"You will let me hear some music to-night, I hope."
"I will let you hear my attempts, if you like," said Rosamond. "Papa
is sure to insist on my singing. But I shall tremble before you, who
have heard the best singers in Paris. I have heard very little: I have
only once been to London. But our organist at St. Peter's is a good
musician, and I go on studying with him."
"Tell me what you saw in London."
"Very little." (A more naive girl would have said, "Oh, everything!"
But Rosamond knew better.) "A few of the ordinary sights, such as raw
country girls are always taken to."
"Do you call yourself a raw country girl?" said Lydgate, looking at her
with an involuntary emphasis of admiration, which made Rosamond blush
with pleasure. But she remained simply serious, turned her long neck a
little, and put up her hand to touch her wondrous hair-plaits--an
habitual gesture with her as pretty as any movements of a kitten's paw.
Not that Rosamond was in the least like a kitten: she was a sylph
caught young and educated at Mrs. Lemon's.
"I assure you my mind is raw," she said immediately; "I pass at
Middlemarch. I am not afraid of talking to our old neighbors. But I
am really afraid of you."
"An accomplished woman almost always knows more than we men, though her
knowledge is of a different sort. I am sure you could teach me a
thousand things--as an exquisite bird could teach a bear if there were
any common language between them. Happily, there is a common language
between women and men, and so the bears can get taught."
"Ah, there is Fred beginning to strum! I must go and hinder him from
jarring all your nerves," said Rosamond, moving to the other side of
the room, where Fred having opened the piano, at his father's desire,
that Rosamond might give them some music, was parenthetically
performing "Cherry Ripe!" with one hand. Able men who have passed
their examinations will do these things sometimes, not less than the
plucked Fred.
"Fred, pray defer your practising till to-morrow; you will make Mr.
Lydgate ill," said Rosamond. "He has an ear."
Fred laughed, and went on with his tune to the end.
Rosamond turned to Lydgate, smiling gently, and said, "You perceive,
the bears will not always be taught."
"Now then, Rosy!" said Fred, springing from the stool and twisting it
upward for her, with a hearty expectation of enjoyment. "Some good
rousing tunes first."
Rosamond played admirably. Her master at Mrs. Lemon's school (close to
a county town with a memorable history that had its relics in church
and castle) was one of those excellent musicians here and there to be
found in our provinces, worthy to compare with many a noted
Kapellmeister in a country which offers more plentiful conditions of
musical celebrity. Rosamond, with the executant's instinct, had seized
his manner of playing, and gave forth his large rendering of noble
music with the precision of an echo. It was almost startling, heard
for the first time. A hidden soul seemed to be flowing forth from
Rosamond's fingers; and so indeed it was, since souls live on in
perpetual echoes, and to all fine expression there goes somewhere an
originating activity, if it be only that of an interpreter. Lydgate
was taken possession of, and began to believe in her as something
exceptional. After all, he thought, one need not be surprised to find
the rare conjunctions of nature under circumstances apparently
unfavorable: come where they may, they always depend on conditions that
are not obvious. He sat looking at her, and did not rise to pay her
any compliments, leaving that to others, now that his admiration was
deepened.