A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>		S	>>		T
U	>>		V			>>		W

Andrew Lang - "Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems"

Lucy M. Blanchard - "Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon"

Georg Ebers - "A Thorny Path, Volume 2."

Susanna Moodie - "George Leatrim"

Sandra Belloni, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Sandra Belloni, Complete




The stately Cornelia fell back a step.

The moon was now a silver ball on the edge of the circle of grey blue
above the ring of firs, and by the light falling on the strange little
person, as she stood out of the shadow to muffle up her harp, it could be
seen that she was simply clad, and that her bonnet was not of the newest
fashion. The sisters remarked a boot-lace hanging loose. The peculiar
black lustre of her hair, and thickness of her long black eyebrows,
struck them likewise. Her harp being now comfortably mantled, Cornet
Wilfrid Pole, who had been watching her and balancing repeatedly on his
forward foot, made a stride, and "really could not allow her to carry it
herself," and begged her permission that he might assist her. "It's very
heavy, you know," he added.

"Too heavy for me," she said, favouring him with a thankful smile. "I
have some one who does that. Where is Jim?"

She called for Jim, and from the back of the sandy hillock, where he had
been reclining, a broad-shouldered rustic came lurching round to them.

"Now, take my harp, if you please, and be as careful as possible of
branches, and don't stumble." She uttered this as if she were giving Jim
his evening lesson: and then with a sudden cry she laughed out: "Oh! but
I haven't played you your tune, and you must have your tune!"

Forthwith she stript the harp half bare, and throwing a propitiatory
bright glance at her audience on the other side of her, she commenced
thrumming a kind of Giles Scroggins, native British, beer-begotten air,
while Jim smeared his mouth and grinned, as one who sees his love dragged
into public view, and is not the man to be ashamed of her, though he
hopes you will hardly put him to the trial.

"This is his favourite tune, that he taught me," she emphasized to the
company. "I play to him every night, for a finish; and then he takes care
not to knock my poor harp to pieces and tumble about."

The gentlemen were amused by the Giles Scroggins air, which she had
delivered with a sufficient sense of its lumping fun and leg-for-leg
jollity, and they laughed and applauded; but the ladies were silent after
the performance, until the moment came to thank her for the entertainment
she had afforded them: and then they broke into gentle smiles, and
trusted they might have the pleasure of hearing her another night.

"Oh! just as often and as much as you like," she said, and first held her
hand to Arabella, next to Cornelia, and then to Adela. She seemed to be
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 it is Sunday, perhaps!"
would induce Wilfrid to be guilty of another attempt. The ladies tried
sisterly cajoleries on him fruitlessly, until Mr. Pole, seeing the
desperation of his guest, said: "Why not have her up here, toon and all,
some week-day? Sunday birds won't suit us, you know. We've got a piano
for her that's good enough for the first of 'em, if money means
anything."

The ladies murmured meekly: "Yes, papa."

"I shall find her for you while you go to your charch," said Mr.
Pericles. And here Wilfrid was seized with a yawn, and rose, and asked
his eldest sister if she meant to attend the service that morning.

"Undoubtedly," she answered; and Mr. Pole took it up: "That's our
discipline, my boy. Must set an example: do our duty. All the house goes
to worship in the country."

"Why, in ze country?" queried Mr. Pericles.

"Because"--Cornelia came to the rescue of her sire; but her impetuosity
was either unsupported by a reason, or she stooped to fit one to the
comprehension of the interrogator: "Oh, because--do you know, we have
very select music at our church?"

"We have a highly-paid organist," added Arabella.

"Recently elected," said Adela.

"Ah! mon Dieu!" Mr. Pericles ejaculated. "Some music sound well at
afar--mellow, you say. I prefer your charch music mellow."

"Won't you come?" cried Wilfrid, with wonderful briskness.

"No. Mellow for me!"

The Greek's grinders flashed, and Wilfrid turned off from him sulkily. He
saw in fancy the robber-Greek prowling about Wilson's farm, setting
snares for the marvellous night-bird, and it was with more than his
customary inattention to his sisters' refined conversation that he formed
part of their male escort to the place of worship.

Mr. Pericles met the church-goers on their return in one of the green
bowery lanes leading up to Brookfield. Cold as he was to English scenes
and sentiments, his alien ideas were not unimpressed by the picture of
those daintily-clad young women demurely stepping homeward, while the air
held a revel of skylarks, and the scented hedgeways quickened with
sunshine.

"You have missed a treat!" Arabella greeted him.

"A sermon?" said he.

The ladies would not tell him, until his complacent cynicism at the
notion of his having missed a sermon, spurred them to reveal that the
organ had been handled in a masterly manner; and that the voluntary
played at the close of the service was most exquisite.

"Even papa was in raptures."

"Very good indeed," said Mr. Pole. "I'm no judge; but you might listen to
that sort of playing after dinner."

Mr. Pericles seemed to think that was scarcely a critical period, but he
merely grimaced, and inquired: "Did you see ze player?"

"Oh, no: they are hidden," Arabella explained to him, "behind a curtain."

"But, what!" shouted the impetuous Greek: "have you no curiosity? A
woman! And zen, you saw not her?"

"No," remarked Cornelia, in the same aggravating sing-song voice of utter
indifference: "we don't know whether it was not a man. Our usual organist
is a man, I believe."

The eyes of the Greek whitened savagely, and he relapsed into frigid
politeness.

Wilfrid was not present to point their apprehensions. He had loitered
behind; but when he joined them in the house subsequently, he was
cheerful, and had a look of triumph about him which made his sisters say,
"So, you have been with the Copleys:" and he allowed them to suppose it,
if they pleased; the Copleys being young ladies of position in the
neighbourhood, of much higher standing than the Tinleys, who, though very
wealthy, could not have given their brother such an air, the sisters
imagined.

At lunch, Wilfrid remarked carelessly: "By the way, I met that little
girl we saw last night."

"The singer! where?" asked his sisters, with one voice.

"Coming out of church."

"She goes to church, then!"

This exclamation showed the heathen they took her to be.

"Why, she played the organ," said Wilfrid.

"And how does she look by day? How does she dress?"

"Oh! very jolly little woman! Dresses quiet enough."

"She played the organ! It was she, then! An organist! Is there anything
approaching to gentility in her appearance?"

"I--really I'm no judge," said Wilfrid. "You had better ask Laura Tinley.
She was talking to her when I went up."

The sisters exchanged looks. Presently they stood together in
consultation. Then they spoke with their aunt, Mrs. Lupin, and went to
their papa. The rapacity of those Tinleys for anything extraordinary was
known to them, but they would not have conceived that their own
discovery, their own treasure, could have been caught up so quickly. If
the Tinleys got possession of her, the defection of Mr. Pericles might be
counted on, and the display of a phenomenon would be lost to them. They
decided to go down to Wilson's farm that very day, and forestall their
rivals by having her up to Brookfield. The idea of doing this had been in
a corner of their minds all the morning: it seemed now the most sensible
plan in the world. It was patronage, in its right sense. And they might
be of great service to her, by giving a proper elevation and tone to her
genius; while she might amuse them, and their guests, and be let off, in
fact, as a firework for the nonce. Among the queenly cases of women who
are designing to become the heads of a circle (if I may use the term), an
accurate admeasurement of reciprocal advantages can scarcely be expected
to rank; but the knowledge that an act, depending upon us for execution,
is capable of benefiting both sides, will make the proceeding appear so
unselfish, that its wisdom is overlooked as well as its motives. The
sisters felt they were the patronesses of the little obscure genius whom
they longed for to illumine their household, before they knew her name.
Cornet Wilfrid Pole must have chuckled mightily to see them depart on
their mission. These ladies, who managed everybody, had themselves been
very cleverly managed. It is doubtful whether the scheme to surprise and
delight Mr. Pericles would have actuated the step they took, but for the
dread of seeing the rapacious Tinleys snatch up their lawful prey. The
Tinleys were known to be quite capable of doing so. They had, on a
particular occasion, made transparent overtures to a celebrity belonging
to the Poles, whom they had first met at Brookfield: could never have
hoped to have seen had they not met him at Brookfield; and girls who
behaved in this way would do anything. The resolution was taken to steal
a march on them; nor did it seem at all odd to people naturally so
hospitable as the denizens of Brookfield, that the stranger of yesterday
should be the guest of to-day. Kindness of heart, combined with a great
scheme in the brain, easily put aside conventional rules.

"But we don't know her name," they said, when they had taken the advice
of the gentlemen on what they had already decided to do: all excepting
Mr. Pericles, for whom the surprise was in store.

"Belloni--Miss Belloni," said Wilfrid.

"Are you sure? How do you know--?"

"She told Laura Tinley."

Within five minutes of the receipt of this intelligence the ladies were
on their way to Wilson's farm.




CHAPTER IV

The circle which the ladies of Brookfield were designing to establish
just now, was of this receipt:--Celebrities, London residents, and County
notables, all in their severally due proportions, were to meet, mix, and
revolve: the Celebrities to shine; the Metropolitans to act as
satellites; the County ignoramuses to feel flattered in knowing that all
stood forth for their amusement: they being the butts of the quick-witted
Metropolitans, whom they despised, while the sons of renown were
encouraged to be conscious of their magnanimous superiority over both
sets, for whose entertainment they were ticketed.

This is a pudding indeed! And the contemplation of the skill and energy
required to get together and compound such a Brookfield Pudding,
well-nigh leads one to think the work that is done out of doors a very
inferior business, and, as it were, mere gathering of fuel for the fire
inside. It was known in the neighbourhood that the ladies were preparing
one; and moreover that they had a new kind of plum; in other words, that
they intended to exhibit a prodigy of genius, who would flow upon the
world from Brookfield. To announce her with the invitations, rejecting
the idea of a surprise in the assembly, had been necessary, because there
was no other way of securing Lady Gosstre, who led the society of the
district. The great lady gave her promise to attend: "though," as she
said to Arabella, "you must know I abominate musical parties, and think
them the most absurd of entertainments possible; but if you have anything
to show, that's another matter."

Two or three chosen friends were invited down beforehand to inspect the
strange girl, and say what they thought of her; for the ladies themselves
were perplexed. They had found her to be commonplace: a creature without
ideas and with a decided appetite. So when Tracy Runningbrook, who had
also been a plum in his day, and was still a poet, said that she was
exquisitely comic, they were induced to take the humorous view of the
inexplicable side in the character of Miss Belloni, and tried to laugh at
her eccentricities. Seeing that Mr. Pericles approved of her voice as a
singer, and Tracy Runningbrook let pass her behaviour as a girl, they
conceived that on the whole they were safe in sounding a trumpet loudly.
These gentlemen were connoisseurs, each in his walk.

Concerning her position and parentage, nothing was known. She had met
Adela's delicately-searching touches in that direction with a marked
reserve. It was impossible to ask her point-blank, after probing her with
a dozen suggestions, for the ingenuousness of an indifferent inquiry
could not then be assumed, so that Adela was constantly baked and felt
that she must some day be excessively 'fond with her,' which was
annoying. The girl lit up at any sign of affection. A kind look gave
Summer depths to her dark eyes. Otherwise she maintained a simple
discretion and walked in her own path, content to look quietly pleased on
everybody, as one who had plenty to think of and a voice in her ear.

Apparently she was not to be taught to understand 'limits': which must be
explained as a sort of magnetic submissiveness to the variations of Polar
caprice; so that she should move about with ease, be cheerful, friendly,
and, at a signal, affectionate; still not failing to recognize the
particular nooks where the family chalk had traced a line. As the day of
exhibition approached, Adela thought she would give her a lesson in
limits. She ventured to bestow a small caress on the girl, after a
compliment; thinking that the compliment would be a check: but the
compliment was passed, and the caress instantly replied to with two arms
and a tender mouth. At which, Adela took fright and was glad to slip
away.

At last the pudding flowed into the bag.

Emilia was posted by the ladies in a corner of the room. Receiving her
assurance that she was not hungry, they felt satisfied that she wanted
nothing. Wilfrid came up to her to console her for her loneliness, until
Mr. Pericles had stationed himself at the back of her chair, and then
Wilfrid nodded languidly and attended to his graver duties. Who would
have imagined that she had hurt him? But she certainly looked with
greater animation on Mr. Pericles; and when Tracy Runningbrook sat down
by her, a perfect little carol of chatter sprang up between them. These
two presented such a noticeable contrast, side by side, that the ladies
had to send a message to separate them. She was perhaps a little the
taller of the two; with smoothed hair that had the gloss of black briony
leaves, and eyes like burning brands in a cave; while Tracy's hair was
red as blown flame, with eyes of a grey-green hue, that may be seen
glistening over wet sunset. People, who knew him, asked: "Who is she?"
and it was not in the design of the ladies to have her noted just yet.

Lady Gosstre's exclamation on entering the room was presently heard.
"Well! and where's our extraordinary genius? Pray, let me see her
immediately."

Thereat Laura Tinley, with gross ill-breeding, rushed up to Arabella, who
was receiving her ladyship, and touching her arm, as if privileges were
permitted her, cried: "I'm dying to see her. Has she come?"

Arabella embraced the offensive girl in a hostess's smile, and talked
flowingly to the great lady.

Laura Tinley was punished by being requested to lead off with a favourite
song in a buzz. She acceded, quite aware of the honour intended, and sat
at the piano, taming as much as possible her pantomime of one that would
be audible. Lady Gosstre scanned the room, while Adela, following her
ladyship's eyeglass, named the guests.

"You get together a quaint set of men," said Lady Gosstre.

"Women!" was on Adela's tongue's tip. She had really thought well of her
men. Her heart sank.

"In the country!" she began.

"Yes, yes!" went my lady.

These were the lessons that made the ladies of Brookfield put a check
upon youth's tendency to feel delightful satisfaction with its immediate
work, and speedily conceive a discontented suspicion of anything
whatsoever that served them.

Two other sacrifices were offered at the piano after Laura Tinley. Poor
victims of ambition, they arranged their dresses, smiled at the leaves,
and deliberately gave utterance to the dreadful nonsense of the laureates
of our drawing-rooms. Mr. Pericles and Emilia exchanged scientific
glances during the performance. She was merciless to indifferent music.
Wilfrid saw the glances pass. So, now, when Emilia was beckoned to the
piano, she passed by Wilfrid, and had a cold look in return for beaming
eyes.

According to directions, Emilia sang a simple Neapolitan air. The singer
was unknown, and was generally taken for another sacrifice.

"Come; that's rather pretty," Lady Gosstre hailed the close.

"It is of ze people--such as zat," assented Mr. Pericles.

Adela heard my lady ask for the singer's name. She made her way to her
sisters. Adela was ordinarily the promoter, Cornelia the sifter, and
Arabella the director, of schemes in this management. The ladies had a
moment for counsel over a music-book, for Arabella was about to do duty
at the piano. During a pause, Mr. Pole lifting his white waistcoat with
the effort, sent a word abroad, loudly and heartily, regardless of its
guardian aspirate, like a bold-faced hoyden flying from her chaperon.
They had dreaded it. They loved their father, but declined to think his
grammar parental. Hushing together, they agreed that it had been a false
move to invite Lady Gosstre, who did not care a bit for music, until the
success of their Genius was assured by persons who did. To suppose that
she would recognize a Genius, failing a special introduction, was absurd.
The ladies could turn upon aristocracy too, when it suited them.

Arabella had now to go through a quartett. The fever of ill-luck had
seized the violin. He would not tune. Then his string broke; and while he
was arranging it the footman came up to Arabella. Misfortunes, we know,
are the most united family on earth. The news brought to her was that a
lady of the name of Mrs. Chump was below. Holding her features rigidly
bound, not to betray perturbation, Arabella confided the fact to
Cornelia, who, with a similar mental and muscular compression, said
instantly, "Manoeuvre her." Adela remarked, "If you tell her the company
is grand, she will come, and her Irish once heard here will destroy us.
The very name of Chump!"

Mrs. Chump was the wealthy Irish widow of an alderman, whose
unaccountable bad taste in going to Ireland for a wife, yet filled the
ladies with astonishment. She pretended to be in difficulties with her
lawyers; for which reason she strove to be perpetually in consultation
with her old flame and present trustee Mr. Pole. The ladies had fought
against her in London, and since their installation at Brookfield they
had announced to their father that she was not to be endured there. Mr.
Pole had plaintively attempted to dilate on the virtues of Martha Chump.
"In her place," said the ladies, and illustrated to him that amid a
nosegay of flowers there was no fit room for an exuberant vegetable. The
old man had sighed and seemed to surrender. One thing was certain: Mrs.
Chump had never been seen at Brookfield. "She never shall be, save by the
servants," said the ladies.

Emilia, not unmarked of Mr. Pericles, had gone over to Wilfrid once or
twice, to ask him if haply he disapproved of anything she had done. Mr.
Pericles shrugged, and went "Ah!" as who should say, "This must be
stopped." Adela now came to her and caught her hand, showering sweet
whispers on her, and bidding her go to her harp and do her best. "We love
you; we all love you!" was her parting instigation.

The quartett was abandoned. Arabella had departed with a firm countenance
to combat Mrs. Chump.

Emilia sat by her harp. The saloon was critically still; so still that
Adela fancied she heard a faint Irish protest from the parlour. Wilfrid
was perhaps the most critical auditor present: for he doubted whether she
could renew that singular charm of her singing in the pale lighted woods.
The first smooth contralto notes took him captive. He scarcely believed
that this could be the raw girl whom his sisters delicately pitied.

A murmur of plaudits, the low thunder of gathering acclamation, went
round. Lady Gosstre looked a satisfied, "This will do." Wilfrid saw
Emilia's eyes appeal hopefully to Mr. Pericles. The connoisseur shrugged.
A pain lodged visibly on her black eyebrows. She gripped her harp, and
her eyelids appeared to quiver as she took the notes. Again, and still
singing, she turned her head to him. The eyes of Mr. Pericles were white,
as if upraised to intercede for her with the Powers of Harmony. Her voice
grew unnerved. On a sudden she excited herself to pitch and give volume
to that note which had been the enchantment of the night in the woods. It
quavered. One might have thought her caught by the throat.