CHAPTER III

The next morning there were many "tra-las" and "tum-te-turns" over the

family breakfast-table; a constant humming and crying, "I have it"; and

after two or three bars, baffled pauses and confusion of mind. Mr.

Pericles was almost abusive at the impotent efforts of the sisters to

revive in his memory that particular delicious melody, the composition of

the fair singer herself. At last he grew so impatient as to arrest their

opening notes, and even to interrupt their unmusical consultations, with

"No: it is no use; it is no use: no, no, I say!" But instantly he would

plunge his forehead into the palm of his hand, and rub it red, and work

his eyebrows frightfully, until tender humanity led the sisters to

resume. Adela's, "I'm sure it began low down--tum!" Cornelia's: "The

key-note, I am positive, was B flat--ta!" and Arabella's putting of these

two assertions together, and promise to combine them at the piano when

breakfast was at an end, though it was Sunday morning, were exasperating

to the exquisite lover of music. Mr. Pericles was really suffering

torments. Do you know what it is to pursue the sylph, and touch her

flying skirts, think you have caught her, and are sure of her--that she

is yours, the rapturous evanescent darling! when some well-meaning

earthly wretch interposes and trips you, and off she flies and leaves you

floundering? A lovely melody nearly grasped and lost in this fashion,

tries the temper. Apollo chasing Daphne could have been barely polite to

the wood-nymphs in his path, and Mr. Pericles was rude to the daughters

of his host. Smoothing his clean square chin and thick moustache hastily,

with outspread thumb and fingers, he implored them to spare his nerves.

Smiling rigidly, he trusted they would be merciful to a sensitive ear.

Mr. Pole--who, as an Englishman, could not understand anyone being so

serious in the pursuit of a tune--laughed, and asked questions, and

almost drove Mr. Pericles mad. On a sudden the Greek's sallow visage

lightened. "It is to you! it is to you!" he cried, stretching his finger

at Wilfrid. The young officer, having apparently waited till he had

finished with his knife and fork, was leaning his cheek on his fist,

looking at nobody, and quietly humming a part of the air. Mr. Pericles

complimented and thanked him.

"But you have ear for music extraordinaire!" he said.

Adela patted her brother fondly, remarking--"Yes, when his feelings are

concerned."

"Will you repeat zat?" asked the Greek. "'To-to-ri:' hein? I lose it.

'To-to-ru:' bah! I lose it; 'To-ri:--to--ru--ri ro:' it is no use: I lose

it."

Neither his persuasions, nor his sneer, "Because it is Sunday, perhaps!"

would induce Wilfrid to be guilty of another attempt. The ladies tried

sisterly cajoleries on him fruitlessly, until Mr. Pole, seeing the

desperation of his guest, said: "Why not have her up here, toon and all,

some week-day? Sunday birds won't suit us, you know. We've got a piano

for her that's good enough for the first of 'em, if money means

anything."

The ladies murmured meekly: "Yes, papa."

"I shall find her for you while you go to your charch," said Mr.

Pericles. And here Wilfrid was seized with a yawn, and rose, and asked

his eldest sister if she meant to attend the service that morning.

"Undoubtedly," she answered; and Mr. Pole took it up: "That's our

discipline, my boy. Must set an example: do our duty. All the house goes

to worship in the country."

"Why, in ze country?" queried Mr. Pericles.

"Because"--Cornelia came to the rescue of her sire; but her impetuosity

was either unsupported by a reason, or she stooped to fit one to the

comprehension of the interrogator: "Oh, because--do you know, we have

very select music at our church?"

"We have a highly-paid organist," added Arabella.

"Recently elected," said Adela.

"Ah! mon Dieu!" Mr. Pericles ejaculated. "Some music sound well at

afar--mellow, you say. I prefer your charch music mellow."

"Won't you come?" cried Wilfrid, with wonderful briskness.

"No. Mellow for me!"

The Greek's grinders flashed, and Wilfrid turned off from him sulkily. He

saw in fancy the robber-Greek prowling about Wilson's farm, setting

snares for the marvellous night-bird, and it was with more than his

customary inattention to his sisters' refined conversation that he formed

part of their male escort to the place of worship.

Mr. Pericles met the church-goers on their return in one of the green

bowery lanes leading up to Brookfield. Cold as he was to English scenes

and sentiments, his alien ideas were not unimpressed by the picture of

those daintily-clad young women demurely stepping homeward, while the air

held a revel of skylarks, and the scented hedgeways quickened with

sunshine.

"You have missed a treat!" Arabella greeted him.

"A sermon?" said he.

The ladies would not tell him, until his complacent cynicism at the

notion of his having missed a sermon, spurred them to reveal that the

organ had been handled in a masterly manner; and that the voluntary

played at the close of the service was most exquisite.

"Even papa was in raptures."

"Very good indeed," said Mr. Pole. "I'm no judge; but you might listen to

that sort of playing after dinner."

Mr. Pericles seemed to think that was scarcely a critical period, but he

merely grimaced, and inquired: "Did you see ze player?"

"Oh, no: they are hidden," Arabella explained to him, "behind a curtain."

"But, what!" shouted the impetuous Greek: "have you no curiosity? A

woman! And zen, you saw not her?"

"No," remarked Cornelia, in the same aggravating sing-song voice of utter

indifference: "we don't know whether it was not a man. Our usual organist

is a man, I believe."

The eyes of the Greek whitened savagely, and he relapsed into frigid

politeness.

Wilfrid was not present to point their apprehensions. He had loitered

behind; but when he joined them in the house subsequently, he was

cheerful, and had a look of triumph about him which made his sisters say,

"So, you have been with the Copleys:" and he allowed them to suppose it,

if they pleased; the Copleys being young ladies of position in the

neighbourhood, of much higher standing than the Tinleys, who, though very

wealthy, could not have given their brother such an air, the sisters

imagined.

At lunch, Wilfrid remarked carelessly: "By the way, I met that little

girl we saw last night."

"The singer! where?" asked his sisters, with one voice.

"Coming out of church."

"She goes to church, then!"

This exclamation showed the heathen they took her to be.

"Why, she played the organ," said Wilfrid.

"And how does she look by day? How does she dress?"

"Oh! very jolly little woman! Dresses quiet enough."

"She played the organ! It was she, then! An organist! Is there anything

approaching to gentility in her appearance?"

"I--really I'm no judge," said Wilfrid. "You had better ask Laura Tinley.

She was talking to her when I went up."

The sisters exchanged looks. Presently they stood together in

consultation. Then they spoke with their aunt, Mrs. Lupin, and went to

their papa. The rapacity of those Tinleys for anything extraordinary was

known to them, but they would not have conceived that their own

discovery, their own treasure, could have been caught up so quickly. If

the Tinleys got possession of her, the defection of Mr. Pericles might be

counted on, and the display of a phenomenon would be lost to them. They

decided to go down to Wilson's farm that very day, and forestall their

rivals by having her up to Brookfield. The idea of doing this had been in

a corner of their minds all the morning: it seemed now the most sensible

plan in the world. It was patronage, in its right sense. And they might

be of great service to her, by giving a proper elevation and tone to her

genius; while she might amuse them, and their guests, and be let off, in

fact, as a firework for the nonce. Among the queenly cases of women who

are designing to become the heads of a circle (if I may use the term), an

accurate admeasurement of reciprocal advantages can scarcely be expected

to rank; but the knowledge that an act, depending upon us for execution,

is capable of benefiting both sides, will make the proceeding appear so

unselfish, that its wisdom is overlooked as well as its motives. The

sisters felt they were the patronesses of the little obscure genius whom

they longed for to illumine their household, before they knew her name.

Cornet Wilfrid Pole must have chuckled mightily to see them depart on

their mission. These ladies, who managed everybody, had themselves been

very cleverly managed. It is doubtful whether the scheme to surprise and

delight Mr. Pericles would have actuated the step they took, but for the

dread of seeing the rapacious Tinleys snatch up their lawful prey. The

Tinleys were known to be quite capable of doing so. They had, on a

particular occasion, made transparent overtures to a celebrity belonging

to the Poles, whom they had first met at Brookfield: could never have

hoped to have seen had they not met him at Brookfield; and girls who

behaved in this way would do anything. The resolution was taken to steal

a march on them; nor did it seem at all odd to people naturally so

hospitable as the denizens of Brookfield, that the stranger of yesterday

should be the guest of to-day. Kindness of heart, combined with a great

scheme in the brain, easily put aside conventional rules.

"But we don't know her name," they said, when they had taken the advice

of the gentlemen on what they had already decided to do: all excepting

Mr. Pericles, for whom the surprise was in store.

"Belloni--Miss Belloni," said Wilfrid.

"Are you sure? How do you know--?"

"She told Laura Tinley."

Within five minutes of the receipt of this intelligence the ladies were

on their way to Wilson's farm.