Suddenly she remembered herself, and began again:
Miss Markham and I had twice gone to large seaside hotels with great success, but, of course, she had a manager and a reputation. I thought I would try the same thing alone in some very quiet retreat, and see if it would do. Oh! wasnt it funny! (Here she broke into a perfectly childlike fit of laughter.) It was such a well-behaved, solemn little audience, that never gave me an inkling of its liking or its loathing.
Oh, yes, it did! remonstrated Appleton. They loved your Scotch songs.
Silently! cried Tommy. I had dozens and dozens of other things upstairs to sing to them, but I thought I was suiting my programme to the place and the people. I looked at them during luncheon and made my selections.
You are flattering the week-enders.
I believe you are musical, she ventured, looking up at him as she played with a tuft of sea-pinks.
I am passionately fond of singing, so I seldom go to concerts, he answered, somewhat enigmatically. Your programme was an enchanting one to me.
It was good of its kind, if the audience would have helped me,and Tommys lip trembled a little; but perhaps I could have borne that, if it hadnt been for theplate.
Not a pleasant custom, and a new one to me, said Appleton.
And to me! (Here she made a little grimace of disgust.) I knew beforehand I had to face the platebut the contents! Where did you sit?
I was forced to stay a trifle in the background, I entered so late. It was your Minstrel Boy that dragged me out of my armchair in the lounge.
Then perhaps you saw the plate? I know by your face that you did! You saw the sixpences, which I shall never forget, and the pennies, which I will never forgive! I thirst for the blood of those who put in pennies!
They would all have been sitting in boiling oil since Friday if I had had my way, responded Appleton.
Tommy laughed delightedly. I know now who put in the sovereign! I knew every face in that audiencethat wasnt difficult in so small a oneand I tried and tried to fix the sovereign on any one of them, and couldnt. At last I determined that it was the old gentleman who went out in the middle of Allan Water, feeling that he would rather pay anything than stay any longer. Confess! it was you!
Appleton felt very sheepish as he met Tommys dancing eyes and heightened color.
I couldnt bear to let you see those pennies, he stammered, but I couldnt get them out before the page came to take the plate.
Perhaps you were pound foolish, and the others were penny wise, but it was awfully nice of you. If I can pay my bill here without spending that sovereign, I believe Ill keep it for a lucky piece. I shall be very rich by Saturday night, anyway.
A legacy due?
Goodness, no! I havent a relation in the world except one, who disapproves of me; not so much as I disapprove of him, however. No, Albert Spalding and Donald Tovey have engaged me for a concert in Torquay.
I have some business in Torquay which will keep me there for a few days on my way back to Wells, said Appleton nonchalantly. (The bishops letter had been a pure and undefiled source of information on all points.)
Why, how funny! I hope youll be there on Saturday. Therell be no plate! Tickets two and six to seven and six, but you shall be my guest, my sovereign guest. I am going to Wells myself to stay tilltill I make up my mind about a few things.
America next? inquired Appleton, keeping his voice as colorless as possible.
I dont know. Helena made me resign my church position in Brooklyn, and for the moment my career is undecided.
She laughed, but her eyes denied the mirth that her lips affirmed, and Appleton had such a sudden, illogical desire to meddle with her career, to help or hinder it, to have a hand in it at any rate, that he could hardly hold his tongue.
The Torquay concert will be charming, I hope. You know what Spaldings violin-playing is, and Donald Tovey is a young genius at piano-playing and composing. He is going to accompany me in some of his own songs, and he wants me to sing a group of American onesMacdowell, Chadwick, Nevin, Mrs. Beach, and Margaret Lang.
I hope youll accompany yourself in some of your own ballads!
No, the occasion is too grand; unless they should happen to like me very much. Then I could play for myself, and sing Allan Water, or Believe Me, or Early One Morning, or Barbara Allen.
(Appleton wondered if a claque of sizable, trustworthy boys could be secured in Torquay, and under his intelligent and inspired leadership carry Miss Thomasina Tucker like a cork on the wave of success.)
Wouldnt it be lunch-time? asked Miss Tucker, after a slight pause.
It is always time for something when Im particularly enjoying myself, grumbled Appleton, looking at his watch. Its not quite one oclock. Must we go in?
Oh, yes; weve ten minutes walk,and Tommy scrambled up and began to brush sand from her skirts.
Couldnt I sit at your tableunder the chaperonage of the Bishop of Bath and Wells? And Appleton got on his feet and collected Tommys books.
The girls laugh was full-hearted this time. Certainly not, she said. What does Bexley Sands know of the bishop and his interest in us? But if you can find the drawing-room utterly deserted at any time, Ill sing for you.
How about a tea-basket and a walk to Gray Rocks at four oclock? asked Appleton as they strolled toward the hotel.
Charming! And I love singing out of doors without accompaniment. Im determined to earn that sovereign in course of time! Are you from New England?
Yes; and you?
Oh, Im from New York. I was born in a row of brown-stone fronts, in a numbered street, twenty-five or thirty houses to a block, all exactly alike. I wonder how Ive outlived my start. And you?
In the country, bless it,in the eastern part of Massachusetts. We had a garden and my mother and I lived in it during all the months of my life that matter. Thats where the mignonette grew.
And He planted a garden eastward in Eden, quoted Tommy, half to herself.
Its the only Eden I ever knew! Do you like it over here, Miss Tucker, or are you homesick now that your friend is in America?
Oh, Im never homesick; for the reason that I have never had any home since I was ten years old, when I was left an orphan. I havent any deep roots in New York; its like the ocean, too big to love. I respect and admire the ocean, but I love a little river. You know the made-over aphorism: The home is where the hat is? For hat read trunk, and you have my case, precisely.
Thats because you are absurdly, riotously young! It wont suit you forever.
Does anything suit one forever? asked Tommy frivolously, not cynically, but making Appleton a trifle uncomfortable nevertheless. Anything except singing, I mean? Perhaps you feel the same way about writing? You havent told me anything about your work, and Ive confided my past history, present prospects, and future aspirations to you!
Theres not so much to say. It is good work, and it is growing better. I studied architecture at the Beaux-Arts. I do art-criticism, and I write about buildings chiefly. That would seem rather dull to a warbler like you.
Not a bit. Doesnt somebody say that architecture is frozen music?
Theres not so much to say. It is good work, and it is growing better. I studied architecture at the Beaux-Arts. I do art-criticism, and I write about buildings chiefly. That would seem rather dull to a warbler like you.
Not a bit. Doesnt somebody say that architecture is frozen music?
I dont get as immediate response to my work as you do to yours.
No, but you never had sixpences and pennies put into your plate! Now give me my books, please. Ill go in at the upper gate alone, and run upstairs to my room. You enter by the lower one and go through the lounge, where the guests chiefly congregate waiting for the opening of the dining-room. Au revoir!
When Tommy opened her bedroom door she elevated her pretty, impertinent little nose and sniffed the air. It was laden with a delicate perfume that came from a huge bunch of mignonette on the table. It was long-stemmed, fresh, and moist, loosely bound together, and every one of its tiny brown blossoms was sending out fragrance into the room. It did not need Fergus Appletons card to identify the giver, but there it was.
What a nice, kind, understanding person he is! And how cheerful it makes life to have somebody from your own country taking an interest in you, and liking your singing, and hating those beastly pennies! And Tommy, quickly merging artist in woman, slipped on a coatee of dull-green crêpe over her old black taffeta, and taking down her hat with the garland of mignonette from the shelf in her closet, tucked some of the green sprays in her belt, and went down to luncheon. She didnt know where Fergus Appletons table was, but she would make her seat face his. Then she could smile thanks at him over the mulligatawny soup, or the filet of sole, or the boiled mutton, or the apple tart. Even the Bishop of Bath and Wells couldnt object to that!
V
Their friendship grew perceptibly during the next two days, though constantly under the espionage of the permanent guests of the Bexley Sands Inn, but on Wednesday night Miss Tucker left for Torquay, according to schedule. Fergus Appleton remained behind, partly to make up arrears in his literary work, and partly as a sop to decency and common sense. He did not deem it either proper or dignified to escort the young lady on her journey (particularly as he had not been asked to do so), so he pined in solitary confinement at Bexley until Saturday morning, when he followed her to the scene of her labors.
After due reflection he gave up the idea of the claque, and rested Tommys case on the knees of the gods, where it transpired that it was much safer, for Torquay liked Tommy, and the concert went off with enormous éclat. From the moment that Miss Thomasina Tucker appeared on the platform the audience looked pleased. She wore a quaint dress of white flounced chiffon, with a girdle of green, and a broad white hat with her old mignonette garland made into two little nosegays perched on either side of the transparent brim. She could not wear the mignonette that Appleton had sent to her dressing-room, because she would have been obscured by the size of the offering, but she carried as much of it as her strength permitted, and laid the fragrant bouquet on the piano as she passed it. (A poem had come with it, but Tommy did not dare read it until the ordeal was over, for no one had ever written her a poem before. It had three long verses, and was signed F.A.that was all she had time to note.)
A long-haired gentleman sitting beside Appleton remarked to his neighbor: The girl looks like a flower; its a pity she has such a heathenish name! Why didnt they call her Hope, or Flora, or Egeria, or Cecilia?
When the audience found that Miss Tuckers singing did not belie her charming appearance, they cast discretion to the winds and loved her. Appleton himself marveled at the beauty of her performance as it budded and bloomed under the inspiration of her fellow artists and the favor of the audience, and the more he admired the more depressed he became.
She may be on the threshold of a modest career, of a sort, after all, he thought, and she will never give it up for me. Would she be willing to combine me with the career, and how would it work? I shouldnt be churl enough to mind her singing now and then, but it seems to me I couldnt stand tours. Besides, hers is such a childlike, winsome, fragrant little gift it ought not to be exploited like a great, booming talent!
The audience went wild over Donald Toveys songs. He played, and Tommy sang them from memory, and it seemed as if they had been written then and there, struck off at white heat; as if the composer happened to be at the piano, and the singer chanced with his help to be interpreting those particular verses for that particular moment.
His setting of Jock oHazeldean proved irresistible:
They sought her baith by bower an ha;
The ladie was not seen.
And then with a swirl and a torrent of sound, a clangor of sword and a clatter of hoofs:
Shes oer the Border and awa
Wi Jock o Hazeldean.
Appleton didnt see any valid reason why Tovey should kiss Tommys hand in responding to the third recall, but supposed it must be a composers privilege, and wished that he were one.
Then the crowd made its way into the brilliant Torquay sunshine, and Appleton lingered in the streets until the time came for the tea-party arranged for the artists at the hotel.
It was a gay little gathering, assisted by a charming lady of the town, who always knew the celebrated people who flock there in all seasons. Spalding and Tovey were the lions, but Miss Thomasina Tucker did not lack for compliments. Her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled under the white tulle brim of her hat. Her neck looked deliciously white and young, rising from its transparent chiffons, and her bunch of mignonette gave a note of delicate distinction. The long-haired gentleman was present, and turned out to be a local poet. He told Miss Tucker that she ought never to wear or to carry another flower. Not, at all events, till you pass thirty! he said. You belong togetheryou, your songs, and the mignonette!at which she flung a shy upward glance at Appleton, saying: It is this American friend who has really established the connection, though I have always worn green and white and always loved the flower.
You sent me some verses, Mr. Appleton, she said, as the poet moved away. I have them safe (and she touched her bodice), but I havent had a quiet moment to read them.
Just a little tribute, Appleton answered carelessly. Are you leaving? If so, Ill get your flowers into a cab and drive you on.
No. I am going, quite unexpectedly, to Exeter to-night. Let us sit down in this corner a moment and Ill tell you. Mr. Tovey has asked me to substitute for a singer who is ill. The performance is on Monday and I chance to know the cantata. I shall not be paid, but it will be a fine audience and it may lead to something; after all, its not out of my way in going to Wells.
Arent you overtired to travel any more to-night?
No, I am treading air! I have no sense of being in the body at all. Mrs. Cholmondeley, that dark-haired lady you were talking with a moment ago, lives in Exeter and will take me to her house. And how nice that I dont have to say good-bye, for you still mean to go to Wells?
Oh, yes! I havent nearly finished with the cathedralI shall be there before you. Can I look up lodgings or do anything for you?
Oh, no, thank you. I shall go to the old place where Miss Markham and I lived before. The bishop and Mrs. Kennion sent us there because there is a piano, and the old ladies, being deaf, dont mind musical lodgers. Didnt the concert go off beautifully! Such artists, those two men; so easy to do ones best in such company.