Miss Billy by Eleanor Hodgman Porter (the false prince series .TXT) 📕
The lawyer stirred restlessly and pondered.
"But, surely, my dear, isn't there some relative, somewhere?" hedemanded. "How about your mother's people?"
Billy shook her head. Her eyes filled again with tears.
There was only Aunt Ella, ever, that I knew anything about. Sheand mother were the only children there were, and mother died whenI was a year old, you know."
"But your father's people?"
"It's even worse there. He was an only child and an orphan whenmother married him. He died when I was but six months old. Afterthat there was only mother and Aunt Ella, then Aunt Ella alone; andnow--no one."
"And you know nothing of your father's people?"
"Nothing; that is--almost nothing."
"Then there is some one?"
Billy smiled. A deeper pink showed in her cheeks.
"Why, there's one--a man but he isn't really father's people,anyway. But I--I have been tempted to write to him."
"Who is he?"
"The one I'm named
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“The PUBLISHERS!”
“Certainly. Did you think you were going to keep these songs to yourself?”
“But they aren’t worth it! They can’t be—good enough!” Unbelieving joy was in Billy’s voice.
“No? Well, we’ll let others decide that,” observed Cyril, with a shrug. “All is, if you’ve got any more wood—like this—I advise you to make it up right away.”
“But I have already!” cried the girl, excitedly. “There are lots of little things that I’ve—that is, there are—some,” she corrected hastily, at the look that sprang into Cyril’s eyes.
“Oh, there are,” laughed Cyril. “Well, we’ll see what—” But he did not see. He did not even finish his sentence; for Billy’s maid, Rosa, appeared just then with a card.
“Show Mr. Calderwell in here,” said Billy. Cyril said nothing— aloud; which was well. His thoughts, just then, were better left unspoken.
Wonderful days came then to Billy. Four songs, it seemed, had been pronounced by competent critics decidedly “worth it”—unmistakably “good enough”; and they were to be brought out as soon as possible.
“Of course you understand,” explained Cyril, “that there’s no ‘hit’ expected. Thank heaven they aren’t that sort! And there’s no great money in it, either. You’d have to write a masterpiece like ‘She’s my Ju-Ju Baby’ or some such gem to get the ‘hit’ and the money. But the songs are fine, and they’ll take with cultured hearers. We’ll get them introduced by good singers, of course, and they’ll be favorites soon for the concert stage, and for parlors.”
Billy saw a good deal of Cyril now. Already she was at work rewriting and polishing some of her half-completed melodies, and Cyril was helping her, by his interest as well as by his criticism. He was, in fact, at the house very frequently—too frequently, indeed, to suit either Bertram or Calderwell. Even William frowned sometimes when his cozy chats with Billy were interrupted by Cyril’s appearing with a roll of new music for her to “try”; though William told himself that he ought to be thankful if there was anything that could make Cyril more companionable, less reserved and morose. And Cyril WAS different—there was no disputing that. Calderwell said that he had come “out of his shell”; and Bertram told Billy that she must have “found his note and struck it good and hard.”
Billy was very happy. To the little music teacher, Marie Hawthorn, she talked more freely, perhaps, than she did to any one else.
“It’s so wonderful, Marie—so wonderfully wonderful,” she said one day, “to sit here in my own room and sing a little song that comes from somewhere, anywhere, out of the sky itself. Then by and by, that little song will fly away, away, over land and sea; and some day it will touch somebody’s heart just as it has touched mine. Oh, Marie, is it not wonderful?”
“It is, dear—and it is not. Your songs could not help reaching somebody’s heart. There’s nothing wonderful in that.”
“Sweet flatterer!”
“But I mean it. They are beautiful; and so is—Mr. Henshaw’s music.”
“Yes, it is,” murmured Billy, abstractedly.
There was a long pause, then Marie asked with shy hesitation:
“Do you think, Miss Billy—that he would care? I listened yesterday when he was playing to you. I was up here in your room, but when I heard the music I—I went out, on the stairs and sat down. Was it very—bad of me?”
Billy laughed happily.
“If it was, he can’t say anything,” she reassured her. “He’s done the same thing himself—and so have I.”
“HE has done it!”
“Yes. It was at his home last Thanksgiving. It was then that he found out—about my improvising.”
“Oh-h!” Marie’s eyes were wistful. “And he cares so much now for your music!”
“Does he? Do you think he does?” demanded Billy.
“I know he does—and for the one who makes it, too.”
“Nonsense!” laughed Billy, with pinker cheeks. “It’s the music, not the musician, that pleases him. Mr. Cyril doesn’t like women.”
“He doesn’t like women!”
“No. But don’t look so shocked, my dear. Every one who knows Mr. Cyril knows that.”
“But I don’t think—I believe it,” demurred Marie, gazing straight into Billy’s eyes. “I’m sure I don’t believe it.”
Under the little music teacher’s steady gaze Billy flushed again. The laugh she gave was an embarrassed one, but through it vibrated a pleased ring.
“Nonsense!” she exclaimed, springing to her feet and moving restlessly about the room. With the next breath she had changed the subject to one far removed from Mr. Cyril and his likes and dislikes.
Some time later Billy played, and it was then that Marie drew a long sigh.
“How beautiful it must be to play—like that,” she breathed.
“As if you, a music teacher, could not play!” laughed Billy.
“Not like that, dear. You know it is not like that.”
Billy frowned.
“But you are so accurate, Marie, and you can read at sight so rapidly!”
“Oh, yes, like a little machine, I know!” scorned the usually gentle Marie, bitterly. “Don’t they have a thing of metal that adds figures like magic? Well, I’m like that. I see g and I play g; I see d and I play d; I see f and I play f; and after I’ve seen enough g’s and d’s and f’s and played them all, the thing is done. I’ve played.”
“Why, Marie! Marie, my dear!” The second exclamation was very tender, for Marie was crying.
“There! I knew I should some day have it out—all out,” sobbed Marie. “I felt it coming.”
“Then perhaps you’ll—you’ll feel better now,” stammered Billy. She tried to say more—other words that would have been a real comfort; but her tongue refused to speak them. She knew so well, so woefully well, how very wooden and mechanical the little music teacher’s playing always had been. But that Marie should realize it herself like this—the tragedy of it made Billy’s heart ache. At Marie’s next words, however, Billy caught her breath in surprise.
“But you see it wasn’t music—it wasn’t ever music that I wanted— to do,” she confessed.
“It wasn’t music! But what—I don’t understand,” murmured Billy.
“No, I suppose not,” sighed the other. “You play so beautifully yourself.”
“But I thought you loved music.”
“I do. I love it dearly—in others. But I can’t—I don’t want to make it myself.”
“But what do you want to do?”
Marie laughed suddenly.
“Do you know, my dear, I have half a mind to tell you what I do like to do—just to make you stare.”
“Well?” Billy’s eyes were wide with interest.
“I like best of anything to—darn stockings and make puddings.”
“Marie!”
“Rank heresy, isn’t it?” smiled Marie, tearfully. “But I do, truly. I love to weave the threads evenly in and out, and see a big hole close. As for the puddings I don’t mean the common bread-and-butter kind, but the ones that have whites of eggs and fruit, and pretty quivery jellies all ruby and amber lights, you know.”
“You dear little piece of domesticity,” laughed Billy. “Then why in the world don’t you do these things?”
“I can’t, in my own kitchen; I can’t afford a kitchen to do them in. And I just couldn’t do them—right along—in other people’s kitchens.”
“But why do you—play?”
“I was brought up to it. You know we had money once, lots of it,” sighed Marie, as if she were deploring a misfortune. “And mother was determined to have me musical. Even then, as a little tot, I liked pudding-making, and after my mud-pie days I was always begging mother to let me go down into the kitchen, to cook. But she wouldn’t allow it, ever. She engaged the most expensive masters and set me practising, always practising. I simply had to learn music; and I learned it like the adding machine. Then afterward, when father died, and then mother, and the money flew away, why, of course I had to do something, so naturally I turned to the music. It was all I could do. But—well, you know how it is, dear. I teach, and teach well, perhaps, so far as the mechanical part goes; but as for the rest—I am always longing for a cozy corner with a basket of stockings to mend, or a kitchen where there is a pudding waiting to be made.”
“You poor dear!” cried Billy. “I’ve a pair of stockings now that needs attention, and I’ve been just longing for one of your ‘quivery jellies all ruby and amber lights’ ever since you mentioned them. But—well, is there anything I could do to help?”
“Nothing, thank you,” sighed Marie, rising wearily to her feet, and covering her eyes with her hand for a moment. “My head aches shockingly, but I’ve got to go this minute and instruct little Jennie Knowls how to play the wonderful scale of G with a black key in it. Besides, you do help me, you have helped me, you are always helping me, dear,” she added remorsefully; “and it’s wicked of me to make that shadow come to your eyes. Please don’t think of it, or of me, any more.” And with a choking little sob she hurried from the room, followed by the amazed, questioning, sorrowful eyes of Billy.
Nearly all of Billy’s friends knew that Bertram Henshaw was in love with Billy Neilson before Billy herself knew it. Not that they regarded it as anything serious—“it’s only Bertram” was still said of him on almost all occasions. But to Bertram himself it was very serious.
The world to Bertram, indeed, had come to assume a vastly different aspect from what it had displayed in times past. Heretofore it had been a plaything which like a juggler’s tinsel ball might be tossed from hand to hand at will. Now it was no plaything—no glittering bauble. It was something big and serious and splendid—because Billy lived in it; something that demanded all his powers to do, and be—because Billy was watching; something that might be a Hades of torment or an Elysium of bliss—according to whether Billy said “no” or “yes.”
Since Thanksgiving Bertram had known that it was love—this consuming fire within him; and since Thanksgiving he had known, too, that it was jealousy—this fierce hatred of Calderwell. He was ashamed of the hatred. He told himself that it was unmanly, unkind, and unreasonable; and he vowed that he would overcome it. At times he even fancied that he had overcome it; but always the sight of Calderwell in Billy’s little drawing-room or of even the man’s card on Billy’s silver tray was enough to show him that he had not.
There were others, too, who annoyed Bertram not a little, foremost of these being his own brothers. Still he was not really worried about William and Cyril, he told himself. William he did not consider to be a marrying man; and Cyril—every one knew that Cyril was a woman-hater. He was doubtless attracted now only by Billy’s music. There was no real rivalry to be feared from William and Cyril. But there was always Calderwell, and Calderwell was serious. Bertram decided, therefore, after some weeks of feverish unrest, that the only road to peace lay through a frank avowal of his feelings, and a direct appeal to Billy to give him the great boon of her love.
Just here, however, Bertram met with an unexpected difficulty. He could not find words with which to make his avowal or to present his appeal. He was surprised and annoyed. Never before had he been at a loss for words—mere words. And it was not that he lacked opportunity. He walked, drove, and talked with Billy, and always she was companionable, attentive to what he had to say. Never was she cold
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