The next day, arrayed in black satin breeches and my ill-gotten waistcoat, I made my way again to Faneuil Hall. The clothes were poorly fitted for my frame, being cut for one much stouter, and the breeches fairly flapped about my knees.
When I arrived, I found the orchestra arranging themselves on chairs; the strings being a collection of civilians, the brass drawn from the military band of the 64th Regiment, which famed consort gave a strict and louring aspect to the proceedings, their uniforms being black shot through with white lace and red. Apprehensive at the sight of these men, so stern in their demeanor, I hesitated by the door, unwilling to go further.
Mr. Turner caught sight of me, wincing at the sag of my stockings. He came to my side. “You still,” he asked, “are in need of a violin?”
To this I assented; and he requested a boy fetch me a fiddle lain in another room. That battered instrument placed in my hands, Mr. Turner came again to my side and, observing how I held it to my ear and plucked its strings, he inquired of me, “Does it sound well?”
I gave a slight bow and replied, “To he who is parched for music, sir, and who swells with gratitude to one who so benevolently grants his desire, even the most ill-tuned string sounds with glorious —”
“Indeed. That instrument, my recent Augustus — that instrument belonged to your predecessor, an old Negro with about one tooth. He was excellent at playing an Irish jig and lively at the allegros, but he was, as it happened, spying for the rebels, so we hanged him for treason. He did a little dance with more vigor than regularity and died with his tongue out and piss on his britches. If the new Augustus will pardon for one moment a fond dancing-master’s forwardness, might I inquire whether you too plan on conveying intelligence to rebels? Do you long for the domino and dagger?”
“No, sir.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because there is nothing easier than plucking a Negro out of an orchestra and setting him to dance on high. Aye?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kicking a gavotte in Lady Hemp’s embrace. I merely request you consider it; and if any rebel should approach you and ask for news of the Sixty-fourth or any other matter, I would be gratified if you informed them you are bespoke for the next several dances.”
“Thank you, sir,” said I, but he was already gone from my side. He left me wary.
It took no little time to shed these disagreeable impressions, even once the brilliancies of the symphony were cast up around me. Notwithstanding such anxious reflections, however, I was mollified by the exhilaration of playing in company — for it must be remembered that I had only very infrequently played with a full band of music previously, most of my instrumental turns being as part of a small consort, best suited, respectively, for the contra-dance or the sonata a tre.
To participate, then, in the pomp of the orchestra, in the full scintillation thereof, was in the highest degree thrilling. Is this not the image of the perfect republic — each instrument singing its wonted melody, endeavoring at once to express its part, and, in the same instance, to conform its voice to the conversation of the whole?
We prepared, as it transpired, for a concert to take place later in the week in benefit of the poor of the city, the officers of the army being much concerned that the citizens starved as the rebels blocked off all routes of trade save the sea-routes from the farthest destinations. We played several symphonies and a few arias which a soprano much admired by a lieutenant-colonel would sing; and there was to be a harpsichord concerto writ by a celebrated sapper of the Army Corps of Engineers, a man whose speciality was tunneling under walls and laying detonations, but who had enjoyed the fruits of gentler arts, and turned his nimble fingers to scribbling for the jacks and strings. I found the whole program of the greatest delight.
The rehearsal being complete, I packed my borrowed violin in its ungainly box and set forth across the market square, little crediting that I now was at liberty to play upon that instrument dearest to my heart whenever I pleased, did Mrs. Platt allow it; and that I might play whatever my fancy suggested to me. I delighted in the thought.
Seagulls cried above the town dock and settled on the spars of ships just off the wharves; the heated air smelled deeply of sheep and tar.
As I made my way back to Mrs. Platt’s house, I had a sudden notion to return by way of the College of Lucidity. I know not whether I was actuated by the desire for some phantom approval of my new situation or for defiant display, but I wished to pass its door; I wished to stand before it, to look and be done.
It was not a walk of any great distance to that gaunt house; and, that quickly accomplished, I halted, violin-case in hand, and regarded the place, examining both the familiarities of infant association and the novelties of occupation: the guard who stood beside the door; the Regimental colors hung from out Mr. Gitney’s bedchamber window; the cook-fire lit in the stable.
The last time I had gazed upon the house before the previous day, it had been December, the morning when Mr. Gitney had revolved the key in the lock of the great doors at last and we had evacuated the town in favor of the rural retreats of Canaan some months before the Pox Party. The carts had been heaped with our belongings; my mother had been alive.
In my memory, she darts back from the carriage, her arms slim, her hands volant, her smile vivid, her head inclined with all the graces of art, her neck, marked with lace collier, imperial in its attitude; a cap upon her hair. I see her run across the cobbles to the door.
“I have forgot my mantilla,” she says.
“The door is locked,” says Mr. Gitney.
“I will catch chills.”
“You waited,” says he, “only to delay us and so prove your sovereignty.”
And yet she took the key from his hand; and smiling, unlocked the door, and flew up the stairs to fetch her scarf.
I have forgot my mantilla. Of such trivialities are moments made; and hours built; and years constructed; and ruins, finally, remain, with ornaments half-seen beneath the grasses.
She ran, an animal endowed with contraction and extension; she ran; I have forgot my mantilla. She stepped from the carriage, flesh envivified; her brain tricked out in schemes; I have forgot my mantilla; only this do I recall; she ran.
And then she returns with that whimsy wrapped around her shoulders, and is handed into the carriage; then we are gone upon the carts and equipages, our sojourn begun; and we are without the city gates; and the fields are about us, ice in the meanders of sloughs; and then a somber boy and his tutor tread the road the other way, gray with summer’s dust, and it is eight months later, and she will not return.
This I know. We return, but she shall not.
I presume her body lies now in Canaan.
At her last, she did not appear to be human. She had abandoned species.
Staring at the house in the full heat of summer, it was scarcely credible that the world had so swiftly fallen into confusion. I looked at that manse, now a bedding-place for the Parliamentary Army, its interiors unknown to me after a life of confinement there. I did not know how to understand my changed state, nor that of the rugged world.
As I peered, I seemed to spy her at the windows, all of them equally, each window engraved with its own scene, its own revenant in cloak or sacque, each spirit passing a different way before my sight.
They lingered to regard me — she at sixteen or seventeen, when first I could recall her, telling tales of petal thrones and chariots hauled by panther-team; she at twenty, smiling and severe, gazing at me though surrounded by men; she at twenty-five, quiet and rueful, scarce attending to her embroidery upon its hoop as long evenings passed in silence.
In each pane of our abandoned house transformed, she watched me.
I pled with her — knowing not why I pled —“But I am free. I play my violin.”
It was not enough; I saw the blank windows; and that was more terrible than the specters of memory with their piercing gaze; that absence; those sheets of glass that held no image but transmission.
“Please,” I whispered to her. “Please let me feel this joy.”