The Three Miss Kings 10

The Three Miss Kings 10

That she should make the proposition--she who, from the first, had not

only never "got on" with him, but had seemed to regard him with active

dislike--surprised both her sisters not a little; but the proposition

itself appeared to them, as to her, to have every good reason to

recommend it. They thought it a most happy idea, and adopted it with

enthusiasm. That very evening they made their plans. They designed the

simple decorations for their little room, and the appropriate dishes

for their modest feast. And, when these details had been settled, they

remembered that on the following night no Parliament would be sitting,

which meant that Paul would probably come home early (they knew his

times of coming and going, for he was back at his old quarters now,

having returned in consequence of the departure of the discordant

piano, and to oblige Mrs. M'Intyre, he said); and that decided them to

send him his invitation at once. Patty, while her complaisant mood was

on her, wrote it herself before she went to bed, and gave it over the

garden railing to Mrs. M'Intyre's maid.

 

In the morning, as they were asking which of them should go to town to

fetch certain materials for their little _fête_, they heard the door

bang and the gate rattle at No. 7, and a quick step that they knew. And

the slavey of No. 6 came upstairs with Paul Brion's answer, which he

had left as he passed on his way to his office. The note was addressed

to "Miss King," whose amanuensis Patty had carefully explained herself

to be when writing her invitation.

 

"MY DEAR MISS KING,--You are indeed very kind, but I fear

I must deny myself the pleasure you propose--than which, I

assure you, I could have none greater. If you will allow

me, I will come in some day with Mrs. M'Intyre, who is very

anxious to see your new menage. And when I come, I hope you

will let me hear that new piano, which is such an amazing

contrast to the old one.--Believe me, yours very truly,

 

"PAUL BRION."

 

This was Paul Brion's note. When the girls had read it, they stood

still and looked at each other in a long, dead silence. Eleanor was

the first to speak. Half laughing, but with her delicate face dyed in

blushes, she whispered under her breath, "Oh--oh, don't you see what he

means?"

 

"He is quite right--we must thank him," said Elizabeth, gentle as ever,

but grave and proud. "We ought not to have wanted it--that is all I am

sorry for."

 

But Patty stood in the middle of the room, white to the lips, and

beside herself with passion. "That we should have made such a

mistake!--and for _him_ to rebuke us!" she cried, as if it were more

than she could bear. "That _I_ should have been the one to write that

letter! Elizabeth, I suppose he is not to blame--"

 

"No, my dear--quite the contrary."

 

"But, all the same, I will never forgive him," said poor Patty in the

bitterness of her soul.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IX.

 

 

MRS. AARONS.

 

 

There was no room for doubt as to what Paul Brion had meant. When

the evening of the next day came--on which there was no Parliament

sitting--he returned to No. 7 to dinner, and after dinner it was

apparent that neither professional nor other engagements would have

prevented him from enjoying the society of his fair neighbours if he

had had a mind for it. His sitting-room opened upon the balcony--so

did theirs; there was but a thin partition between them, and the girls

knew not only when he was at home, but to a great extent what he was

doing, by the presence and pungency of the odour from his pipe. When

only faint whiffs stole into their open window from time to time,

he was in his room, engaged--it was supposed--upon those wonderful

leading articles which were, to them, the great feature of the paper

to whose staff he belonged. At such times--for the houses in Myrtle

Street were of a very lath-and-plastery order--they were careful to

make no noise, and especially not to open their piano, that he might

pursue his arduous labours undisturbed. But sometimes on these "off"

nights he sat outside his window or strolled up and down the few feet

of space allotted to him; and they would hear the rustle of the leaves

of books on the other side of the partition, and the smell of his pipe

would be very strong. This indicated that he had come home to rest and

relax himself; on which occasions, prompted by some subtle feminine

impulse, they would now and then indulge themselves with some of their

best music--tacitly agreeing to select the very finest movements from

the works of those best-beloved old masters whose majestic chimes rang

out the dark evening of the eighteenth century and rang in the new age

of art and liberty whose morning light we see--so as not to suggest,

except by extreme comparison, the departed lady who played conventional

rubbish on the instrument that was out of tune. That Paul Brion did not

know Bach and Spohr, even by name and fame (as he did not), never for

a moment occurred to them. How were they to know that the science and

literature of music, in which they had been so well instructed, were

not the usual study of educated people? They heard that he ceased to

walk up and down his enclosure when they began to play and sing, and

they smelt that his pipe was as near their window as it could get until

they left off. That was enough.

 

To-night, then, he was strolling and sitting about his section of the

balcony. They heard him tramping to and fro for a full hour after

dinner, in a fidgetty manner; and then they heard him drag a chair

through his window, and sit down on it heavily. It occurred to them

all that he was doing nothing--except, perhaps, waiting for a chance

to see and speak to them. A little intercourse had taken place of late

in this way--a very little. One night, when Elizabeth had gone out

to remonstrate with Dan for barking at inoffensive dogs that went by

in the street below, Paul, who had been leaning meditatively on his

balustrade, bent his head a little forward to ask her if she found the

smell of his tobacco unpleasant. She assured him that none of them

minded it at all, and remarked that the weather was warm. Upon which

he replied that the thermometer was so and so, and suggested that she

must miss the sea breezes very much. She said they missed them very

much indeed, and inquired if he had heard from his father lately, and

whether he was well. He was glad to inform her that his father, from

whom he had just heard, was in excellent health, and further, that

he had made many inquiries after her and her sisters. She thanked

Mr. Brion sincerely, and hoped he (Mr. Paul) would give him their

kindest regards when he wrote again and tell him they were getting on

admirably. Mr. Paul said he would certainly not forget it. And they

bade each other a polite good-night. Since then, both Elizabeth and

Eleanor had had a word to say to him occasionally, when he and they

simultaneously took the air after the day was over, and simultaneously

happened to lean over the balustrade. Patty saw no harm in their doing

so, but was very careful not to do it herself or to let him suppose

that she was conscious of his near neighbourhood. She played to him

sometimes with singular pleasure in her performance, but did not once

put herself in the way of seeing or speaking to him.

 

To-night, not only she, but all of them, made a stern though unspoken

vow that they would never--that they _could_ never--so much as say

good-night to him on the balcony any more. The lesson that he had

taught them was sinking deeply into their hearts; they would never

forget it again while they lived. They sat at their needlework in the

bright gaslight, with the window open and the venetian blind down, and

listened to the sound of his footstep and the dragging of his chair,

and clearly realised the certainty that it was not because he was too

busy that he had refused to spend the evening with them, but because

he had felt obliged to show them that they had asked him to do a thing

that was improper. Patty's head was bent down over her sewing; her face

was flushed, her eyes restless, her quick fingers moving with nervous

vehemence. Breaking her needle suddenly, she looked up and exclaimed,

"Why are we sitting here so dull and stupid, all silent, like three

scolded children? Play something, Nellie. Put away that horrid skirt,

and play something bright and stirring--a good rousing march, or

something of that sort."

 

"The Bridal March from 'Lohengrin,'" suggested Elizabeth, softly.

 

"No," said Patty; "something that will brace us up, and not make us

feel small and humble and sat upon." What she meant was "something that

will make Paul Brion understand that we don't feel small and humble and

sat upon."

 

Eleanor rose, and laid her long fingers on the keyboard. She was not in

the habit of taking things much to heart herself, and she did not quite

understand her sister's frame of mind. The spirit of mischief prompted

her to choose the saddest thing in the way of a march that she could

recall on the spur of the moment--that funeral march of Beethoven's

that Patty had always said was capable of reducing her to dust and

ashes in her most exuberant moments. She threw the most heartbreaking

__EXPRESSION__ that art allowed into the stately solemnity of her always

perfectly balanced execution, partly because she could never render

such a theme otherwise than reverently, but chiefly for the playful

purpose of working upon Patty's feelings. Poor Patty had "kept up"

and maintained a superficial command of herself until now, but this

unexpected touch of pathos broke her down completely. She laid her arm

on the table, and her pretty head upon her arm, and broke into a brief

but passionate fit of weeping, such as she had never indulged in in

all her life before. At the sound of the first sob Eleanor jumped up

from the music-stool, contrite and frightened--Elizabeth in another

moment had her darling in her arms; and both sisters were seized with

the fear that Patty was sickening for some illness, caught, probably,

in the vitiated atmosphere of city streets, to which she had never been

accustomed.

 

In the stillness of the night, Paul Brion, leaning over the balustrade

of the verandah, and whitening his coat against the partition that

divided his portion of it from theirs, heard the opening bars of

the funeral march, the gradually swelling sound and thrill of its

impassioned harmonies, as of a procession tramping towards him along

the street, and the sudden lapse into untimely silence. And then

he heard, very faintly, a low cry and a few hurried sobs, and it

was as if a lash had struck him. He felt sure that it was Patty who

had been playing (he thought it must always be Patty who made that

beautiful music), and Patty who had fallen a victim to the spirit of

melancholy that she had invoked--simply because she always _did_ seem

to him to represent the action of the little drama of the sisters'

lives, and Elizabeth and Eleanor to be the chorus merely; and he had

a clear conviction, in the midst of much vague surmise, that he was

involved in the causes that had made her unhappy. For a little while

he stood still, fixing his eyes upon a neighbouring street lamp and

scowling frightfully. He heard the girls' open window go down with a

sharp rattle, and presently heard it open again hastily to admit Dan,

who had been left outside. Then he himself went back, on tiptoe, to

his own apartment, with an __EXPRESSION__ of more than his usual alert

determination on his face.

 

Entering his room, he looked at his watch, shut his window and bolted

it, walked into the adjoining bedchamber, and there, with the gas

flaring noisily so as to give him as much light as possible, made a

rapid toilet, exchanging his loose tweeds for evening dress. In less

than ten minutes he was down in the hall, with his latch key in his

pocket, shaking himself hurriedly into a light overcoat; and in less

than half an hour he was standing at the door of a good-sized and

rather imposing-looking house in the neighbouring suburb, banging it in his peremptory fashion with a particularly loud knocker.