Sandra Belloni | Page 7

hesitating before the gentlemen, and when Wilfrid raised his hat, she
was put to some confusion, and bowed rather awkwardly, and retired.
"Good night, miss!" called Mr. Pericles.
"Good night, sir!" she answered from a little distance, and they could
see that she was there emboldened to drop a proper curtsey in
accompaniment.
Then the ladies stood together and talked of her, not with absolute
enthusiasm. For, "Was it not divine?" said Adela; and Cornelia asked
her if she meant the last piece; and, "Oh, gracious! not that!" Adela
exclaimed. And then it was discovered how their common observation
had fastened on the boot-lace; and this vagrant article became the key
to certain speculations on her condition and character.
"I wish I'd had a dozen bouquets, that's all!" cried Wilfrid, "she
deserved them."
"Has she sentiment for what she sings? or is it only faculty?" Cornelia
put it to Mr. Sumner.
That gentleman faintly defended the stranger for the intrusion of the
bumpkin tune. "She did it so well!" he said.
"I complain that she did it too well," uttered Cornelia, whose use of

emphasis customarily implied that the argument remained with her.
Talking in this manner, and leisurely marching homeward, they were
startled to hear Mr. Pericles, who had wrapped himself impenetrably in
the bear, burst from his cogitation suddenly to cry out, in his harshest
foreign accent: "Yeaz!" And thereupon he threw open the folds, and
laid out a forefinger, and delivered himself: "I am made my mind! I
send her abroad to ze Academie for one, two, tree year. She shall be
instructed as was not before. Zen a noise at La Scala. No--Paris!
No--London! She shall astonish London fairst.--Yez! if I take a theatre!
Yez! if I buy a newspaper! Yez! if I pay feefty-sossand pound!"
His singular outlandish vehemence, and the sweeping grandeur of a
determination that lightly assumed the corruptibility of our Press, sent a
smile circling among the ladies and gentlemen. The youth who had
wished to throw the fair unknown a dozen bouquets, caught himself
frowning at this brilliant prospect for her, which was to give him his
opportunity.
CHAPTER III
The next morning there were many "tra-las" and "tum-te-turns" over
the family breakfast-table; a constant humming and crying, "I have it";
and after two or three bars, baffled pauses and confusion of mind. Mr.
Pericles was almost abusive at the impotent efforts of the sisters to
revive in his memory that particular delicious melody, the composition
of the fair singer herself. At last he grew so impatient as to arrest their
opening notes, and even to interrupt their unmusical consultations, with
"No: it is no use; it is no use: no, no, I say!" But instantly he would
plunge his forehead into the palm of his hand, and rub it red, and work
his eyebrows frightfully, until tender humanity led the sisters to resume.
Adela's, "I'm sure it began low down--tum!" Cornelia's: "The key-note,
I am positive, was B flat--ta!" and Arabella's putting of these two
assertions together, and promise to combine them at the piano when
breakfast was at an end, though it was Sunday morning, were
exasperating to the exquisite lover of music. Mr. Pericles was really
suffering torments. Do you know what it is to pursue the sylph, and

touch her flying skirts, think you have caught her, and are sure of
her--that she is yours, the rapturous evanescent darling! when some
well-meaning earthly wretch interposes and trips you, and off she flies
and leaves you floundering? A lovely melody nearly grasped and lost
in this fashion, tries the temper. Apollo chasing Daphne could have
been barely polite to the wood-nymphs in his path, and Mr. Pericles
was rude to the daughters of his host. Smoothing his clean square chin
and thick moustache hastily, with outspread thumb and fingers, he
implored them to spare his nerves. Smiling rigidly, he trusted they
would be merciful to a sensitive ear. Mr. Pole--who, as an Englishman,
could not understand anyone being so serious in the pursuit of a
tune--laughed, and asked questions, and almost drove Mr. Pericles mad.
On a sudden the Greek's sallow visage lightened. "It is to you! it is to
you!" he cried, stretching his finger at Wilfrid. The young officer,
having apparently waited till he had finished with his knife and fork,
was leaning his cheek on his fist, looking at nobody, and quietly
humming a part of the air. Mr. Pericles complimented and thanked him.
"But you have ear for music extraordinaire!" he said.
Adela patted her brother fondly, remarking--"Yes, when his feelings
are concerned."
"Will you repeat zat?" asked the Greek. "'To-to-ri:' hein? I lose it.
'To-to-ru:' bah! I lose it; 'To-ri:--to--ru--ri ro:' it is no use: I lose it."
Neither his persuasions, nor his sneer, "Because