readenglishbook.com » Romance » Miss Billy, Eleanor Hodgman Porter [motivational novels .txt] 📗

Book online «Miss Billy, Eleanor Hodgman Porter [motivational novels .txt] 📗». Author Eleanor Hodgman Porter



1 ... 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 ... 29
Go to page:
light. There was still a difference, however, for this time Cyril did not bring any music down to the piano, nor display anywhere a copy of his newest book.

The dinner was to be at three o’clock, but by special invitation the guests were to arrive at twelve; and promptly at the appointed hour they came.

“There, this is something like,” exulted Bertram, when the ladies, divested of their wraps, toasted their feet before the open fire in his den.

“Indeed it is, for now I’ve time to see everything—everything you’ve done since I’ve been gone,” cried Billy, gazing eagerly about her.

“Hm-m; well, THAT wasn’t what I meant,” shrugged Bertram.

“Of course not; but it’s what I meant,” retorted Billy. “And there are other things, too. I expect there are half a dozen new ‘Old Blues’ and black basalts that I want to see; eh, Uncle William?” she finished, smiling into the eyes of the man who had been gazing at her with doting pride for the last five minutes.

“Ho! Will isn’t on teapots now,” quoth Bertram, before his brother had a chance to reply. “You might dangle the oldest ‘Old Blue’ that ever was before him now, and he’d pay scant attention if he happened at the same time to get his eyes on some old pewter chain with a green stone in it.”

Billy laughed; but at the look of genuine distress that came into William’s face, she sobered at once.

“Don’t you let him tease you, Uncle William,” she said quickly. “I’m sure pewter chains with green stones in them sound just awfully interesting, and I want to see them right away now. Come,” she finished, springing to her feet, “take me upstairs, please, and show them to me.”

William shook his head and said, “No, no!” protesting that what he had were scarcely worth her attention; but even while he talked he rose to his feet and advanced half eagerly, half reluctantly, toward the door.

“Nonsense,” said Billy, fondly, as she laid her hand on his arm. “I know they are very much worth seeing. Come!” And she led the way from the room. “Oh, oh!” she exclaimed a few moments later, as she stood before a small cabinet in one of William’s rooms. “Oh, oh, how pretty!”

“Do you like them? I thought you would,” triumphed William, quick joy driving away the anxious fear in his eyes. “You see, I—I thought of you when I got them—every one of them. I thought you’d like them. But I haven’t very many, yet, of course. This is the latest one.” And he tenderly lifted from its black velvet mat a curious silver necklace made of small, flat, chain-linked disks, heavily chased, and set at regular intervals with a strange, blue-green stone.

Billy hung above it enraptured.

“Oh, what a beauty! And this, I suppose, is Bertram’s ‘pewter chain’! ‘Pewter,’ indeed!” she scoffed. “Tell me, Uncle William, where did you get it?”

And uncle William told, happily, thirstily, drinking in Billy’s evident interest with delight. There were, too, a quaintly-set ring and a cat’s-eye brooch; and to each belonged a story which William was equally glad to tell. There were other treasures, also: buckles, rings, brooches, and necklaces, some of dull gold, some of equally dull silver; but all of odd design and curious workmanship, studded here and there with bits of red, green, yellow, blue, and flame-colored stones. Very learnedly then from William’s lips fell the new vocabulary that had come to him with his latest treasures: chrysoprase, carnelian, girasol, onyx, plasma, sardonyx, lapis lazuli, tourmaline, chrysolite, hyacinth, and carbuncle.

“They are lovely, perfectly lovely!” breathed Billy, when the last chain had slipped through her fingers into William’s hand. “I think they are the very nicest things you ever collected.”

“So do I,” agreed the man, emphatically. “And they are—different, too.”

“They are,” said Billy, “very—different.” But she was not looking at the jewelry: her eyes were on a small shell hairpin and a brown silk button half hidden behind a Lowestoft teapot.

On the way downstairs William stopped a moment at Billy’s old rooms.

“I wish you were here now,” he said wistfully. “They’re all ready for you—these rooms.”

“Oh, but why don’t you use them?—such pretty rooms!” cried Billy, quickly.

William gave a gesture of dissent.

“We have no use for them; besides, they belong to you and Aunt Hannah. You left your imprint long ago, my dear—we should not feel at home in them.”

“Oh, but you should! You mustn’t feel like that!” objected Billy, hurriedly crossing the room to the window to hide a sudden nervousness that had assailed her. “And here’s my piano, too, and open!” she finished gaily, dropping herself upon the piano stool and dashing into a brilliant mazourka.

Billy, like Cyril, had a way of working off her moods at her finger tips; and to-day the tripping notes and crashing chords told of a nervous excitement that was not all joy. From the doorway William watched her flying fingers with fond pride, and it was very reluctantly that he acceded to Pete’s request to go downstairs for a moment to settle a vexed question concerning the table decorations.

Billy, left alone, still played, but with a difference. The tripping notes slowed into a weird melody that rose and fell and lost itself in the exquisite harmony that had been born of the crashing chords. Billy was improvising now, and into her music had crept something of her old-time longing when she had come to that house a lonely, orphan girl, in search of a home. On and on she played; then with a discordant note, she suddenly rose from the piano. She was thinking of Kate, and wondering if, had Kate not “managed” the little room would still be home.

So swiftly did Billy cross to the door that the man on the stairs outside had not time to get quite out of sight. Billy did not see his face, however; she saw only a pair of gray-trousered legs disappearing around the curve of the landing above. She thought nothing of it until later when dinner was announced, and Cyril came downstairs; then she saw that he, and he only, that afternoon wore trousers of that particular shade of gray.

The dinner was a great success. Even the chocolate fudge in the little cut glass bonbon dishes was perfect; and it was a question whether Pete or Dong Ling tried the harder to please.

After dinner the family gathered in the drawing-room and chatted pleasantly. Bertram displayed his prettiest and newest pictures, and Billy played and sung—bright, tuneful little things that she knew Aunt Hannah and Uncle William liked. If Cyril was pleased or displeased, he did not show it—but Billy had ceased to play for Cyril’s ears. She told herself that she did not care; but she did wonder: was that Cyril on the stairs, and if so—what was he doing there?

CHAPTER XXVI “MUSIC HATH CHARMS”

Two days after Thanksgiving Cyril called at Hillside.

“I’ve come to hear you play,” he announced abruptly.

Billy’s heart sung within her—but her temper rose. Did he think then that he had but to beckon and she would come—and at this late day, she asked herself. Aloud she said:

“Play? But this is ‘so sudden’! Besides, you have heard me.”

The man made a disdainful gesture.

“Not that. I mean play—really play. Billy, why haven’t you played to me before?”

Billy’s chin rose perceptibly.

“Why haven’t you asked me?” she parried.

To Billy’s surprise the man answered this with calm directness.

“Because Calderwell said that you were a dandy player, and I don’t care for dandy players.”

Billy laughed now.

“And how do you know I’m not a dandy player, Sir Impertinent?” she demanded.

“Because I’ve heard you—when you weren’t.”

“Thank you,” murmured Billy.

Cyril shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, you know very well what I mean,” he defended. “I’ve heard you; that’s all.”

“When?”

“That doesn’t signify.”

Billy was silent for a moment, her eyes gravely studying his face. Then she asked:

“Were you long—on that stairway?”

“Eh? What? Oh!” Cyril’s forehead grew suddenly pink. “Well?” he finished a little aggressively.

“Oh, nothing,” smiled the girl. “Of course people who live in glass houses must not throw stones.”

“Very well then, I did listen,” acknowledged the man, testily. “I liked what you were playing. I hoped, downstairs later, that you’d play it again; but you didn’t. I came to-day to hear it.”

Again Billy’s heart sung within her—but again her temper rose, too.

“I don’t think I feel like it,” she said sweetly, with a shake of her head. “Not to-day.”

For a brief moment Cyril stared frowningly; then his face lighted with his rare smile.

“I’m fairly checkmated,” he said, rising to his feet and going straight to the piano.

For long minutes he played, modulating from one enchanting composition to another, and finishing with the one “all chords with big bass notes” that marched on and on—the one Billy had sat long ago on the stairs to hear.

“There! Now will you play for me?” he asked, rising to his feet, and turning reproachful eyes upon her.

Billy, too, rose to her feet. Her face was flushed and her eyes were shining. Her lips quivered with emotion. As was always the case, Cyril’s music had carried her quite out of herself.

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she sighed. “You don’t know—you can’t know how beautiful it all is—to me!”

“Thank you. Then surely now you’ll play to me,” he returned.

A look of real distress came to Billy’s face.

“But I can’t—not what you heard the other day,” she cried remorsefully. “You see, I was—only improvising.”

Cyril turned quickly.

“Only improvising! Billy, did you ever write it down—any of your improvising?”

An embarrassed red flew to Billy’s face.

“Not—not that amounted to—well, that is, some—a little,” she stammered.

“Let me see it.”

“No, no, I couldn’t—not YOU!”

Again the rare smile lighted Cyril’s eyes.

“Billy, let me see that paper—please.”

Very slowly the girl turned toward the music cabinet. She hesitated, glanced once more appealingly into Cyril’s face, then with nervous haste opened the little mahogany door and took from one of the shelves a sheet of manuscript music. But, like a shy child with her first copy book, she held it half behind her back as she came toward the piano.

“Thank you,” said Cyril as he reached far out for the music. The next moment he seated himself again at the piano.

Twice he played the little song through carefully, slowly.

“Now, sing it,” he directed.

Falteringly, in a very faint voice, and with very many breaths taken where they should not have been taken, Billy obeyed.

“When we want to show off your song, Billy, we won’t ask you to sing it,” observed the man, dryly, when she had finished.

Billy laughed and dimpled into a blush.

“When I want to show off my song I sha’n’t be singing it to you for the first time,” she pouted.

Cyril did not answer. He was playing over and over certain harmonies in the music before him.

“Hm-m; I see you’ve studied your counterpoint to some purpose,” he vouchsafed, finally; then: “Where did you get the words?”

The girl hesitated. The flush had deepened on her face.

“Well, I—” she stopped and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m like the small boy who made the toys. ‘I got them all out of my own head, and there’s wood enough to make another.’”

“Hm-m; indeed!” grunted the man. “Well, have you made any others?”

“One—or two, maybe.”

“Let me see them, please.”

“I think—we’ve had enough—for today,” she faltered.

“I haven’t. Besides, if I could have a couple more to go with this, it would make a very pretty little group of songs.”

“‘To go with this’! What do you mean?”

“To the publishers, of

1 ... 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 ... 29
Go to page:

Free e-book «Miss Billy, Eleanor Hodgman Porter [motivational novels .txt] 📗» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment