VII
A PRELIMINARY CANTER
Do you really intend to go, Tom? But suppose, dear, you don't feel like playing; what will happen then? Do be sensible, old fellow, and stay home with me. You always shunned notoriety—and now you go in search of it. What is the matter with you, Tom? You haven't been at all frank with me since—since"
"Since when, my dear?" asked my husband, smiling at me kindly over his demi-tasse.
"Since you played that duet with Signorina Molatti in the music-room," I answered, ashamed of the feeling of jealousy that I had nourished for several days. As I gazed at Tom's honest face the absurdity of the accusation that I had brought against him in this indirect way forced itself upon me. My husband at that moment struck me as the least flirtatious-looking man I had ever seen. But facts are stubborn things. I had good reason to believe that Tom had accompanied a famous violiniste, not only in our music-room but in the signorina's own drawing-room. It is astonishing how quickly a suspicious wife develops into a female Sherlock Holmes!
"I plead guilty to the indictment," said Tom presently, lighting a cigar. "Suppose we go into the library, Winifred. We can have a quiet half-hour at least before we start."
I derived both pleasure and pain from this suggestion. It was satisfactory to find Tom more inclined to be companionable than he had been for nearly a week. On the other hand, I was disappointed at discovering that his determination to attend the meeting of the Chopin Society remained unshaken. That any further protest from me would be futile I fully realized, and it was with a feeling of apprehension and disquietude that I seated myself in the library and watched Tom as he dreamily blew smoke into the air, seemingly forgetful of my presence. After a time he began to speak, more like a poet soliloquizing than an unimaginative lawyer addressing his wife.
"It was a strangely vivid vision. I have had dreams that were like reality, but none that approached this one in intensity. I passed first through a doorway that led into old, picturesque, crumbling cloisters, forming a quadrangle. Stretching away from these cloisters ran long corridors with vaulted roofs. Down one of the corridors I hurried toward a light that seemed to come through a rose window, intensifying the grim darkness surrounding me. It was bitterly cold; the chill of death seemed to clutch at my heart. And always I heard the sound of mournful voices through the resounding galleries."
"Tom!" I cried, shocked by the queer gleam in his eyes.
But he went on as if he had not heard me. "There were other noises, some harsh, others majestically musical. There came to me the mighty roaring of a storm-swept sea beating against a rocky shore. The winds sobbed and thundered and whistled and fell away. Then I could hear the plaintive notes of sea-birds outside the stone walls of the monastery. But always it was the chill dampness that appalled me. I was forever hurrying toward the rose window, where warmth and love and joy awaited me; but always it fled before me, and the long black corridor lay between me and my goal. It was horrible."
"What had you been doing, Tom?" I asked, in a desperate effort to recall him to his present environment. "Had you been eating a Welsh rarebit at the club?"
He gazed at me defiantly. "No," he said, gloomily, "I had been playing Chopin with Signorina Molatti."
By an effort of will I restrained the words that rushed to my lips, and asked, quietly: "And which of his works had you been playing?"
"I don't know," he answered, wearily. "I think the signorina said our last rendition was No. 1 of Opus 40, whatever that may mean."
Tom glanced at me sheepishly, for all the world like a mischievous schoolboy who has been forced to make a confession. My mind was hard at work trying to recall the details of my recent researches into the life of Chopin. To refresh my memory I opened a book that lay among other Lives of "the master" on the library table.
"‘No. I of Opus 40,’" I presently found myself reading aloud, "‘is in A major, and is throughout an intensely martial composition. There is a spirit of victory and conquest about it. The most remarkable circumstance attached to it seems to lie in the fact that it is supposed to have been written during Chopin's sojourn at the Carthusian monastery on the Island of Mallorca with George Sand.’"
Bitterly did I regret my indiscreet quotation. Tom had turned white, and there had come into his eyes an appealing, despairing expression that reminded me of a deer I had once seen brought to bay in the Adirondack forest.
"Mrs. Van Corlear," announced the butler at the door of the library, and Mrs. Jack, who had the run of the house, came toward us gaily.
"And how is our boy wonder this evening?" she cried, laughingly. "I'm backing Tom Remsen for the great Chopin handicap to-night. Are you quite fit, Tom? Do I get a run for my money?"
How easy it is for our most intimate friends to take our troubles lightly! Although I realized that underlying Mrs. Jack's levity was a kindly motive—a desire to carry off an awkward situation with the least possible friction—I could not help feeling annoyed at her flippant words. Grateful as I was to her for her loyal interest in my peculiar affliction, it was unpleasant to feel that Mrs. Jack was treating as a light comedy what seemed to me to involve all the elements of a tragedy. There was nothing farcical, surely, in Tom's appearance as he stood there, pale, silent, smiling perfunctorily at our guest, every inch a modern gentleman, but strangely like the protagonist of some classic drama, the rebellious but impotent plaything of vindictive gods.
"Come, let us go," I cried, nervously, anxious to put an end to a most uncomfortable situation. "Do you really feel up to it, Tom? There is still time to back out of it, you know. A solo before a crowd is much more trying than a duet in private."
I had not intended to hurt Tom's feelings, but my words had displayed a plentiful lack of tact. And the worst of it was that Mrs. Jack seemed to be in a diabolical mood, for she at once jumped at the chance to make mischief.
"I have heard of your fondness for duets, Tom," she remarked, and I was reminded of the soft purring of a cat preparing to pounce on a helpless mouse. "What a delight it must be to Signorina Molatti to find an interpreter of Chopin worthy of her fiddle! You find her a very interesting personality, do you not?"
Tom stopped short—we were slowly making our exit from the library—and gazed at Mrs. Jack with a puzzled expression in his eyes.
"Signorina Molatti?" he queried, musingly. "What do I think of her? I really don't know. I never considered the question before. She's merely a part of the music—not an individual, don't you see?" Suddenly his face changed, and he put his hand to his brow as if a sharp pain had tormented him. "Wait a moment! Don't go!" he implored us, in a labored, unnatural voice. "What does it all mean? Tell me! What am I doing? I can't play Chopin! I can't play anything! Have I been hypnotized? I tell you, Winifred—Mrs. Jack—it's all a mistake, a mystery, an uncanny, hideous bedevilment. It's demoniac possession—or something of that kind. And what'll the Chopin Society think if I make a horrible flunk? At this moment I don't feel as if I could play a note. Come into the music-room!" he ended, a touch of wildness in his voice and manner.
Mrs. Jack and I followed him silently. There was in Tom's way of hurrying across the drawing-room a mingling of eagerness and dread that was wholly uncharacteristic of the man. As he hastened feverishly toward the piano, a hectic flush on his cheeks and his eyes aglow, he reminded me of a youth I had seen at Monte Carlo staking his whole fortune on a turn of the roulette wheel.
For a time Tom sat at the instrument, his head bowed low and his hands hanging listlessly at his side. Mrs. Jack's arm was round my waist, and I could hear her deep, hurried breathing and feel the nervous tremor of her slender, well-knit form. It was indeed a most trying crisis that could disturb the poise of the athletic woman beside me.
"He doesn't connect," she whispered to me, presently. "I wish Dr. Woodruff were here."
But Mrs. Jack had spoken prematurely. Suddenly Tom's hands were raised and he struck the opening chords of Chopin's Scherzo in B minor, Opus 20. The fury of the following measures he rendered with stunning effect. Then the vigor of the rushing quaver figure lessened gradually, and at the repeat Tom sprang erect and turned toward us, an expression of weird ecstasy on his face.
"It's all right, girls!" he cried, with a boyish lack of dignity. "Come on! We're late, as it is. I'll show those Chopin people something they'll never forget! Come on!"
"He's fit!" whispered Mrs. Jack to me. "It wasn't much of a preliminary canter—but he's in the running fast enough!"