The Three Miss Kings. Ada Cambridge
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,
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