All costumes were alike to Lemoyne; he had appeared in dozens. If he
lacked costume now, he made it up in manner. He had bestowed an
immensity of manner on Amy Leffingwell, downstairs: his cue had been a
high, delicate, remote gravity. "I know, I know," he seemed to say;
"and I make no comment." Upstairs he kept close by Cope: he was
proprietary; he was protective. If Cope settled down in a large chair,
Lemoyne would drape himself over the arm of it; and his hand would
fall, as like as not, on the back of the chair, or even on Cope's
shoulder. And when he came to occupy the piano-stool, Cope, standing
alongside, would lay a hand on his. Mrs. Phillips noticed these minor
familiarities and remarked on them to Foster, who had lately wheeled
his chair in. Foster, a few days later, passed the comment on to
Randolph, with an astringent comment of his own.--At all events, Amy
Leffingwell remained in the distance, and George Pearson shared the
distance with her.
Foster had broken from his retirement on hearing the voices of Cope and
Lemoyne combined in song. The song was "Larboard Watch," and he
remembered how his half-brother had sung in it during courtship, with
the young fellow who had acted, later, as his best man. Lemoyne, at the
first word of invitation, had seated himself at the instrument--a
lesser than the "grand" downstairs, but not unworthy; then, with but a
measure or so of prelude, the two voices had begun to ring out in the
old nautical ballad. Lemoyne felt the composition to be primitive,
antiquated and of slight value; but he had received his cue, and both
his throat and his hands wrought with an elaborate expressiveness. He
sang and played, if not with sincerity, at least with effect. His voice
was a high, ringing tenor; not too ringing for Cope's resonant
baritone, but almost too sweet: a voice which might cloy (if used
alone) within a few moments. Cope was a perfect second, and the two
went at it with a complete unity of understanding and of sentiment.
Together they viewed--in thirds--"the gath'ring clouds";
together--still in thirds--they roused themselves "at the welcome call"
of "Larboard watch, ahoy!" Disregarding the mere words, they attained,
at the finish, to something like feeling--or even like a touch of
passion. Medora Phillips had never heard Cope sing like that before;
had never seen so much animation in his singing face. By the fourth bar
there had been tears in her eyes, and there was a catch in her breath
when she exclaimed softly, "You dear boys!" It was too soon, of course,
to make Lemoyne "dear"--the one boy was Cope. It was really his voice
which she had heard through the soaring, insinuating tones of the
other. Foster, sitting beside her, suddenly raised his shade and peered
out questioningly, both at the singers and at his sister-in-law. He
seemed surprised--and more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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