In our happy country every man’s house is his castle. But however stoutly he fortify it, Care enters, as surely as she did in Horace’s time, through the porticos of a Roman’s villa. Nor, whether ceilings be fretted with gold and ivory, or whether only coloured with whitewash, does it matter to Care any more than it does to a house-fly. But every tree, be it cedar or blackthorn, can harbour its singing-bird; and few are the homes in which, from nooks least suspected, there starts not a music. Is it quite true that, “non avium citharaeque cantus somnum reducent”? Would not even Damocles himself have forgotten the sword, if the lute-player had chanced on the notes that lull?
The dinner was simple enough, but well dressed and well served. One footman, in plain livery, assisted Mr. Mills. Darrell ate sparingly, and drank only water, which was placed by his side iced, with a single glass of wine at the close of the repast, which he drank on bending his head to Lionel, with a certain knightly grace, and the prefatory words of “Welcome here to a Haughton.” Mr. Fairthorn was less abstemious; tasted of every dish, after examining it long through a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, and drank leisurely through a bottle of port, holding up every glass to the light. Darrell talked with his usual cold but not uncourteous indifference. A remark of Lionel on the portraits in the room turned the conversation chiefly upon pictures, and the host showed himself thoroughly accomplished in the attributes of the various schools and masters. Lionel, who was very fond of the art, and indeed painted well for a youthful amateur, listened with great delight.
“Surely, sir,” said he, struck much with a very subtile observation upon the causes why the Italian masters admit of copyists with greater facility than the Flemish,—“surely, sir, you yourself must have practised the art of painting?”
“Not I; but I instructed myself as a judge of pictures, because at one time I was a collector.”
Fairthorn, speaking for the first time: “The rarest collection,—such Albert Durers! such Holbeins! and that head by Leonardo da Vinci!” He stopped; looked extremely frightened; helped himself to the port, turning his back upon his host, to hold, as usual, the glass to the light.
“Are they here, sir?” asked Lionel.
Darrell’s face darkened, and he made no answer; but his head sank on his breast, and he seemed suddenly absorbed in gloomy thought. Lionel felt that he had touched a wrong chord, and glanced timidly towards Fairthorn; but that gentleman cautiously held up his finger, and then rapidly put it to his lip, and as rapidly drew it away. After that signal the boy did not dare to break the silence, which now lasted uninterruptedly till Darrell rose, and with the formal and superfluous question, “Any more wine?” led the way back to the library. There he ensconced himself in an easy-chair, and saying, “Will you find a book for yourself, Lionel?” took a volume at random from the nearest shelf, and soon seemed absorbed in its contents. The room, made irregular by baywindows, and shelves that projected as in public libraries, abounded with nook and recess. To one of these Fairthorn sidled himself, and became invisible. Lionel looked round the shelves. No belles lettres of our immediate generation were found there; none of those authors most in request in circulating libraries and literary institutes. The shelves disclosed no poets, no essayists, no novelists, more recent than the Johnsonian age. Neither in the lawyer’s library were to be found any law books; no, nor the pamphlets and parliamentary volumes that should have spoken of the once eager politician. But there were superb copies of the ancient classics. French and Italian authors were not wanting, nor such of the English as have withstood the test of time. The larger portions of the shelves seemed, however, devoted to philosophical works. Here alone was novelty admitted, the newest essays on science, or the best editions of old works thereon. Lionel at length made his choice,—a volume of the “Faerie Queene.” Coffee was served; at a later hour tea. The clock struck ten. Darrell laid down his book.
“Mr. Fairthorn, the flute!”
From the recess a mutter; and presently—the musician remaining still hidden—there came forth the sweetest note,—so dulcet, so plaintive! Lionel’s ear was ravished. The music suited well with the enchanted page through which his fancy had been wandering dreamlike,—the flute with the “Faerie Queene.” As the air flowed liquid on, Lionel’s eyes filled with tears. He did not observe that Darrell was intently watching him. When the music stopped, he turned aside to wipe the tears from his eyes. Somehow or other, what with the poem, what with the flute, his thoughts had wandered far, far hence to the green banks and blue waves of the Thames,—to Sophy’s charming face, to her parting childish gift! And where was she now? Whither passing away, after so brief a holiday, into the shadows of forlorn life? Darrell’s bell-like voice smote his ear.
“Spenser; you love him! Do you write poetry?” “No, sir: I only feel it!”
“Do neither!” said the host, abruptly. Then, turning away, he lighted his candle, murmured a quick good-night, and disappeared through a side-door which led to his own rooms.
Lionel looked round for Fairthorn, who now emerged ab anqulo from his nook.
“Oh, Mr. Fairthorn, how you have enchanted me! I never believed the flute could have been capable of such effects!”
Mr. Fairthorn’s grotesque face lighted up. He took off his spectacles, as if the better to contemplate the face of his eulogist. “So you were pleased! really?” he said, chuckling a strange, grim chuckle, deep in his inmost self.
“Pleased! it is a cold word! Who would not be more than pleased?”
“You should hear me in the open air.”
“Let me do so-to-morrow.”
“My dear young sir, with all my heart. Hist!”—gazing round as if haunted,—“I like you. I wish him to like you. Answer all his questions as if you did not care how he turned you inside out. Never ask him a question, as if you sought to know what he did not himself confide. So there is some thing, you think, in a flute, after all? There are people who prefer the fiddle.”
“Then they never heard your flute, Mr. Fairthorn.” The musician again emitted his discordant chuckle, and, nodding his head nervously and cordially, shambled away without lighting a candle, and was engulfed in the shadows of some mysterious corner.
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