction, and beginning to look on certain pronunciations for which she had ignorantly ridiculed famous actors, as enviable conditions of their superiority to herself. She did not enjoy her studies, for Jack was very exacting; and the romantic aspect of their first meeting at Paddington was soon forgotten in the dread he inspired as a master. She left Church Street after her first lesson in a state of exhaustion; and, long after she had come accustomed to endure his criticism for an hour without fatigue, she often could hardly restrain her tears when he emphasized her defects by angrily mimicking them, which was the most unpleasant, but not the least effective part of his system of teaching. He was particular, even in his cheerful moods, and all but violent in his angry ones; but he was indefatigable, and spared himself no trouble in forcing her to persevere in overcoming the slovenly habits of colloquial speech. The further she progressed, the less she could satisfy him. His ear was far more acute than hers; and he demanded from her beauties of tone of which she had no conception, and refinements of utterance which she could not distinguish. He repeated sounds which he declared were as distinct as day from night, and raged at her because she could hear no difference between them, He insisted that she was grinding her voice to pieces when she was hardly daring to make it audible. Often, when she was longing for the expiry of the hour to release her, he kept her until Mrs Simpson, who was always present, could bear it no longer, and interfered in spite of the frantic abuse to which a word from her during the lesson invariably provoked him. Magdalen would have given up her project altogether, for the sake of escaping the burden of his tuition, but