Marjory Moore's Lovers

Chapter I. He

Squire pulled up his horse and listened. He had never heard anything like it in the lanes about Redwood. A violin player in tlie heart of Surrey, playing in a cottage garden, was something to be met with, perhaps only once in a life-time. There was little of the cottage to be seen from the spot where he stood, its red chimneys alone being visible amongst the mass of verdure. The apple trees were in blossom, and the masses of bloom stood out in all their whiteness against the blue sky, dappled with silver clouds. The cottage and its enclosure of garden stood on rather raised ground, from which a few roughly cut steps and a sloping path led downwards to a patch of grass whence three roads diverged. One of these roads came from the hills, another led to the neighboring village, and the third was a mere by-road leading to one or two stray cottages somewhat removed from the bulk of the community.

This red cottage with its massive chimneys and the surrounding garden and orchard belonged to the Squire, but as he was not a man who troubled himself overmuch about the details of his property, he knew very little about it or its occupants. He remembered dimly now that the name of his tenant was Pawson — Levi Pawson — but whether the man was single or married, whether he had any belongings at all, and what was his occupation, had entirely escaped his memory. He was a townsman by birth and education ; he had not been bred a country Squire, and he did not always play the part as well as he imagined. Music was the one passion of his life. He had suffered from a dearth of it of late since he came into possession of the estate in Surrey which had been left him by a cousin whom he had seldom seen.

He lived there be cause he though it his duty to do so. He varied the monotony of his life by frequent visits to London ; but during the past winter even this resource had failed him. His health had been delicate and his doctor had pre scribed rest and quiet. Moreover a slight accident to his foot had kept him a prisoner to the house for some time. Now, however, his foot was better; the spring was here, with its balmier airs ; and he was longing for the time when he could escape from pine woods and green meadows, all of which were profoundly uninteresting to him, and seek again the more congenial haunts of Joachim and Paderewski. He had been dreaming of these masters of melody as he rode along the country lanes, and striving in that way to counteract a natural irritability of temper induced by certain turns in his own affairs ; when the notes of that violin struck upon his ear with startling effect.

It was quite impossible for him to pass the cottage without ascertaining who and what was the player. He dismounted — rather slowly, because his foot was troublesome at times — fastened his horse to a paling and opened the gate. Evidently the unknown player was in MAR/OR Y MOORE. 5 the garden ; the notes did not come from the house. The Squire as the villagers called him, — Mr. Sheraton Hyde, Q. C, as he was known in the London world — walked up the narrow path between a tall green hedge and a plot of raspberry bushes, and came at length on a full view of house, garden, and violin-player. It gave Mr. Hyde quite a shock, partly of surprised pleasure and partly of some thing not unlike vexation (for reasons of his own), to dis cover that the player was after all only a little girl. Perhaps she was older than she looked.

At any rate, with her golden hair tumbling to her waist, her short skirts and her small frame, she did not at first look more than a child of ten years old. Her back was turned to Mr. Hyde, so that he could not see her face ; but he noticed that her dress was extremely poor and shabby, that of the ordinary village child, in a more or less dirty and dilapi dated condition. It was a faded blue cotton, almost out grown ; and an old white sunbonnet was thrown care lessly on the grass beside her. She stood in the shade of the blossoming apple-trees, with flicks of intermittent sunshine upon her golden hair and shabby frock, and she played her violin with a force and fervor which struck the Squire as something more remarkable in a child of these surroundings than the technical skill of an ordinary draw ing-room performer.

The child did not hear his footsteps, and he did not choose to interrupt her. He waited until she paused, then clapped his hands lightly together and said, " Bravo ! very well played." The girl turned round with such a start that the violin almost dropped from her hand. It was indeed somewhat alarming to her to find herself thus suddenly confronted with a tall, spare man, with gray hair, piercing dark eyes ATA RJOR Y MOORE. under jet-black brows, and finely cut features which usually wore a somewhat grim and sardonic expression. Shera ton Hyde was considered a distinguished-looking man in town ; in the country his tenants accounted him "furrin looking," and regarded him somewhat in the light of an ogre. Perhaps this accounted for the look of dismay and discomfiture with which the girl regarded him.

She was certainly older than he had imagined, though not very old after all. She was perhaps thirteen or four teen, and she possessed beauty of a rare and subtle kind, which seemed to him far too delicate for a village girl living in a tumble-down old cottage in a Surrey lane. He wondered that he had never seen her before. " Who taught you to play ? " he asked abruptly. " My father." " Your father. Does he live here ? " She shook her head. " He died a year ago," she said, and her eyes wandered away to the line of blue hills piled up on the low horizon, with a wistful and troubled look. " How did you come here, then ? " said the Squire. " Whom do you belong to ? Are you staying with friends ? " He spoke rather sharply, as was his wont, and the girl's brows contracted with a look of defiance and displeasure.

" My relations live there," she said, pointing to the cottage. " You can ask them all about me if you want to know," and then she turned her back upon him and picked up her sunbonnet. Mr. Hyde was more amused than vexed by her incivility. He adopted a gentler tone with her at once. " I would rather hear about you from yourself than from your relations," he said. "I know something about music and I was struck by your playing when I heard it in the road. You must have been well taught." The girl lifted her eyes with a sudden flash in their slumbering depths. Without knowing it, he had struck the one responsive chord in her nature, he had praised the teaching of the father whom she had lost, — the father who had been all in all to her for the first twelve years of her life. " He was a violinist," she said quickly.

" He was in the orchestra at the Novelty Theatre. He gave lessons, too, sometimes ; he taught me all — all that I know." " And he is dead, you say ? " A shadow came over the fair pale face, and her head drooped a little as she replied, " He died twelve months ago." " And your mother ? '' " She died when I was born. " " And how did you come here ? " asked the Squire, more and more puzzled by the connection of a child of this parentage with the quiet little Surrey village where the verj' name of a theatre was unknown. " I am here with my aunt," the girl answered. " My mother was her sister and she has come to stay with her brother-in-law, who lives in this cottage." " Oh," said the Squire with a gleam of returning recol lection, " his name is Pawson, Levi Pawson, I remember. ■Then your name cannot be Pawson too."

"No, they generally call me Marjory Pawson, because they say it is more convenient, but my real name is Moore." " You are fond of your violin," said the Squire abruptly. "I love it," she said, drawing it closer towards her as if it were a thing that could feel her tenderness. " But it is no use " — with a sudden lowering of her delicate eye brows, " they won't let me practice, they say it is waste of time. Aunt Maria said yesterday that she would throw it into the fire. If she does I will run away and never come back." The child's face flushed as she spoke, her eyes blazed until their light was quenched in sudden tears, which she hastily strove to flick away unseen. " Why shouldn't you play ? What else do they want you to do ?" "They want me," said Marjory, with a rebellious pout, which was yet something like a smile, " to be a dress maker."

"Good heavens ! " said the Squire. This was a state of things which appealed to his sympathies as perhaps nothing else in the world could have done. Every moment which he had been able to spare throughout his life from the exercise of his arduous profession, had been devoted to music. He was painfully aware that he had neither executive nor creative talent, but he was neverthe less an ardent devotee. One thing which he bitterly regretted, was, that he had not been allowed in his boyhood to devote himself exclusively to the musical profession. It is very possible that if he had done so his whole life would have been a dead failure, for he was one of the many persons who are lovers of the art without the slight est capacity for it. As it was he had become a very suc cessful lawyer with a hobby which he could well afford to gTatify, and he was probably all the happier for this turn of fortune.

He stood silent for a moment or two with his eyes fixed on the slim figure of the growing girl ; angular at present in its contours, but with promise of future grace. He looked at her hands and wrists. The fingers were long and thin, the wrist was supple ; it was the hand and arm of a musician born. From the cottage at this moment came the sound of a shrill and angry voice. " Marjory ! Marjory ! You come back to your work." Then a woman's figure appeared in the doorway and some angry words fell upon the silent, sunny air. "You lazy brat ! You come back to your work this minute or I'll know the reason why. Not a bit of dinner shall you have until you've finished those seams. I'll break that nasty fiddle of yours to bits and use it for fire wood this evening, see if I don't. Who are you talking to now, I should like to know ?

" She came down the pathway as she spoke, her arms akimbo, and her face aflame with indignation. She was a short, highly colored woman (." Looks as if she drank," said Sheraton Hyde to himself), with very rough hair and a shabby black gown much adorned with needles, pins, and ends of white cotton. When she caught sight of the gentleman she stopped for a moment and looked at him suspiciously. She was a stranger in the place and did not know her brother-in-law's landlord by sight. If she had known him she would perhaps have smothered her ruffled plumes before addressing him. " If you have any business with me or with Mr. Paw son," she said with dignity, "you'd better come to the door, and not stand talking with that girl out in the gar den and hindering her from her work. Marjory, you go back to the house directly minnit.

There's Selina and Kate slaving their lives out and you wasting your time out here, you idle hussy ! Now, sir, what can I do sol you ? " MARJOR Y MOORE. 10 The Squire looked at her keenly. He tried to see a resemblance between the girl and her mother's sister and wondered whether it were possible that in time Marjory should grow into any sort of likeness to this harsh featured, sharp-eyed little woman whose sandy hair might once have possessed a touch of Marjory's gold. Involuntarily he shook his head. There was no likeness here. Marjory must have resembled her father, he thought, the dead violinist who had taught her to play. The girl cast a quick glance of dislike and defiance towards her aunt, clutched her violin a little more tightly and then went slowly back to the cottage. Ms . Pawson rubbed her hands on her white apron, and looked sourly at the visitor, who seemed to be taking his own time as to a reply.

" I am Pawson's landlord," said Mr. Hyde at length in a dry tone. " Is he at home ? " " No, sir, he is out," said Mrs. Pawson at once recog nizing the position of affairs and making a sort of muti lated curtsey. " I didn't know who 'twas, that Marjory had got hold of," she added by way of excuse, " she's such a lazy good for nothing girl that I thought she might have got into mischief, but, of course, I didn't know as it was you, sir, who was a-speaking to her. No, Paw son isn't in, sir, but he will be home to his dinner at twelve o'clock and I can send him on to the house if you wants to speak to him." " You are his sister-in-law, are you not ? " " Yes, sir, I am, and lost my husband, which he was Levi's eldest brother, more than nine y»ars ago. Since when me and my daughters has taken to the dressmaking, but not made very much by it ; it is my own fault, may be ; seeing that I am too tender-'arted to press for bills when due, and having taken my dead sister's daughter on my hands and all."

" That is your sister's daughter, is it ? " said the Squire, trying to stem the flow of words. "Yes, sir, a poor orphan girl with nobody to look to but me since her father died quite sudden like about a year ago. And Selina, which is my eldest, said to me that we might do without a sewing-girl if we took Mar jory, and the work she did would pay for her keep and it would be a good action too, and one that she ought to be grateful for, but bless your 'art, sir, she's more trouble than she's worth, that girl, and what I am to do with her is more than I can tell." " I suppose she can't sew," said Mr. Hyde with grim humor, " not to be expected either of a girl who can play the fiddle in that way." " Drat that fiddle, is what I often says to myself," observed Mrs. Pawson in a highly indignant tone, " for its made the girl of no use to anyone, and what her father meant by teaching her to play it and letting her grow up so hignorant of everything else, I'm sure I do not know.

It's likely to be her ruin in this world and the next," she concluded piously, though so far as the Squire could see with no apparent reason for her words. " But what have you come down here for ? " was his next question. It was one which Mrs. Pawson would have resented if asked by anyone but the Squire, but she was a shrewd woman in her way, and knew that he was all powerful in the village. It behoved her, therefore, to enlist his sympathies on her side. " I'm sure, sir, it's just kindness of 'art that brought me down. There's Levi as lost his wife six months agone, and has had nobody all this while to do any clean ing or cooking for him, let alone a woman who comes in for a hour on Saturdays, and him that miserable that when he wrote to me the other day, I says to Selina, ' Let's go down and see if we can't cheer him up a bit and put his house tidy,' and since we've been here he's that pleased, he said to me yesterday, ' Maria,' said he, ' why should not you and the girls stay down here and set up yer dressmaking in the village.

I daresay you'd make a decent living,' says he, ' and you'd keep my place clean and tidy.' " " But there are too many of you for this little cottage," said the Squire. " It is rather a squeeze and that I don't deny," said Mrs. Pawson, " but I was thinking as how one of the girls might be sent out to service, for there's Marjory, you see, without a bit of sense at needlework and more bother than she's worth, and with such a temper that there's no holding her sometimes, and will play that squeaky old fiddle of hers, whether or no." " But, my good woman," said the Squire, seriously, " don't you know that the girl plays exceptionally well ? Don't you know that she has a talent, which, if properly cultivated, might lead her to independence and happiness, such as she will get in no other way ; don't you know that?"

" All I know is," said Mrs. Pawson acidly, " that I wish that there fiddle was at the back of the kitchen fire, which is where it will be before long if Marjory don't look out. Did you want Levi Pawson, sir, or is it anything I can do ? " It evidently seemed to her to be a great waste of time to stand talking about Marjory's abilities or re quirements. MARJOR Y MOORE. 13 The Squire pondered for a moment and then turned on Us heel. " No," he said, " there's nothing you can do, but I ohould like to see Pawson. Tell Pawson to come up to ihe house this evening, and by the way, he can bring Marjory and her violin, don't forget that. Good-morning, Mrs. Pawson." He strode away towards the garden gate, leaving Mrs. Pawson in a state of indignant amaze more easy to imagine than to describe.

Chapter II

T has already been hinted that Mr. Hyde was in a state of considerable irritation during his ride, or at any rate during that earlier portion of it before he heard Marjory's violin. It was Felix Hyde, the Squire's nephew, who had been the cause of his irritation. Felix, he told himself, had disappointed him ; he was the only son of Sheraton Hyde's younger brother, a man who had shared the Squire's love for music and musicians, and seemed to have bequeathed talent as well as taste to his son Felix. The boy had been left on Sheraton's hands from a very early age, as both parents had died within a few months of the child's birth. Quickly observing the boy's capabilities, Sheraton Hyde had resolved to make him all that he had failed to be himself. The boy had an exquisite voice, and he was well taught, but from the very first, he showed an in vincible repugnance to becoming a professional musician.

He rejoiced infinitely when his voice broke, and nothing more in the way of vocal performance could be expected of him, at least for a time. Thenceforth he declared determinedly, nothing should induce him to make music anything but a recreation ; but Mr. Hyde had generally treated this determination as a bit of wilfulness and pure fancy on the part of Felix, and was sanguine enough to believe that the lad would bend to his wishes in the long run. But Felix, now seventeen, showed no signs of yield ing to his uncle's desires, but had come home from school for the Easter holidays, knowing well enough that the Squire wanted him to have done with ordinary schooling, by the end of the summer term, and to be ready to proceed to Leipsic, or some other celebrated Conservatoire, where he could get the musical training of which he was supposed to be in need.

An angry discussion between uncle and nephew on the night preceding Mr. Hyde's discovery of the girl violinist in the village, had so far ruffled the tempers of both, that they had scarcely met during the day, or spoken to each other during the meal at night; but after the servants had quitted the room, Mr. Hyde turned round to the boy, and spoke. " Well," he said in a somewhat harsh and grating voice, " have you anything to say to me to-day ? " " I don't think so," said Felix. His tone was almost sullen, and there was more determination than amiability in the countenance which he turned towards his uncle. He was not a handsome youth, although he had his good points. He was strongly built, tall and broad for his age ; one could see that when the period of boyish awk wardness and lankiness was over, he would be a decidedly fine-looking man.

" You are quite resolved, then," said Mr. Hyde, " not to pursue the profession of music ? " "There is nothing I should dislike more," said Felix. " It is a great pity, a great pity," said the Squire, " I am thinking there is something absolutely wicked in throw ing away a talent that you possess, I am perfectly certain that you will regret it in after days." " I don't see what there will be to regret," said Felix, with a sudden flush upon his sallow cheeks, " even if I cared for the life, which I don't, there is no certainty that I should succeed, it is too late to take up any special in strument." " That is your own fault," said the Squire, dryly, " you would never practise." " I am very glad I didn't," said Felix, grimly. " And may I ask what profession you think of adorn ing ? " said Mr. Hyde, sarcastically.

" I suppose you know that you are absolutely dependent on me, and that if I don't choose to support you, you will have nothing but your own exertions to rely upon." " I can't help that," said Felix, standing erect upon the hearthrug, and putting one hand on the tall mantelpiece, as he spoke. " I would rather be a crossing-sweeper than a professional singer, and if you don't wish to do any thing more for me, Uncle Sheraton, I must try to do something for myself ; but I should like to be — a doctor." "A doctor ! " echoed the Squire with infinite contempt. But the contempt in his voice was not in his heart. He was impressed in spite of himself with the seriousness and earnestness of the boy's manner, and Felix looked so tall, so strong, so manly, as he stood by the mantelpiece, with the light from the small wood fire flickering over his dark face and stalwart form, that Mr. Hyde could not choose but think that the lad, after all, perhaps knew his own mind, and had gauged his own powers better than his guardian could do.

" It is always the way," said the Squire, as he helped himself to a glass of old port, and turned his eyes angrily away from the Strong, young, figure by the fire place. " I have seen instances of it a thousand times, nnd ought to have been prepared. It is never any use to expect a young fellow to give up his way for the sake of those who have brought him up. The young are always ungrateful, always obstinate." " I am not ungrateful," said Felix, shortly. He wished he could have said it more pleasantly ; he wished also that he could have said that he was not obstinate. Un fortunately he knew that obstinacy was his besetting sin. At this moment the butler entered the room and ad vanced to his master's side. " A man from the village, sir, Pawson by name, and a little girl, is here wanting to see you.

They say you told them to come up to-night." Felix turned to the fire with a feeling of relief. The discussion must be ended now, if his uncle had to trans act business, and he would be free to steal away to his books. But he had reckoned without his host. His uncle's next words filled him with surprise. "Take Pawson and the girl into the music-room. Felix, you can come too, it's something I want you to hear." Felix shivered a little as he entered the music-room ; it always seemed to him a cold place, without endearing associations. He looked curiously at the two figures, whom he found huddled rather forlornly together in the centre of the bare, well-lighted room. There was no fire, but all the lamps were lighted, and the radiance struck Felix as excessive and unsympathetic. The servant had forgotten to draw the curtains over one of the large windows, and the dark outlines of the shrubbery could be dimly seen through the large clear panes.

Felix moved towards this window, and looked out into the night. He paid very little attention to the visitors from the village ; he did not imagine that he was likely to take much interest in their affairs. His uncle came into the room. Some conversation went on between Pawson and the Squire, but it must be confessed that Felix did not hear a word that was said. His heart was heavy and sore within him. He knew that he had been treated with injustice, and he was not yet certain how far his uncle's injustice might carry him. It was quite possible that by refusing the profession his uncle chose, he had thrown away all his chances of worldly prosperity, as far at least, as his uncle's property was concerned. Therefore, it was not very likely that he could listen to what was going on. He was almost too angry and too dispirited to care.

Presently, however, the notes of a violin fell upon his ear. So that was why these village people had been asked to come to the house. This was some protegee of his uncle's, some new discovery of genius that he had made. In his present state of mind Felix found the music almost intolerable. He would have given any thing to get away, but if he went, he knew he should offend his uncle more bitterly than ever, and therefore he governed his restlessness as well as he could. In a very few minutes he was able to listen with some distinct un derstanding to what was going on. But what did this mean ! Why had his uncle sum moned from the village any person who played so execra bly ? The violin was out of tune, the player was uncerta\n and inaccurate. Felix had a delicate ear, and the screech of an ill-played fiddle was almost too much for him.

He turned round, in spite of himself, and saw, for the first time, that it was the little girl who was playing. Even as he moved the performance came to a climax in an ear-piercing squeak of the bow, which was almost un bearable to musical ears. Mr. Hyde was the picture of despair. And then Mar jory dashed down her violin and burst into tears. " I can't play here one bit," she sobbed, " it's all too light, too bright. I can play better, oh, so much better, when I am by myself."

Chapter III Elix

turned away from the window and came forward a step or two into the room. His sympathies were at once enlisted. Anything like a musical failure was just then particularly interesting. To his surprise the Squire was not angry, His brow had cleared a little since the girl broke down. " I could not have been mistaken," Felix heard him mutter to himself. " It is the sensitive, artistic temper ament — yes, yes, that is what it is. Come, my dear," awkwardly addressing the girl, " don't cry, you can do better than that, I understand how it is." But Marjory wept on and paid no attention to him, whereupon Levi Pawson opened his lips to speak. " There do seem to be summat wrong about that there fiddle to-night," he observed slowly, " like as though it had got a cold in its inside. I never heard it squeal that sort rjf way afore.

I don't understand these things mysel', but surely, Marjory, your fiddle wants looking to a bit." " It is not the fiddle's fault, uncle, it is mine," gasped Marjory. " I know it is all wrong, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't play any better." " Try again," suggested Mr. Hyde. " 1 don't think I can," said Marjory, her lips quivering, " not in this room." The Squire was puzzled. To him his music-room was an ideal apartment, and he could not understand the effect of its cold brightness upon Marjory's nerves. Curi ously enough, it was Felix who understood, and as the Squire drew backwards a few steps and entered into a low-toned conversation with Pawson, Felix came forward and touched the girl on the arm. " Look here," he said, " come to this window with me, and bring your violin." Marjory looked at him wonderingly, but did as she was told.