The Dead Secret, Wilkie Collins [best historical biographies .TXT] 📗

opera of Mozart’s. Ah! beautiful! beautiful! Your Uncle Max said that all music was comprehended in that one song. I know nothing about music, but I have my heart and my ears, and they tell me that Max was right.”

Speaking these words with abundant gesticulation and amazing volubility, Mr. Buschmann poured out a cup of tea for his niece, stirred it carefully, and, patting her on the shoulder, begged that she would make him happy by drinking it all up directly. As he came close to her to press this request, he discovered that the tears were in her eyes, and that she was trying to take her handkerchief from her pocket without being observed.

“Don’t mind me,” she said, seeing the old man’s face sadden as he looked at her; “and don’t think me forgetful or ungrateful, Uncle Joseph. I remember the box⁠—I remember everything that you used to take an interest in, when I was younger and happier than I am now. When I last saw you, I came to you in trouble; and I come to you in trouble once more. It seems neglectful in me never to have written to you for so many years past; but my life has been a very sad one, and I thought I had no right to lay the burden of my sorrow on other shoulders than my own.”

Uncle Joseph shook his head at these last words, and touched the stop of the musical box. “Mozart shall wait a little,” he said, gravely, “till I have told you something. Sarah, hear what I say, and drink your tea, and own to me whether I speak the truth or not. What did I, Joseph Buschmann, tell you, when you first came to me in trouble, fourteen, fifteen, ah more! sixteen years ago, in this town, and in this same house? I said then, what I say again now: ‘Sarah’s sorrow is my sorrow, and Sarah’s joy is my joy’; and if any man asks me reasons for that, I have three to give him.”

He stopped to stir up his niece’s tea for the second time, and to draw her attention to it by tapping with the spoon on the edge of the cup.

“Three reasons,” he resumed. “First, you are my sister’s child⁠—some of her flesh and blood, and some of mine, therefore, also. Second, my sister, my brother, and lastly me myself, we owe to your good English father⁠—all. A little word that means much, and may be said again and again⁠—all. Your father’s friends cry, Fie! Agatha Buschmann is poor! Agatha Buschmann is foreign! But your father loves the poor German girl, and he marries her in spite of their Fie, Fie. Your father’s friends cry Fie! again; Agatha Buschmann has a musician brother, who gabbles to us about Mozart, and who can not make to his porridge salt. Your father says, Good! I like his gabble; I like his playing; I shall get him people to teach; and while I have pinches of salt in my kitchen, he to his porridge shall have pinches of salt too. Your father’s friends cry Fie! for the third time. Agatha Buschmann has another brother, a little Stupid-Head, who to the other’s gabble can only listen and say Amen. Send him trotting; for the love of Heaven, shut up all the doors and send Stupid-Head trotting, at least. Your father says, No! Stupid-Head has his wits in his hands; he can cut and carve and polish; help him a little at the starting, and after he shall help himself. They are all gone now but me! Your father, your mother, and Uncle Max⁠—they are all gone. Stupid-Head alone remains to remember and to be grateful⁠—to take Sarah’s sorrow for his sorrow, and Sarah’s joy for his joy.”

He stopped again to blow a speck of dust off the musical box. His niece endeavored to speak, but he held up his hand, and shook his forefinger at her warningly.

“No,” he said. “It is yet my business to talk, and your business to drink tea. Have I not my third reason still? Ah! you look away from me; you know my third reason before I say a word. When I, in my turn, marry, and my wife dies, and leaves me alone with little Joseph, and when the boy falls sick, who comes then, so quiet, so pretty, so neat, with the bright young eyes, and the hands so tender and light? Who helps me with little Joseph by night and by day? Who makes a pillow for him on her arm when his head is weary? Who holds this box patiently at his ear?⁠—yes! this box, that the hand of Mozart has touched⁠—who holds it closer, closer always, when little Joseph’s sense grows dull, and he moans for the friendly music that he has known from a baby, the friendly music that he can now so hardly, hardly hear? Who kneels down by Uncle Joseph when his heart is breaking, and says, ‘Oh, hush! hush! The boy is gone where the better music plays, where the sickness shall never waste or the sorrow touch him more?’ Who? Ah, Sarah! you can not forget those days; you can not forget the Long Ago! When the trouble is bitter, and the burden is heavy, it is cruelty to Uncle Joseph to keep away; it is kindness to him to come here.”

The recollections that the old man had called up found their way tenderly to Sarah’s heart. She could not answer him; she could only hold out her hand. Uncle Joseph bent down, with a quaint, affectionate gallantry, and kissed it; then stepped back again to his place by the musical box. “Come!” he said, patting it cheerfully, “we will say no more for a while. Mozart’s box, Max’s box, little Joseph’s box, you shall talk to us again!”

Having put the tiny machinery in motion, he sat down by the table, and remained silent until the air had been played