The Lost Stradivarius by John Meade Falkner.pdf

The Lost Stradivarius, by John Meade Falkner

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

The Lost Stradivarius, by John Meade Falkner

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The Lost Stradivarius, by John Meade Falkner

Title: The Lost Stradivarius

Author: John Meade Falkner

Release Date: November 21, 2004 [eBook #14107]

Language: English

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THE LOST STRADIVARIUS

J. MEADE FALKNER

1895

Penguin Books Harmondsworth Middlesex, England 245 Fifth Avenue, New York, U.S.A.

THE AUTHOR

John Meade Falkner was a remarkable character, as he was not only a scholar and a writer, but a captain of

industry as well. Born in 1858, the son of a clergyman in Wiltshire, he was educated at Marlborough and

Hertford College, Oxford. On leaving the university, he became tutor to the sons of Sir Andrew Noble, then

vice-chairman of the Armstrong-Whitworth Company; and his ability so much impressed his employer that in

1885 he was offered a post in the firm. Without connections or influence in industrial circles, and solely by his

intellect, he rose to be a director in 1901, and finally, in 1915, chairman of this enormous business. He was

actually chairman during the important years 1915-1920, and remained a director until 1926.

His intellectual energy was so great that throughout his life he found time for scholarship as well as business.

He travelled for his firm in Europe and South America; and in the intervals of negotiating with foreign

governments studied manuscripts wherever he found a library. His researches in the Vatican Library were of

special importance, and in connection with them he received a gold medal from the Pope; he was also

decorated by the Italian, Turkish and Japanese governments.

His scholastic interests included archæology, folklore, palæography, mediæval history, architecture and

church music; and he was a collector of missals. Towards the end of his life he was made an Honorary Fellow

of Hertford College, Oxford, Honorary Reader in Palæography to Durham University, and Honorary Librarian

to the Chapter Library of Durham Cathedral, which he left one of the best cathedral libraries in Europe. He

died at Durham in 1932.

Apart from The Lost Stradivarius , Falkner was the author of two other novels, The Nebuly Coat (1903--also

published in Penguin Books) and Moonfleet (1898). He also wrote a History of Oxfordshire, handbooks to

that county and to Berkshire, historical short stories, and some mediævalist verse.

The Lost Stradivarius, by John Meade Falkner

THE LOST STRADIVARIUS

Letter from MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS to her Nephew, SIR EDWARD MALTRAVERS, then a Student

at Christ Church, Oxford.

13 Pauncefort Buildings, Bath, Oct. 21, 1867.

MY DEAR EDWARD,

It was your late father's dying request that certain events which occurred in his last years should be

communicated to you on your coming of age. I have reduced them to writing, partly from my own

recollection, which is, alas! still too vivid, and partly with the aid of notes taken at the time of my brother's

death. As you are now of full age, I submit the narrative to you. Much of it has necessarily been exceedingly

painful to me to write, but at the same time I feel it is better that you should hear the truth from me than

garbled stories from others who did not love your father as I did.

Your loving Aunt, SOPHIA MALTRAVERS

To Sir Edward Maltravers, Bart.

"A tale out of season is as music in mourning." --ECCLESIASTICUS xxii. 6.

MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS' STORY

CHAPTER I

Your father, John Maltravers, was born in 1820 at Worth, and succeeded his father and mine, who died when

we were still young children. John was sent to Eton in due course, and in 1839, when he was nineteen years of

age, it was determined that he should go to Oxford. It was intended at first to enter him at Christ Church; but

Dr. Sarsdell, who visited us at Worth in the summer of 1839, persuaded Mr. Thoresby, our guardian, to send

him instead to Magdalen Hall. Dr. Sarsdell was himself Principal of that institution, and represented that John,

who then exhibited some symptoms of delicacy, would meet with more personal attention under his care than

he could hope to do in so large a college as Christ Church. Mr. Thoresby, ever solicitous for his ward's

welfare, readily waived other considerations in favour of an arrangement which he considered conducive to

John's health, and he was accordingly matriculated at Magdalen Hall in the autumn of 1839.

Dr. Sarsdell had not been unmindful of his promise to look after my brother, and had secured him an excellent

first-floor sitting-room, with a bedroom adjoining, having an aspect towards New College Lane.

I shall pass over the first two years of my brother's residence at Oxford, because they have nothing to do with

the present story. They were spent, no doubt, in the ordinary routine of work and recreation common in

Oxford at that period.

From his earliest boyhood he had been passionately devoted to music, and had attained a considerable

proficiency on the violin. In the autumn term of 1841 he made the acquaintance of Mr. William Gaskell, a

very talented student at New College, and also a more than tolerable musician. The practice of music was then

very much less common at Oxford than it has since become, and there were none of those societies existing

which now do so much to promote its study among undergraduates. It was therefore a cause of much

gratification to the two young men, and it afterwards became a strong bond of friendship, to discover that one

was as devoted to the pianoforte as was the other to the violin. Mr. Gaskell, though in easy circumstances, had

not a pianoforte in his rooms, and was pleased to use a fine instrument by D'Almaine that John had that term

received as a birthday present from his guardian.

From that time the two students were thrown much together, and in the autumn term of 1841 and Easter term

of 1842 practised a variety of music in John's rooms, he taking the violin part and Mr. Gaskell that for the

pianoforte.

It was, I think, in March 1842 that John purchased for his rooms a piece of furniture which was destined

afterwards to play no unimportant part in the story I am narrating. This was a very large and low wicker chair

of a form then coming into fashion in Oxford, and since, I am told, become a familiar object of most college

rooms. It was cushioned with a gaudy pattern of chintz, and bought for new of an upholsterer at the bottom of

the High Street.

Mr. Gaskell was taken by his uncle to spend Easter in Rome, and obtaining special leave from his college to

prolong his travels; did not return to Oxford till three weeks of the summer term were passed and May was

well advanced. So impatient was he to see his friend that he would not let even the first evening of his return

pass without coming round to John's rooms. The two young men sat without lights until the night was late;

and Mr. Gaskell had much to narrate of his travels, and spoke specially of the beautiful music which he had

heard at Easter in the Roman churches. He had also had lessons on the piano from a celebrated professor of

the Italian style, but seemed to have been particularly delighted with the music of the seventeenth-century

composers, of whose works he had brought back some specimens set for piano and violin.

It was past eleven o'clock when Mr. Gaskell left to return to New College; but the night was unusually warm,

with a moon near the full, and John sat for some time in a cushioned window-seat before the open sash

thinking over what he had heard about the music of Italy. Feeling still disinclined for sleep, he lit a single

candle and began to turn over some of the musical works which Mr. Gaskell had left on the table. His

CHAPTER I

attention was especially attracted to an oblong book, bound in soiled vellum, with a coat of arms stamped in

gilt upon the side. It was a manuscript copy of some early suites by Graziani for violin and harpsichord, and

was apparently written at Naples in the year 1744, many years after the death of that composer. Though the

ink was yellow and faded, the transcript had been accurately made, and could be read with tolerable comfort

by an advanced musician in spite of the antiquated notation.

Perhaps by accident, or perhaps by some mysterious direction which our minds are incapable of appreciating,

his eye was arrested by a suite of four movements with a basso continuo , or figured bass, for the harpsichord.

The other suites in the book were only distinguished by numbers, but this one the composer had dignified with

the name of "l'Areopagita." Almost mechanically John put the book on his music-stand, took his violin from

its case, and after a moment's tuning stood up and played the first movement, a lively Coranto . The light of

the single candle burning on the table was scarcely sufficient to illumine the page; the shadows hung in the

creases of the leaves, which had grown into those wavy folds sometimes observable in books made of thick

paper and remaining long shut; and it was with difficulty that he could read what he was playing. But he felt

the strange impulse of the old-world music urging him forward, and did not even pause to light the candles

which stood ready in their sconces on either side of the desk. The Coranto was followed by a Sarabanda , and

the Sarabanda by a Gagliarda . My brother stood playing, with his face turned to the window, with the room

and the large wicker chair of which I have spoken behind him. The Gagliarda began with a bold and lively

air, and as he played the opening bars, he heard behind him a creaking of the wicker chair. The sound was a

perfectly familiar one--as of some person placing a hand on either arm of the chair preparatory to lowering

himself into it, followed by another as of the same person being leisurely seated. But for the tones of the

violin, all was silent, and the creaking of the chair was strangely distinct. The illusion was so complete that

my brother stopped playing suddenly, and turned round expecting that some late friend of his had slipped in

unawares, being attracted by the sound of the violin, or that Mr. Gaskell himself had returned. With the

cessation of the music an absolute stillness fell upon all; the light of the single candle scarcely reached the

darker corners of the room, but fell directly on the wicker chair and showed it to be perfectly empty. Half

amused, half vexed with himself at having without reason interrupted his music, my brother returned to the

Gagliarda ; but some impulse induced him to light the candles in the sconces, which gave an illumination

more adequate to the occasion. The Gagliarda and the last movement, a Minuetto , were finished, and John

closed the book, intending, as it was now late, to seek his bed. As he shut the pages a creaking of the wicker

chair again attracted his attention, and he heard distinctly sounds such as would be made by a person raising

himself from a sitting posture. This time, being less surprised, he could more aptly consider the probable

causes of such a circumstance, and easily arrived at the conclusion that there must be in the wicker chair

osiers responsive to certain notes of the violin, as panes of glass in church windows are observed to vibrate in

sympathy with certain tones of the organ. But while this argument approved itself to his reason, his

imagination was but half convinced; and he could not but be impressed with the fact that the second creaking

of the chair had been coincident with his shutting the music-book; and, unconsciously, pictured to himself

some strange visitor waiting until the termination of the music, and then taking his departure.

His conjectures did not, however, either rob him of sleep or even disturb it with dreams, and he woke the next

morning with a cooler mind and one less inclined to fantastic imagination. If the strange episode of the

previous evening had not entirely vanished from his mind, it seemed at least fully accounted for by the

acoustic explanation to which I have alluded above. Although he saw Mr. Gaskell in the course of the

morning, he did not think it necessary to mention to him so trivial a circumstance, but made with him an

appointment to sup together in his own rooms that evening, and to amuse themselves afterwards by essaying

some of the Italian music.

It was shortly after nine that night when, supper being finished, Mr. Gaskell seated himself at the piano and

John tuned his violin. The evening was closing in; there had been heavy thunder-rain in the afternoon, and the

moist air hung now heavy and steaming, while across it there throbbed the distant vibrations of the tenor bell

at Christ Church. It was tolling the customary 101 strokes, which are rung every night in term-time as a signal

for closing the college gates. The two young men enjoyed themselves for some while, playing first a suite by

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