He expected to take his degree in
June, and his marriage with Constance Temple had been provisionally
arranged for the September following. He returned to Magdalen Hall
in the best of spirits, and found his rooms looking cheerful with
well-filled flower-boxes in the windows. I shall not detain you with any
long narration of the events of the term, as they have no relation to
the present history. I will only say that I believe my brother applied
himself diligently to his studies, and took his amusement mostly on
horseback, riding two horses which he had had sent to him from Worth
Maltravers. About the second week after his return he received a letter from Mr.
George Smart to the effect that the Stradivarius violin was now in
complete order. Subsequent examination, Mr. Smart wrote, and the
unanimous verdict of connoisseurs whom he had consulted, had merely
confirmed the views he had at first expressed--namely, that the violin
was of the finest quality, and that my brother had in his possession a
unique and intact example of Stradivarius's best period. He had had it
properly strung; and as the bass-bar had never been moved, and was of
a stronger nature than that usual at the period of its manufacture, he
had considered it unnecessary to replace it. If any signs should become
visible of its being inadequate to support the tension of modern
stringing, another could be easily substituted for it at a later date. He had allowed a young German _virtuoso_ to play on it, and though this
gentleman was one of the first living performers, and had had an
opportunity of handling many splendid instruments, he assured Mr. Smart
that he had never performed on one that could in any way compare with
this. My brother wrote in reply thanking him, and begging that the
violin might be sent to Magdalen Hall. The pleasant musical evenings, however, which John had formerly
been used to spend in the company of Mr. Gaskell were now entirely
pretermitted. For though there was no cause for any diminution of
friendship between them, and though on Mr. Gaskell's part there was an
ardent desire to maintain their former intimacy, yet the two young men
saw less and less of one another, until their intercourse was confined
to an accidental greeting in the street. I believe that during all this
time my brother played very frequently on the Stradivarius violin,
but always alone. Its very possession seemed to have engendered from
the first in his mind a secretive tendency which, as I have already
observed, was entirely alien to his real disposition. As he had
concealed its discovery from his sister, so he had also from his friend,
and Mr. Gaskell remained in complete ignorance of the existence of such
an instrument. On the evening of its arrival from London, John seems to have carefully
unpacked the violin and tried it with a new bow of Tourte's make which
he had purchased of Mr. Smart. He had shut the heavy outside door of his
room before beginning to play, so that no one might enter unawares; and
he told me afterwards that though he had naturally expected from the
instrument a very fine tone, yet its actual merits so far exceeded his
anticipations as entirely to overwhelm him. The sound issued from it
in a volume of such depth and purity as to give an impression of the
passages being chorded, or even of another violin being played at the
same time. He had had, of course, no opportunity of practising during
his illness, and so expected to find his skill with the bow somewhat
diminished; but he perceived, on the contrary, that his performance was
greatly improved, and that he was playing with a mastery and feeling
of which he had never before been conscious. While attributing this
improvement very largely to the beauty of the instrument on which he was
performing, yet he could not but believe that by his illness, or in some
other unexplained way, he had actually acquired a greater freedom of
wrist and fluency of expression, with which reflection he was not a
little elated. He had had a lock fixed on the cupboard in which he had
originally found the violin, and here he carefully deposited it on each
occasion after playing, before he opened the outer door of his room. So the summer term passed away. The examinations had come in their due
time, and were now over. Both the young men had submitted themselves
to the ordeal, and while neither would of course have admitted as
much to anyone else, both felt secretly that they had no reason to be
dissatisfied with their performance. The results would not be published
for some weeks to come. The last night of the term had arrived, the last
night too of John's Oxford career. It was near nine o'clock, but still
quite light, and the rich orange glow of sunset had not yet left the
sky. The air was warm and sultry, as on that eventful evening when just
a year ago he had for the first time seen the figure or the illusion
of the figure of Adrian Temple. Since that time he had played the
"Areopagita" many, many times; but there had never been any reappearance
of that form, nor even had the once familiar creaking of the wicker
chair ever made itself heard. As he sat alone in his room, thinking with
a natural melancholy that he had seen the sun set for the last time on
his student life, and reflecting on the possibilities of the future
and perhaps on opportunities wasted in the past, the memory of that
evening last June recurred strongly to his imagination, and he felt an
irresistible impulse to play once more the "Areopagita." He unlocked
the now familiar cupboard and took out the violin, and never had the
exquisite gradations of colour in its varnish appeared to greater
advantage than in the soft mellow light of the fading day. As he began
the _Gagliarda_ he looked at the wicker chair, half expecting to see a
form he well knew seated in it; but nothing of the kind ensued, and he
concluded the "Areopagita" without the occurrence of any unusual
phenomenon. It was just at its close that he heard some one knocking at the outer
door. He hurriedly locked away the violin and opened the "oak." It was
Mr. Gaskell. He came in rather awkwardly, as though not sure whether he
would be welcomed. "Johnnie," he began, and stopped. The force of ancient habit sometimes, dear nephew, leads us unwittingly
to accost those who were once our friends by a familiar or nick-name
long after the intimacy that formerly justified it has vanished. But
sometimes we intentionally revert to the use of such a name, not wishing
to proclaim openly, as it were, by a more formal address that we are no
longer the friends we once were. I think this latter was the case with
Mr. Gaskell as he repeated the familiar name. "Johnnie, I was passing down New College Lane, and heard the violin from
your open windows. You were playing the 'Areopagita,' and it all sounded
so familiar to me that I thought I must come up. I am not interrupting
you, am I?" "No, not at all," John answered.