Far-away Stories. Locke William John

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СКАЧАТЬ You see the miracle. This – this poor rubbish is of me, Angelo Fardetti. On it I spent my life, my blood, my tears, and it is a thing of nothing, nothing. It is wind and noise; but by the miracle of God I breathed it into your spirit and it grew – and it grew into all that I dreamed – all that I dreamed and could not express. It is my Song of Life sung as I could have sung it if I had been a great genius like you. And you have taken my song from my soul, from my heart, and all the sublime harmonies that could get no farther than this dull head you have put down in immortal music."

      He went on exalted, and Sonia and Geoffrey stood pale and silent. To undeceive him was impossible.

      "You see it is a miracle?" he asked.

      "Yes," replied Geoffrey in a low voice.

      "You never saw this before. Ha! ha!" he laughed delightedly. "Not a human soul has seen it or heard it. I kept it locked up there, in my little strong-box. And it was there all the time I was teaching you. And you never suspected."

      "No, maestro, I did not," said the young man truthfully.

      "Now, when did you begin to think of it? How did it come to you – my Song of Life? Did it sing in your brain while you were here and my brain was guiding yours, and then gather form and shape all through the long years?"

      "Yes," said Geoffrey. "That was how it came about."

      Angelo took Sonia's plump cheeks between his hands and smiled. "Now you understand, my little Sonia, why I was so foolish yesterday. It was emotion, such emotion as a man has never felt before in the world. And now you know why I could not speak this morning. I thought of the letter you showed me. He confessed that old Angelo Fardetti had inspired him, but he did not know how. I know. The little spark flew from the soul of Angelo Fardetti into his soul, and it became a Divine Fire. And my Song of Life is true. The symphony was born in me – it died in me – it is re-born so gloriously in him. The seed is imperishable. It is eternal."

      He broke away, laughing through a little sob, and stood by the window, once more gazing unseeingly at the opposite villas of Formosa Terrace. Geoffrey went up to him and fell on his knees – it was a most un-English thing to do – and took the old hand very reverently.

      "Padre mio," said he.

      "Yes, it is true. I am your father," said the old man in Italian, "and we are bound together by more than human ties." He laid his hand on the young man's head. "May all the blessings of God be upon you."

      Geoffrey rose, the humblest man in England. Angelo passed his hand across his forehead, but his face bore a beautiful smile.

      "I feel so happy," said he. "So happy that it is terrible. And I feel so strange. And my heart is full. If you will forgive me, I will lie down for a little." He sank on the horse-hair sofa and smiled up in the face of the young man. "And my head is full of the andante movement that I could never write, and you have made it like the harmonies before the Throne of God. Sit down at the piano and play it for me, my son."

      So Geoffrey took his seat at the piano, and played, and as he played, he lost himself in his music. And Sonia crept near and stood by him in a dream while the wonderful story of the passing of human things was told. When the sound of the last chords had died away she put her arms round Geoffrey's neck and laid her cheek against his. For a while time stood still. Then they turned and saw the old man sleeping peacefully. She whispered a word, he rose, and they began to tiptoe out of the room. But suddenly instinct caused Sonia to turn her head again. She stopped and gripped Geoffrey's hand. She caught a choking breath.

      "Is he asleep?"

      They went back and bent over him. He was dead.

      Angelo Fardetti had died of a happiness too great for mortal man. For to which one of us in a hundred million is it given to behold the utter realisation of his life's dream?

      LADIES IN LAVENDER

I

      As soon as the sun rose out of the sea its light streamed through a white-curtained casement window into the whitest and most spotless room you can imagine. It shone upon two little white beds, separated by the width of the floor covered with straw-coloured matting; on white garments neatly folded which lay on white chairs by the side of each bed; on a white enamelled bedroom suite; on the one picture (over the mantel-piece) which adorned the white walls, the enlarged photograph of a white-whiskered, elderly gentleman in naval uniform; and on the white, placid faces of the sleepers.

      It awakened Miss Ursula Widdington, who sat up in bed, greeted it with a smile, and forthwith aroused her sister.

      "Janet, here's the sun."

      Miss Widdington awoke and smiled too.

      Now to awake at daybreak with a smile and a childlike delight at the sun when you are over forty-five is a sign of an unruffled conscience and a sweet disposition.

      "The first glimpse of it for a week," said Miss Widdington.

      "Isn't it strange," said Miss Ursula, "that when we went to sleep the storm was still raging?"

      "And now – the sea hasn't gone down yet. Listen."

      "The tide's coming in. Let us go out and look at it," cried Miss Ursula, delicately getting out of bed.

      "You're so impulsive, Ursula," said Miss Widdington.

      She was forty-eight, and three years older than her sister. She could, therefore, smile indulgently at the impetuosity of youth. But she rose and dressed, and presently the two ladies stole out of the silent house.

      They had lived there for many years, perched away on top of a projecting cliff on the Cornish coast, midway between sea and sky, like two fairy princesses in an enchanted bit of the world's end, who had grown grey with waiting for the prince who never came. Theirs was the only house on the wind-swept height. Below in the bay on the right of their small headland nestled the tiny fishing village of Trevannic; below, sheer down to the left, lay a little sandy cove, accessible farther on by a narrow gorge that split the majestic stretch of bastioned cliffs. To that little stone weatherbeaten house their father, the white-whiskered gentleman of the portrait, had brought them quite young when he had retired from the navy with a pension and a grievance – an ungrateful country had not made him an admiral – and there, after his death, they had continued to lead their remote and gentle lives, untouched by the happenings of the great world.

      The salt-laden wind buffeted them, dashed strands of hair stingingly across their faces and swirled their skirts around them as they leaned over the stout stone parapet their father had built along the edge of the cliff, and drank in the beauty of the morning. The eastern sky was clear of clouds and the eastern sea tossed a fierce silver under the sun and gradually deepened into frosted green, which changed in the west into the deep ocean blue; and the Atlantic heaved and sobbed after its turmoil of the day before. Miss Ursula pointed to the gilt-edged clouds in the west and likened them to angels' thrones, which was a pretty conceit. Miss Widdington derived a suggestion of Pentecostal flames from the golden flashes of the sea-gulls' wings. Then she referred to the appetite they would have for breakfast. To this last observation Miss Ursula did not reply, as she was leaning over the parapet intent on something in the cove below. Presently she clutched her sister's arm.

      "Janet, look down there – that black thing – what is it?"

      Miss Widdington's gaze followed the pointing finger.

      At the foot of the rocks that edged the gorge sprawled a thing checkered black and white.

      "I СКАЧАТЬ