III
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
It was a real relief to get into the library. Tom felt it, and his face soon resumed its normal expression. The heavy shadows beneath his eyes remained, but there had come a flush into his cheeks, and he carried himself with the air of a man who has a purpose in life and is in a fair way to accomplish it. I remember that the idea came into my mind that Tom had assumed the attitude of a lawyer who has been retained by the prosecution and has but little time in which to prepare his case. I had grown tactless, I fear, in my change of mood, for I was indiscreet enough to say, as Tom seated himself beside the library table, leaving it to me to find the books that he wished to consult: "In the case of Winifred Remsen and others, against the late Frederic Francois Chopin, charged with housebreaking and breach of the peace."
Tom turned instantly and a gleam of anger flashed in his eyes as they met mine. "If you cannot treat this matter with the seriousness that I think it deserves, Winifred, you would do well to retire. It's no joke. When I make a donkey of myself before a lot of perfectly respectable people, I consider it a matter of some importance. You don't seem to grasp the full horror of it all. I suppose that I'm liable to have another attack at any time. In fact, it may become chronic. I have of late come across very curious psychical phenomena in a professional way, Winifred, and I insist on taking every precaution before you are forced to place me in the hands of the alienists."
"Tom!" I cried, in horror and remorse. "You mustn't talk like that. There's nothing the matter with your mind. I'll admit that I can't explain what happened to-night, but I'm sure that it was not caused by any mental trouble on your part. There is doubtless some very simple and commonplace explanation of your—your"
"Call it seizure," suggested Tom, curtly. "What do you find there?" I carried a little armful of books to the table and placed them within Tom's reach.
"Here's a 'Life of Chopin,' by Niecks," I said. "‘Frederic Chopin,' by Franz Liszt. Here's Joseph Bennett and Karasowski and the 'Histoire de ma Vie,' by George Sand. And here are Willeby and Mme. Audley. And I think I have"
"That'll do for to-night," remarked Tom, seizing the volume nearest to his hand. "What kind of a chap was this Chopin, anyway?"
"He was simply fascinating," I remarked, indiscreetly.
"H'm!" growled Tom, angrily. "Not very respectable, I suppose you mean. George Sand! She was a woman, wasn't she? How did she happen to write his life? What did she know about him?"
I have called Tom a Philistine. Perhaps that was too harsh a term to use, but I'm sure there is a good deal of the Puritan about him.
"She used to see a good deal of him," I answered, rather lamely. "They were great chums for awhile."
"H'm," growled Tom, throwing aside George Sand's work and opening another. Presently he began to read biographical scraps aloud, for all the world like an angry police official drawing up a sweeping indictment against a man of genius.
"‘The little Frederic duly received the name of Frederic François, after the son of Count Skarbek, who stood as his godfather,’" began Tom. "‘We are told that he very soon showed a great susceptibility to musical sounds, although hardly in the direction which we should have expected, for he howled lustily whenever he heard them.’"
Tom looked up from the printed page, and our eyes met.
"That's a curious coincidence, Winifred," he remarked, musingly. "It's a family tradition that I used to yell like a young Indian whenever they tried to sing to me in my babyhood. A rattle-box would quiet me, but the sweetest lullaby always made me howl. But I must get on. Chopin began well, didn't he?"
There was silence for a time as Tom feverishly scanned the pages of his book.
"The dickens! Listen to this!" he exclaimed presently. "‘During his ninth year he was invited to assist at a concert for the benefit of the poor. He played a pianoforte concerto, the composition of Adalbert Gyrowetz, a famous composer of the time.’"
Tom placed the book on the table and held the pages open with his hand as he glanced at me over his shoulder. "If he played that kind of thing at nine years of age, Winifred, there was something uncanny about it. It was just as unnatural as what happened to me to-night. I'm beginning to formulate a theory about this kind of thing, my dear." Tom placed the open book face downward and turned squarely toward me. "Music, you see, may be, like electricity, imprisoned, as it were, in a universe of both conductors and nonconductors. It may be that a temperament, like mine for instance, that is permanently a non-conductor might, under given conditions, become temporarily a conductor. Chopin played like a master at nine years of age. He had become a conductor, and remained so permanently. When he howled at music as a baby he was still a non-conductor—just as I had been up to to-night—or rather last night. Possibly the conditions that made me a kind of spasmodic music-box, with the Chopin peg pulled out, may never occur again. What do you think, Winifred? Doesn't all that sound reasonable?"
Before I could formulate a sensible answer to a not very sensible proposition Tom had resumed the perusal of his book. He appeared to me like a man fascinated against his will by a line of investigation that he had begun as a disagreeable duty. But I was glad to see that he had regained full control of himself and that his countenance no longer displayed traces of intense mental disquietude.
"He was a pretty lively boy," remarked Tom, a few moments later. "Listen, Winifred! 'At school Frederic was a prime favorite, and was always in the midst of any fun or mischief that was going on. His talent for mimicry was always extraordinary, and has been commented on not only by George Sand and Liszt but by Balzac.’"
Tom gazed at me musingly. "Do you consider that significant, my dear?" he asked, with a seriousness that struck me as both ludicrous and pathetic. I was getting worried by Tom's persistence in this futile line of endeavor.
"It's nearly three o'clock, Tom Remsen," I cried, standing erect. "Come up-stairs at once. It won't be fair to your clients for you to get to your office fagged out for lack of sleep."
"Sit down, Winifred," he said, peremptorily. "It's little use I'll be to my clients until I find out what happened to me in the music-room. Suppose that I should have an attack of—what shall I call it?— Chopinitis—in the court-room? Suppose I should suddenly begin to sing—or perhaps whistle a—what-d'you-call-'em?—pianoforte concerto?—what would the judge say? I'd be disbarred, Winifred, for indecent exposure of musical genius. No; I'm going to find out more about this strange affair—here and now."
I was forced to reseat myself, protesting silently against Tom's absurd stubbornness. I endeavored in vain to shake off a feeling of uneasiness that was creeping over me, a sensation that was closely akin to fear of the phlegmatic man who sat before me motionless and calm, pursuing a course of study that had been inspired by a most untenable supposition. What had Chopin to do with the matter? What difference could it make to Tom whether the latter had been one kind of man or another? It was ridiculous to assert that in Chopin's personality might be found an explanation of the curious incident that had made my musical so memorable. My prejudice against Spiritualists, Christian Scientists, Theosophists and other eccentrics had been, I had believed, shared by my husband. But there he sat at three o'clock in the morning trying to find among the biographical data before him some explanation of his recent "seizure," that must, of necessity, lean toward the occult. That a well-balanced, rather materialistic lawyer, whose mental methods were habitually logical, should suddenly begin to dabble in psychical mysteries in this way frightened me the more the longer I weighed Tom's words and actions in all their bearings. Nevertheless, I was forced to admit to myself that he had never looked saner in his life than he did at that moment, as he turned from his book again and gazed straight into my tired eyes.
"He was a very flirtatious chap, Winifred, and very fickle. Listen to this: 'Although of a peculiarly impressionable and susceptible disposition, and, as a not unnatural consequence, more or less fickle where women were concerned, Chopin's love affairs did, on more than one occasion, assume a serious aspect. He had conceived a fancy for the granddaughter of a celebrated master, and although contemplating matrimony with her, he had at the same time in his mind's eye another lady resident in Poland, his loyalty being engaged nowhere and his fickle heart concentrated on no one passion. One day, when visiting the former young lady in company with a musician who was at the time better known in Paris than he himself, she unconsciously offered a chair to his companion first. So piqued was he at what he considered a slight that he not only never called on her again, but dismissed her entirely from his thoughts.' Do you begin to see, Winifred, what a queer fellow he was? Really, I'm inclined to think"
I was standing erect, gazing at him angrily.
"If you are joking, Tom," I exclaimed, having lost all patience, "I think you are displaying most wretched taste. If you are really in earnest I am very sorry for you. I'm going to bed. I hope I'll find you fully recovered at breakfast."
He did not seem to be at all impressed by my exhibition of temper.
"Wait just a moment, Winifred," he suggested, his eyes fixed on his book. "Here it is about George Sand—their first meeting, you know. Wait! I'll read it to you."
"I shall not wait, Tom Remsen," I cried. "Chopin's love affairs are nothing to me—and they should be nothing to you. Good-night. This is my last word. Good-night."
As I reached the door I glanced over my shoulder. Tom seemed to have forgotten my existence. He had plunged again into the dust-heap of an old scandal that seemed to fascinate him—Tom Remsen, who had hitherto always deprecated and avoided that kind of research.