Walter Besant - The Changeling

Hilarie watched her two guests. The taller, Humphrey, had the manners of society; he seemed to be what the world, justly jealous, allows to be a gentleman. Yet he had a certain coldness of manner, and he accepted the beauty of this ancient place without surprise or enthusiasm.

"What are you by profession, Cousin Humphrey?" she asked.

"Nothing, as yet; I have been travelling since I left Cambridge." He laid his card before her – "Sir Humphrey Woodroffe."

"You have the title from your father. I hope you will create new distinctions for yourself."

"I suppose," he said coldly, "that I shall go into the House. My people seem to want it. There are too many cads in the House, but it seems that we cannot get through the world without encountering cads." He looked through his hostess, so to speak, and upon the third cousin, perhaps accidentally.

"You certainly cannot," observed the third. "For instance, I am sitting with you at luncheon."

"You will play something presently, Dick, won't you?"

Molly, sitting on the other side of the table, saw a quick flush upon her friend's cheek, and hastened to avert further danger. One may be a cad, but some cads are sensitive to an openly avowed contempt for cads.

Dick laughed. "All right, Molly. What shall I play? Something serious, befitting the place? Luncheon is over – I will play now, if you like." He looked down the hall. "That, I suppose, is the musicians' loft?"

"That is the musicians' gallery. It is a late addition – Elizabethan, I believe."

"The musicians' gallery? Well, Miss Woodroffe, I am the music. Let me play you something in return for the fine ancestors you have given me, and for your gracious hospitality."

He took up his violin-case, to which he had clung with fidelity, marched down the hall, climbed up into the gallery, and began to tune his fiddle.

"Hilarie," Molly said, "Dick plays in the most lovely way possible. He carries you quite out of yourself. That is why everybody loves him so."

However, the artist, standing up alone in the gallery, struck a chord, and began to play.

I suppose that the magic belonged to the fiddle itself. It is astonishing what magical powers a fiddle may possess. This was the most sympathetic instrument possible. It was a thought leader or inspirer. The moment it began, all the listeners, including the servants below the salt, sat upright, their eyes fixed upon the gallery, rapt out of themselves.

Hilarie, for her part, saw in a vision, but with a clearness and distinctness most marvellous, her ancestor Robert with Hilarie his wife. They were both well-stricken in years; they were standing in the porch with their eldest son, his wife and children, to receive their visitors. And first, across the drawbridge, rode the great Lord Archbishop and Lord Chancellor, followed by his retinue. When the Archbishop dismounted, the old man and his wife, and the son, and his wife, and his children went on their knees; but the Archbishop bade them rise, and kissed his parents lovingly. Meantime, the pages and the varlets were unloading pack-horses and pack-mules, because the Archbishop would not lay upon his father so great a charge as the entertainment of his following. And she saw next how the Lord Mayor and the Sheriff, his brother, rode up side by side, the Sheriff a little behind the Mayor, and how they dismounted and knelt for their father's blessing; and so all into the hall together, to take counsel for the great things they were minded to do for their native village.

Hilarie turned to her cousin on the right. "Cousin," she said, still in her dream, "we must think of our forefathers, and of what they did. We must ask what the Archbishop would have done in our place."

But her cousin made no reply. He was looking with a kind of wonder at Molly. Had the man never seen an attractive girl before? He had; but out of a thousand attractive girls a man may be attracted by one only.

And the music went on. What was it that the musician played? Indeed, I know not; things that awakened the imagination and touched the heart.

"No one knows," said Molly, "what he plays; only he makes one lost to everything."

As for herself, she had a delicious dream of going on the tramp with Dick, he and she alone – he to play, and she – But when she was about to tell this dream, she would not confess her part in the tramp.

The music was over; the fiddle was replaced in its case; the musician was going away.

In the porch stood Hilarie. "Cousin," she said, "do you go on tramp for pleasure or for necessity?"

"For both. I must needs go on tramp from time to time. There is a restlessness in me. I suppose it is in the blood. Perhaps there was a gipsy once among my ancestors."

"But do you really – live – by playing to people?"

"He needn't," said Molly; "but he must. He leaves his money at home, and carries his fiddle. Oh, heavenly!"

"Why not? I fiddle on village greens and in rustic inns. I camp among the gipsies; I walk with the tramps and casuals. There is no more pleasant life, believe me!"

He began to sing in a light, musical tenor —

"You are a strange man," said Hilarie. "Come and see me again."

"I am a vagabond," he replied, "and my name is Autolycus."

Dick took off his hat and bowed low, not in Piccadilly style at all; he waved his hand to Molly; he glared defiance at Humphrey, who loftily bent his head; and then, catching up his violin-case, he started off with a step light and elastic.

Humphrey, the other cousin, half an hour later, stood beside his carriage.

"I must congratulate myself," he said, "on the good fortune which has presented me to the head of my family."

"To two cousins, say."

"Oh! I fancy we shall not see much of Autolycus. Meanwhile, since you kindly grant me permission, I hope to call upon you again."

"I shall be very pleased."

As he drove away, his last look was not on Hilarie, but on the girl beside her – the girl called Molly – the nymph attendant. Some, the goddess charms; but more, the nymph attendant.

"What was she doing with all those girls?" he asked. "Making a home for them, or some such beastly nonsense, I suppose."

The doctor's servant opened the door noiselessly, almost stealthily, and looked round the room.

There were half a dozen people waiting. One was an ex-colonial governor, who had been maintaining the empire with efficiency in many parts of the world for thirty years, and was now anxious to keep himself alive for a few years in the seclusion of a seaside town, if certain symptoms could be kept down. There was a middle-aged victim to gout; there was an elderly sufferer from rheumatism; there was an anæmic girl; there was a young fellow who looked the picture of health; and, sitting at one of the windows, there was a lady, richly dressed, her pale face, with delicate features of the kind which do not grow old, looking anxious and expectant.

They were all anxious and expectant: they feared the worst, and hoped the best. One looked out of window, seeing nothing; one gazed into the fireplace, not knowing whether there was a fire in it; one turned over the pages of a society journal, reading nothing; all were thinking of their symptoms. For those who wait for the physician, there is nothing in the whole world to consider except symptoms. They have got to set forth their symptoms to the physician. They have to tell the truth, that is quite clear. Still, the plain truth can be dressed up a little; it can be presented with palliatives. A long course of strong drinks may figure as a short course of weak whisky-and-soda. Perhaps the danger, after all, is not so grave. Patients waiting for the doctor are like persons waiting to be tried for life. Can a man take any interest in anything who awaits his trial for life – who hopes for an acquittal, but fears a capital sentence?