One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
neath the windows of the hotel, and they heard zon, zon,
violon, fete et basse; not bad fluting, excellent fiddling, such
singing as a maestro, conducting his own Opera, would have
approved. So Victor said of his darlings’ voices. Nesta’s and
her mother’s were a perfect combination; Mr. Barmby’s
trompe in union, sufficiently confirmed the popular impression,
that they were artistes. They had been ceremoniously
ushered to their carriages, with expressions of gratitude, at
the departure from Rouen; and the Boniface at Gisors had
entreated them to stay another night, to give an entertainment.
Victor took his pleasure in letting it be known, that
they were a quiet English family, simply keeping-up the habits
they practiced in Old England: all were welcome to hear
them while they were doing it; but they did not give entertainments.
The pride of the pleasure of reversing the general idea of
English dulness among our neighbours, was perceived to have
laid fast hold of Dudley Sowerby at Dreux. He was at the
window from time to time, counting heads below. For this
reason or a better, he begged Nesta to supplant the flute duet
with the soprano and contralto of the Helena section of the
Mefistofele, called the Serenade: La Luna immobile. She
consulted her mother, and they sang it. The crowds below,
swollen to a block of the street, were dead still, showing the
instinctive good manners of the people. Then mademoiselle
astonished them with a Provencal or Cevennes air, Huguenot,
though she was Catholic; but it suited her mezzo-soprano
tones; and it rang massively of the martial-religious.
To what heights of spiritual grandeur might not a Huguenot
France have marched! Dudley Sowerby, heedlessly, under an
emotion that could be stirred in him with force, by the soul
of religion issuing through music, addressed his ejaculation
to Lady Grace Halley. She did nor shrug or snub him, but
rejoined: ‘I could go to battle with that song in the ears.’ She
liked seeing him so happily transformed; and liked the effect
of it on Nesta when his face shone in talking. He was at
home with the girl’s eyes, as he had never been. A song expressing
in one of the combative and devotional, went to the
springs of his blood; for he was of an old warrior race, beneath
the thick crust of imposed peaceful maxims and commercial
pursuits and habitual stiff correctness. As much as
wine, will music bring out the native bent of the civilized
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