The Rosary

CHAPTER VI

THE VEIL IS LIFT­ED

“MISS CHAM­PI­ON! Oh, here you are! Your turn next, please. The last item of the lo­cal pro­gramme is in course of per­for­mance, af­ter which the duchess ex­plains Vel­ma’s laryn­gi­tis–let us hope she will not call it ‘ap­pen­dici­tis’–and then I ush­er you up. Are you ready?”

Garth Dal­main, as mas­ter of cer­emonies, had sought Jane Cham­pi­on on the ter­race, and stood be­fore her in the soft light of the hang­ing Chi­nese lanterns. The crim­son ram­bler in his but­ton-​hole, and his red silk socks, which matched it, lent an artis­tic touch of colour to the con­ven­tion­al black and white of his evening clothes.

Jane looked up from the com­fort­able depths of her wick­er chair; then smiled at his anx­ious face.

“I am ready,” she said, and ris­ing, walked be­side him. “Has it gone well?” she asked. “Is it a good au­di­ence?”

“Packed,” replied Garth, “and the duchess has en­joyed her­self. It has been fun­nier than usu­al. But now comes the event of the evening. I say, where is your score?”

“Thanks,” said Jane. “I shall play it from mem­ory. It ob­vi­ates the both­er of turn­ing over.”

They passed in­to the con­cert-​room and stood be­hind screens and a cur­tain, close to the half-​dozen steps lead­ing, from the side, up on to the plat­form.

“Oh, hark to the duchess!” whis­pered Garth. “My NIECE, JANE CHAM­PI­ON, HAS KIND­LY CON­SENT­ED TO STEP IN­TO THE BREACH–’ Which means that you will have to step up on to that plat­form in an­oth­er half-​minute. Re­al­ly it would be kinder to you if she said less about Vel­ma. But nev­er mind; they are pre­pared to like any­thing. There! AP­PEN­DICI­TIS! I told you so. Poor Madame Vel­ma! Let us hope it won’t get in­to the lo­cal pa­pers. Oh, good­ness! She is go­ing to en­large on new-​fan­gled dis­eases. Well, it gives us a mo­ment’s breath­ing space. . . . I say, Miss Cham­pi­on, I was chaffing this af­ter­noon about sharps and flats. I can play that ac­com­pa­ni­ment for you if you like. No? Well, just as you think best. But re­mem­ber, it takes a lot of voice to make much ef­fect in this con­cert-​room, and the place is crowd­ed. Now–the duchess has done. Come on. Mind the bot­tom step. Hang it all! How dark it is be­hind this cur­tain!”

Garth gave her his hand, and Jane mount­ed the steps and passed in­to view of the large au­di­ence as­sem­bled in the Over­dene con­cert-​room. Her tall fig­ure seemed taller than usu­al as she walked alone across the rather high plat­form. She wore a black evening gown of soft ma­te­ri­al, with old lace at her bo­som and one string of pearls round her neck. When she ap­peared, the au­di­ence gazed at her and ap­plaud­ed doubt­ful­ly. Vel­ma’s name on the pro­gramme had raised great ex­pec­ta­tions; and here was Miss Cham­pi­on, who cer­tain­ly played very nice­ly, but was not sup­posed to be able to sing, vol­un­teer­ing to sing Vel­ma’s song. A more kind­ly au­di­ence would have cheered her to the echo, voic­ing its gen­er­ous ap­pre­ci­ation of her ef­fort, and san­guine ex­pec­ta­tion of her suc­cess. This au­di­ence ex­pressed its as­ton­ish­ment, in the du­bi­ous­ness of its faint ap­plause.

Jane smiled at them good-​na­tured­ly; sat down at the pi­ano, a Bech­stein grand; glanced at the fes­toons of white ros­es and the cross of crim­son ram­blers; then, with­out fur­ther pre­lim­inar­ies, struck the open­ing chord and com­menced to sing.

The deep, per­fect voice thrilled through the room.

A sud­den breath­less hush fell up­on the au­di­ence.

Each syl­la­ble pen­etrat­ed the si­lence, borne on a tone so ten­der and so amaz­ing­ly sweet, that ca­su­al hearts stood still and mar­velled at their own emo­tion; and those who felt deeply al­ready, re­spond­ed with a yet deep­er thrill to the mag­ic of that mu­sic.

“The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, ev’ry one apart, My rosary,–my rosary.”

Soft­ly, thought­ful­ly, ten­der­ly, the last two words were breathed in­to the si­lence, hold­ing a world of rem­inis­cence–a large-​heart­ed wom­an’s faith­ful re­mem­brance of ten­der mo­ments in the past.

The lis­ten­ing crowd held its breath. This was not a song. This was the throb­bing of a heart; and it throbbed in tones of such sweet­ness, that tears start­ed un­bid­den.

Then the voice, which had ren­dered the open­ing lines so qui­et­ly, rose in a rapid crescen­do of quiv­er­ing pain.

“Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer, To still a heart in ab­sence wrung; I tell each bead un­to the end, and there– A cross is hung!”

The last four words were giv­en with a sud­den pow­er and pas­sion which elec­tri­fied the as­sem­bly. In the pause which fol­lowed, could be heard the ten­sion of feel­ing pro­duced. But in an­oth­er mo­ment the qui­et voice fell sooth­ing­ly, ex­press­ing a strength of en­durance which would fail in no cri­sis, nor fear to face any depths of pain; yet gath­er­ing to it­self a poignan­cy of sweet­ness, ren­dered rich­er by the dis­ci­pline of suf­fer­ing.

“O mem­ories that bless and burn! O bar­ren gain and bit­ter loss! I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn To kiss the cross . . . to kiss the cross.”

On­ly those who have heard Jane sing THE ROSARY can pos­si­bly re­alise how she sang “I KISS EACH BEAD.” The lin­ger­ing ret­ro­spec­tion in each word; breathed out a love so wom­an­ly, so beau­ti­ful, so ten­der, that her iden­ti­ty was for­got­ten–even by those in the au­di­ence who knew her best–in the mag­ic of her ren­der­ing of the song.

The ac­com­pa­ni­ment, which opens with a sin­gle chord, clos­es with a sin­gle note.

Jane struck it soft­ly, lin­ger­ing­ly; then rose, turned from the pi­ano, and was leav­ing the plat­form, when a sud­den burst of wild ap­plause broke from the au­di­ence. Jane hes­itat­ed, paused, looked at her aunt’s guests as if al­most sur­prised to find them there. Then the slow smile dawned in her eyes and passed to her lips. She stood in the cen­tre of the plat­form for a mo­ment, awk­ward­ly, al­most shy­ly; then moved on as men’s voic­es be­gan to shout “En­core! ‘core!” and left the plat­form by the side stair­case.

But there, be­hind the scenes, in the se­mi-​dark­ness of screens and cur­tains, a fresh sur­prise await­ed Jane, more startling than the en­thu­si­as­tic tu­mult of her au­di­ence.

At the foot of the stair­case stood Garth Dal­main. His face was ab­so­lute­ly colour­less, and his eyes shone out from it like burn­ing stars. He re­mained mo­tion­less un­til she stepped from the last stair and stood close to him. Then with a sud­den move­ment he caught her by the shoul­ders and turned her round.

“Go back!” he said, and the over­mas­ter­ing need quiv­er­ing in his voice drew Jane’s eyes to his in mute as­ton­ish­ment. “Go back at once and sing it all over again, note for note, word for word, just as be­fore. Ah, don’t stand here wait­ing! Go back now! Go back at once! Don’t you know that you MUST?”

Jane looked in­to those shin­ing eyes. Some­thing she saw in them ex­cused the brusque com­mand of his tone. With­out a word, she qui­et­ly mount­ed the steps and walked across the plat­form to the pi­ano. Peo­ple were still ap­plaud­ing, and re­dou­bled their demon­stra­tions of de­light as she ap­peared; but Jane took her seat at the in­stru­ment with­out giv­ing them a thought.

She was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a very cu­ri­ous and un­usu­al sen­sa­tion. Nev­er be­fore in her whole life had she obeyed a peremp­to­ry com­mand. In her child­hood’s days, Fraulein and Miss Jebb soon found out that they could on­ly ob­tain their de­sires by means of care­ful­ly word­ed re­quests, or pa­thet­ic ap­peals to her good feel­ings and sense of right. An un­rea­son­able or­der, or a rea­son­able one un­ex­plained, prompt­ly met with a point-​blank re­fusal. And this char­ac­ter­is­tic still ob­tained, though mod­ified by time; and even the duchess, as a rule, said “please” to Jane.

But now a young man with a white face and blaz­ing eyes had un­cer­emo­ni­ous­ly swung her round, or­dered her up the stairs, and com­mand­ed her to sing a song over again, note for note, word for word, and she was meek­ly go­ing to obey.

As she took her seat, Jane sud­den­ly made up her mind not to sing The Rosary again. She had many fin­er songs in her reper­toire. The au­di­ence ex­pect­ed an­oth­er. Why should she dis­ap­point those ex­pec­ta­tions be­cause of the im­pe­ri­ous de­mands of a very high­ly ex­cit­ed boy?

She com­menced the mag­nif­icent pre­lude to Han­del’s “Where’er you walk,” but, as she played it, her sense of truth and jus­tice in­ter­vened. She had not come back to sing again at the bid­ding of a high­ly ex­cit­ed boy, but of a deeply moved man; and his emo­tion was of no or­di­nary kind. That Garth Dal­main should have been so moved as to for­get even mo­men­tar­ily his punc­til­ious cour­tesy of man­ner, was the high­est pos­si­ble trib­ute to her art and to her song. While she played the Han­del theme–and played it so that a whole or­ches­tra seemed mar­shalled up­on the key-​board un­der those strong, firm fin­ger–she sud­den­ly re­alised, though scarce­ly un­der­stand­ing it, the MUST of which Garth had spo­ken, and made up her mind to yield to its ne­ces­si­ty. So; when the open­ing bars were end­ed, in­stead of singing the grand song from Semele she paused for a mo­ment; struck once more The Rosary’s; open­ing chord; and did as Garth had bid­den her to do.

“The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, ev’ry one apart, My rosary,–my rosary. “Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer, To still a heart in ab­sence wrung; I tell each bead un­to the end, and there– A cross is hung! “O mem­ories that bless and burn! O bar­ren gain and bit­ter loss! I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn To kiss the cross . . . to kiss the cross.”

When Jane left the plat­form, Garth was still stand­ing mo­tion­less at the foot of the stairs. His face was just as white as be­fore, but his eyes had lost that ter­ri­ble look of un­shed tears, which had sent her back, at his bid­ding, with­out a word of ques­tion or re­mon­strance. A won­der­ful light now shone in them; a light of ado­ra­tion, which touched Jane’s heart be­cause she had nev­er be­fore seen any­thing quite like it. She smiled as she came slow­ly down the steps, and held out both hands to him with an un­con­scious move­ment of gra­cious friend­li­ness. Garth stepped close to the bot­tom of the stair­case and took them in his, while she was still on the step above him.

For a mo­ment he did not speak. Then in a low voice, vi­brant with emo­tion: “My God!” he said, “Oh, my God!”

“Hush,” said Jane; “I nev­er like to hear that name spo­ken light­ly, Dal.”

“Spo­ken light­ly!” he ex­claimed. “No speak­ing light­ly would be pos­si­ble for me to-​night. ‘Ev­ery per­fect gift is from above.’ When words fail me to speak of the gift, can you won­der if I apos­trophise the Giv­er?”

Jane looked steadi­ly in­to his shin­ing eyes, and a smile of plea­sure il­lu­mined her own. “So you liked my song?” she said.

“Liked–liked your song?” re­peat­ed Garth, a shade of per­plex­ity cross­ing his face. “I do not know whether I liked your song.”

“Then why this flat­ter­ing demon­stra­tion?” in­quired Jane, laugh­ing.

“Be­cause,” said Garth, very low, “you lift­ed the veil, and I–I passed with­in.”

He was still hold­ing her hands in his; and, as he spoke the last two words, he turned them gen­tly over and, bend­ing, kissed each palm with an in­de­scrib­ably ten­der rev­er­ence; then, loos­ing them, stood on one side, and Jane went out on to the ter­race alone.