CHAPTER IX
THE TICKET OF LEAVE
Seated at the schoolroom piano, Piers was thoroughly in his element. Hehad a marvellous gift for making music, and his audience listenedspell-bound. His own love for it amounted to a passion, inherited, so itwas said, from his Italian grandmother. He threw his whole soul into theinstrument under his hands, and played as one inspired.
Jeanie, from her sofa, drank in the music with shining eyes. She hadnever heard anything to compare with it before, and it stirred her tothe depths.
It stirred Avery also, but in a different way. The personality of theplayer forced itself upon her with a curious insistence, and she had anodd feeling that he did it by deliberate intention. Every chord he struckseemed to speak to her directly, compelling her attention, dominating herwill. He was playing to her alone, and, though she chose to ignore thefact, she was none the less aware of it. By his music he enthralled her,making her see the things he saw, making her feel the fiery unrest thatthrobbed in every beat of his heart.
Gracie, standing beside him, watching with fascinated eyes the stronghands that charmed from the old piano such music as probably it had neverbefore uttered, was enthralled also, but only in a superficial sense. Shewas keenly interested in the play of his fingers, which seemed to herquite wonderful, as indeed it was.
He took no more notice of her admiring gaze than if she had been a fly,pouring out his magic flood of music with eyes fixed straight before himand lips that were sometimes hard and sometimes tender. He might havebeen a man in a trance.
And then very suddenly the spell was broken. For no apparent reason, hefell headlong from his heights and burst into a merry little jig that setGracie dancing like an elf.
He became aware of her then, threw her a laugh, quickened to a madtarantella that nearly whirled her off her feet, finally ended with acrashing chord, and whizzed round on the music-stool in time to catch heras she fell gasping against him.
"What a featherweight you are!" he laughed. "You'll dance the Thames onfire some day. Giddy, what?"
Gracie lay in his arms in a collapsed condition. "You--you made me doit!" she panted.
"To be sure!" said Piers. "I'm a wizard. Didn't you know? I can makeanybody do anything." There was a ring of triumph in his voice.
Jeanie drew a deep breath and nodded from her sofa. "It's calledhyp--hyp--Aunt Avery, what is the word?"
"Aunt Avery doesn't know," said Piers. "And why Aunt Avery, I wonder?You'll be calling me Uncle Piers next."
Both children laughed. "I have a special name for you," Jeanie said.
But Piers was not attending. He cast a daring glance across the room atAvery who was darning stockings under the lamp.
"Do they call you Aunt Avery because you are so old?" he enquired, asAvery did not respond to it.
She smiled a little. "I expect so," she said.
"Oh no!" said Jeanie politely. "Only because we are children and she isgrown up."
Piers, with Gracie still lounging comfortably on his knee, bowed to her."I thank your majesty. I appeal to you as queen of this establishment; amI--as a grown-up--entitled to drop the title of Aunt when addressing thegracious lady in question?"
Again he glanced towards Avery, but she did not raise her eyes. Sheworked on, still with that faint, enigmatical smile about her lips.
Jeanie looked slightly dubious. "I don't think you could ever call herAunt, could you?" she said.
Piers turned upon the music-stool, and with one of Gracie's fingers beganto pick out an impromptu tune that somehow had a saucy ring.
"I like that," said Gracie, enchanted.
He laughed. "Yes, it's pretty, isn't it? It's--Avery without the Aunt."
He began to elaborate the tune, accompanying it with his left hand, toGracie's huge delight, "Here we come into a minor key," he said, speakingobviously and exclusively to Gracie; "this is Avery when she is cross andinclined to be down on a fellow. And here we begin to get a littleexcited and breathless; this is Avery in a tantrum, getting angrier andangrier every moment." He hammered out his impertinent little melody withfevered energy, protest from Gracie notwithstanding. "No, you've neverseen her in a tantrum of course. Thank your lucky stars you haven't! It'san awful sight, take my word for it! She calls you a brute and nearlyknocks you down with a horsewhip." The music became very descriptive atthis point; then gradually returned to the original refrain, somewhatamplified and embellished. "This is Avery in her everyday mood--sweet andkind and reasonable,--the Avery we all know and love--with just a hintof what the French call _'diablerie'_ to make her--_tout-a-faitadorable_."
He cast his eyes up at the ceiling, and then, releasing Gracie's hand,brought his impromptu to a close with a few soft chords.
"Here endeth the Avery Symphony!" he declared, swinging round again onthe music-stool. "I could show you another Avery, but she is not on viewto everybody. It's quite possible that she has never seen herself yet."
He got up with the words, tweaked Gracie's hair, caressed Jeanie's, andstrolled across to the fire beside which Avery sat with her work.
"It's awfully kind of you to tolerate me like this," he said.
"Isn't it?" said Avery, without raising her eyes.
He looked down at her, an odd gleam in his own that came and went like aleaping flame.
"You suffer fools gladly, don't you?" he said, a queer inflection thatwas half a challenge in his voice.
She frowned very slightly above her stocking. "Not particularly," shesaid.
"You bear with them then?" Piers tone was insistent.
She paused as though considering her reply. "I generally try to avoidthem," she said finally.
"You keep aloof--and darn stockings," suggested Piers.
"And listen to your music," said Avery.
"Do you like my music?" He shot the question at her imperiously.
Avery nodded.
"Really? You do really?" There was boyish eagerness about him now. Heleaned towards her, his brown face aglow.
She nodded again. "Do you ever--write music?"
"No," said Piers.
"Why not?"
He answered with a curious touch of bitterness. "No one would understandit if I did."
"But what a mistake!" she said.
"Is it? Why?" His voice sounded stubborn.
She looked suddenly straight up at him and spoke with impulsive warmth."Because it is quite beside the point. It wouldn't matter to anyone butyourself whether people understood it or not. Of course popularity ispleasant. Everyone likes it. But do you suppose the really big peoplethink at all about the world's opinion when they are at work? They justgive of their best because nothing less would satisfy them, but theydon't do it because they want to be appreciated by the crowd. Geniusalways gets above the crowd. It's only those who can't rise above theircritics who really care what the critics say."
She stopped. Her face was flushed, her eyes kindling; but she loweredthem very suddenly and returned to her work. For the fitful gleam inPiers' eyes had leaped in response to a blaze so hot, so ardent, that shecould not meet it unflinching.
She was oddly grateful to him when he passed her brief confusion by asthough he had not seen it. "So I'm a genius, am I?" he said, and laugheda careless laugh. "Are you listening, Queen of my heart? Aunt Avery saysI'm a genius."
He moved to Jeanie's sofa, and sat down on the edge of it. Her hand stoleinstantly into his.
"Yes, of course," she said, in her soft, tired voice. "That's what Imeant when I was trying to remember that other word--the word thatbegins 'hyp.'"
"Hypnotism," said Avery very quietly.
Piers laughed again. "It's a word you don't understand, my Queen of allgood fairies. It's only the naughty fairies--the will-o'-the-wisps andthe hobgoblins--that know anything about it. It's a wicked spellconcocted by the King of Evil himself, and it's only under that spellthat his prisoners ever see the light. It's the one ticket of leave fromthe dungeons, and they must either use it or die in the dark."
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Jeanie was listening with a puzzled frown, but Gracie's imagination wasinstantly fired.
"Do go on!" she said eagerly. "I know what a ticket of leave is. Nurse'suncle had one. It means you have to go back after a certain time,doesn't it?"
"Exactly," said Piers grimly. "When the ticket expires."
"But I don't see," began Jeanie. Her face was flushed and a littledistressed. "How can hypnotism be like--like a ticket of leave?"
"I told you you wouldn't understand," said Piers. "You see you've got torealize what hypnotism is before you can know what it's like. It's reallythe art of imposing one's will upon someone else's, of making that otherperson see things as you want them to see them--not as they really are.It's the power of deception carried to a superlative degree. And whenthat power is exhausted, the ticket may be said to have expired--and theprisoner returns to the dungeon. Sometimes he takes the other person withhim. Sometimes he goes alone."
He stopped abruptly as a hand rapped smartly on the door.
Avery looked up again from her work. "Come in!" she said.
"It's the doctor!" whispered Gracie to Piers. "Bother him!"
Piers laughed with his lower lip between his teeth, and Lennox Tudoropened the door and paused upon the threshold.
Avery rose to receive him, but his look passed her almost instantly andrested frowningly upon Piers.
"Enter the Lord High Executioner!" said Piers flippantly. "Well? Who isthe latest victim? And what have you come here for?"
The doctor came in. He shook hands with Avery, and turned at once toPiers.
"I have come to see my patient," he said aggressively.
"Have you?" said Piers. "So have I." He stood up, squaring his broadshoulders. "And I'm coming again--by special invitation." His dark eyesflung a gibe with the words.
"Good-bye, Mr. Evesham!" said Avery somewhat pointedly.
He turned sharply, and took her extended hand with elaborate courtesy.
"Good-bye,--Mrs. Denys!" he said.
"I'll come down and see you off," cried Gracie, attaching herself tohis free arm.
"Ah! Wait a bit!" said Piers. "I haven't said good-bye to the Queen ofthe fairies yet."
He dropped upon one knee by Jeanie's sofa. Her arm slid round his neck.
"When will you come again?" she whispered.
"When do you hold your next court?" he whispered back.
She smiled, her pale face close to his. "I love to see you--always," shesaid. "Come just any time!"
"Shall I?" said Piers.
He was looking straight into the tired, blue eyes, and his own were softwith a tenderness that must have charmed any child to utter confidence.She lifted her lips to his. "As often as ever you can," she murmured.
He kissed her. "I will. Good-night, my Queen!"
"Good-night," she answered softly, "dear Sir Galahad!"
Avery had a glimpse of Piers' face as he went away, and she wonderedmomentarily at the look it wore.