As though alive to the difference, Ted came down from the dais blushing furiously, and once back in his place he turned a frowning, sulky face to the congratulations and sly witticisms of his friends.
I minded his discomfiture and yet I enjoyed it too, for it made the party go, keeping it up, enriching it with the spice of malice. Ted the mountebank was just as popular as Ted the hero, perhaps more so, for prolonged hero-worship puts a strain upon one’s vanity. Comic or romantic, the songs that followed were less eventful; mistakes were made, which Marian negligently covered up, but they were mistakes that did not catch the imagination of the audience; indeed, being all on one side, they slightly diminished the hilarity of the evening by giving it the air of a music lesson. This, too, had its piquancy for me, for it affirmed the superiority of the Hall, and I was beginning to bask in this and add it to my other sensations, when, in a pause that followed the last song, I heard Lord Trimingham say: “What about our twelfth man? Can’t he give us something? Latest from school and all that. Come on, Leo.”
For the second time I was called upon to exchange the immunities of childhood for the responsibilities of the grown-up world. It was like a death, but with a resurrection in prospect: the third time it happened, there was none. Even as I left my seat—for it never occurred to me that I could refuse—and felt my mouth going dry, I knew that I should get back to what I had been, just as certainly as, the third time, I knew that I should not. I had no music, but I had a song—Lord Trimingham was right about that. I had several songs. One I had sung at a school concert and it never dawned on me until I reached the platform that I couldn’t sing it by myself.
“Well, Leo,” Marian said, “what is it to be?” She spoke in her ordinary voice, as if there was no one else in the room, and it didn’t matter if there was.
Envisaging the walk back to my place, the catastrophic absence of applause, the sense of failure stripping me naked, I said helplessly: “But I haven’t the music.”
She smiled, a starry smile that I still remember, and said: “Perhaps I can play the accompaniment without. What is it?”
“The Minstrel Boy.”
“My favourite song,” she said. “How high does it go?”
“To A,” I said, proud of my top note, half afraid she would say she couldn’t play it in that key.
She said nothing but took a ring off her finger and rather deliberately laid it on the piano-top. Then she settled herself with a swish of silk that seemed to radiate outwards like a perfume, and played the opening bars.
I suppose I had no reason to be grateful to her for this second deliverance from what I dreaded almost more than anything: looking a fool in public. For the first I had: she had taken a lot of trouble to see that I was properly turned out. For the second it was not her I had to thank, but her gift for music. Yet I think I valued the second intervention even more, for it was not her kindness that had rescued me, but one of her graces. I would not have gone to war for a kindness, perhaps, but for a grace I would, and did. For I had no doubt, as my voice floated upwards, who was going, or why. It was I, and for her. She was my Land of Song. Never did a soldier devote himself to death more whole-heartedly than I did; I looked forward to it intensely, I would not have missed it for the world. As for my harp, I could hardly wait for the moment when I should tear its chords asunder. It should never sound in slavery, I proclaimed; and I can honestly say it never has.
I knew the song so well that I did not have to think about singing it; my thoughts were free to wander as they pleased; and though, unlike the other singers, who kept their eyes on the music, I turned and faced the audience, I could see Marian’s fingers at work, catch the gleam of her white arms and whiter neck, and imagine not one, but a whole series of deaths that I should die for her. Each was quite painless, of course: a crown without a cross.
By the silence of the hall I could tell the song was going down well, but I wasn’t prepared for the storm of clapping, which, owing to the confined space, had far greater impact and head-turning quality than the applause that had greeted my catch. I didn’t know, what I afterwards learned, that far from thinking me a fool for going on the platform apparently unprovided with the means to sing, the company had taken it as a sporting gesture. Forgetting to bow, I stood, while feet stamped and the demands for an encore grew louder. Marian didn’t join me; she sat at the piano with her head a little bowed. Once more at a loss, I went to her side and with some difficulty attracted her attention. I said, unnecessarily:
“They want me to sing again.”
“What else can you sing?” she asked, without looking up.
“Well,” I said, “I can sing a song called ‘Angels ever bright and fair,’ but it’s a sacred song.”
For a moment her sombre face relaxed into a smile; then she said, in her abrupt way: “I’m afraid I’m no good to you. I don’t know the accompaniment to that one.”
The bottom dropped out of my world, for I was longing to repeat my triumph, and my emotional temperature was so high that I had no stamina left in me to meet disappointment. But while I was trying to look as if I didn’t mind, a voice from the audience said, in a strong local accent: “I think I’ve got it ’ere,” and the next moment the speaker was on the platform with a tattered, paper-covered volume called, I still remember, The Star Folio of Popular Songs.
“Shall we skip the first bit?” asked Marian, but I begged her to let me sing it.
Oh worse than death, indeed! Lead me, ye guards,
Lead me on to the rack, or to the flames;
I’ll thank your gracious mercy.
So ran the recitative, concluding with Handel’s habitual pom … pom. I was proud of being able to sing it, for it was in the most uncompromising minor and the intervals were very tricky; also I had enough music in me to know that without it the dulcet air that followed was much less effective. And I liked singing it because the idea of something worse than death had a powerful appeal to my imagination; the Minstrel Boy had gone to his death, but the heroine of this song was threatened with something worse than death. What it was, I had no idea, but, with my passion for extremes, I contemplated it with ecstasy. Besides, it was a woman’s song, and I could feel that I was undergoing these harsh experiences not only for Marian, but with her.… Together we confronted the fate worse than death; together we soared to our apotheosis:
Angels! Ever bright and fair,
Take, oh take me to your care.
Speed to your own courts my flight
Clad in robes of virgin white
Clad in robes of virgin white.
My being was incandescent with a vision of angels, robes, virginity, and whiteness, eternally prolonged; and with the sensation of soaring that the music’s slow ascent so powerfully evoked. But none of this, I think, got into my voice, for I regarded singing as a discipline no less than cricket: nothing of what one felt must be betrayed.
Marian stayed at the piano and left me to take the applause alone. But as it grew more insistent she suddenly got up and took my hand and bowed to the audience; and then, disengaging her hand, she turned and dropped me a low curtsy.
I returned to my seat, but not at once to my pre-song self; the readjustment was too sudden. I had a feeling that my success (for I couldn’t doubt it had been one) had set me a little apart; no one said anything to me until someone asked if I meant to take up singing professionally. I was slightly dashed by this, for singing was an accomplishment not much esteemed at school, and now that I had proved my prowess at it I was inclined to belittle it. “I would rather be a professional cricketer,” I said. “That’s the spirit,” somebody observed; “Ted had better look out.” Ted did not take this up. Regarding me speculatively, he said: “You took those high notes a treat. A real choirboy couldn’t have done it better. You could have heard a pin drop. We might have been in church.”
That was just it; after my religious contribution no one seemed disposed to come forward with a secular song. It was getting late; react
ion into the spectator’s security made me sleepy. I must have dozed, for the next thing I heard was Marian’s voice singing “Home, Sweet Home.” After the musical hazards of the evening, the boss shots, the successes snatched from the jaws of failure, the anxiety for myself and others, it was bliss to listen to that lovely voice extolling the joys of home. I thought of my home, and how I should return to it after pleasures and palaces; and I thought of Marian’s and how inappropriate to it the epithet “humble” was. She sang with so much feeling: did she really long for peace of mind in a thatched cottage? It didn’t make sense to me. But I knew there were much grander places than Brandham Hall; perhaps that explained it. She was thinking of some of the bigger houses in the district, where they went visiting. It was only afterwards that I remembered she was singing the song by request.
Alone of those who were asked to, Marian would not give us an encore. The applause that normally brings singer and audience together had in her case the opposite effect; the harder we clapped, the farther away from us she seemed. I did not resent this or even regret it; nor, I think, did anyone. She was not of our clay, she was a goddess, and we must not think that by worshipping her we could lower her to our level. If she had said: “Keep your distance, worms!” I should have rejoiced, and so, I think, would most of us. The day, the evening, had been full to overflowing: nothing had been withheld, and perhaps we were never more conscious of the sum of our good luck than when Marian denied this final boon.
“Frog-spawn,” said Marcus as we walked back together, “you didn’t do so badly after all.”
I thought it was decent of him to be pleased with my success, so I said, magnanimously: “Lor lumme, toadstool, in my place you might have done as well, or better.”
He said reflectively: “It is true that on certain occasions I should have tried not to look like a sick cow.”
“On what occasions?” I demanded rashly, adding: “It’s better than looking like a stuck pig, any day.”
Marcus ignored this. “I was thinking of the time when somebody not a million miles from here was knocked down by a cricket ball, and lay on his back with his feet in the air, showing his posterior to all the gaping villagers of Brandham, Brandham-under-Brandham, Brandham-over-Brandham, and Brandham Regis.”
“I didn’t, you po-faced, pot-bellied—”
“Yes, you did, and another time was when you were singing the ‘Minstrel Boy,’ which is a silly song anyhow, and you rolled your eyes just like a sick cow—you really did, Leo—and you sounded like one, too—a cow that is just going to be sick. Oo—er—yar—” he gave a dramatic imitation of what I knew was a physically impossible feat. “I was sitting with Mama pretending to be a villager—poor dear, she didn’t want them on both sides of her—and she was convulsed, and so was I—I shouldn’t like to tell you what I nearly did.”
“I can guess, you bed-wetter,” I said. This was an unkind thrust, but I was really put out. “If you weren’t such an infernal invalid, with knees like jelly and arms like sparrow’s elbows, I should—”
“Yes, yes,” said Marcus, pacifically, “you didn’t really do so badly. I wasn’t as ashamed of you as I expected to be. And you got rid of that brute Burgess, though it was the biggest fluke I ever saw. God, when I saw him at the piano with Marian it made me go all goosy.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Don’t ask me, ask Mother. At least don’t ask her; she feels like I do about the plebs. Anyhow, we’ve said good-bye to the village for a year. Did you notice the stink in that hall?”
“No.”
“You didn’t?”
“Well, not particularly,” I said, not wanting to seem insensitive. “I suppose it was a bit whiffy.”
“Phew! Three times I nearly had to cat: I had to hold myself with both hands. You must have a nose like a rhinoceros, and come to think of it, you have: the same shape, the same two bumps, and just as scaly. But I suppose you were too busy mooing and rolling your eyes and sucking up the applause. Golly, you did look pleased with yourself.”
I felt I could afford to disregard this.
“And you looked so pi, Leo, really dreadfully pi. So did everybody, while you were singing that church thing about the angels taking care of you. They all looked as if they were thinking about their dear dead ones, and Burgess looked as if he might be going to blub. Of course it’s difficult to know how Trimingham feels, because of his face, but he didn’t half crack you up to Mama. He’ll eat out of your hand now.”
Having allowed me this dewdrop, Marcus paused. We were approaching the house—the S.W. prospect, I suppose, since the village lay that side; but I still can’t remember what it looked like though I remember how bright the moonlight was. I could hear voices in front of us, but none behind; we had been the last of the party to leave, largely because I lingered to receive further congratulations on my performance, which was partly, no doubt, why Marcus was sore about it, or pretended to be. He peered dramatically into the bushes and waited till we were demonstrably out of earshot.
“Can you keep a secret?” he said, dropping our schoolboy language.
“You know I can,” I answered.
“Yes, but this is very important.”
I gave extreme pledges of secrecy; that I should fall down dead if I betrayed his confidence was one of the least binding.
“Very well, I’ll tell you, though Mama made me promise not to tell anyone. But can’t you guess?” Marcus was evidently afraid that his revelation might fall flat.
I couldn’t.
“Marian’s engaged to marry Trimingham—it’ll be announced after the ball. Are you glad?”
“Yes,” I said, “I am. I’m sure I am.”
14
I REMEMBER Sunday morning as a whitish blur, soundless, featureless, and motionless. All my wishes had come true, and I had nothing left to live for. This is usually taken to mean a state of despair; with me it was bliss. Never, even after the downfall of Jenkins and Strode, had I had such a supreme sense of personal triumph. I realized that it was due to extraordinary luck; the cricket ball might have been a few inches higher, no one might have been able to play my songs. But that didn’t detract from my achievement; luck was in love with me, like everyone else. I stood so high in my own regard that I was beyond the need for self-assertion, for putting myself across. I was I. It was thanks to me that we had won the cricket match; thanks to me that the concert had been the success it was. These were facts that could not be gain-said.
A more partial triumph might have made me cocky, as Marcus thought I should be; but mine was too undeniable, too absolute. It moved me to awe and wonder, almost to worship. At last I was free from all my imperfections and limitations; I belonged to another world, the celestial world. I was one with my dream life. Of this I needed no confirmation from anyone; and when at breakfast I was again congratulated on my achievements, it had no more effect than more fuel under a kettle already boiling.
But it was not only for myself that I was triumphant. Marcus’s disclosure had crowned my happiness anew. Of outside influences, Marian’s favour had been the Jacob’s ladder of my ascent; had the balance of my feelings for her been disturbed by a harsh look, I should have fallen, like Icarus. And now she was just where I wanted her: united to Lord Trimingham, my other idol. Though I was not worldly, I got some extra satisfaction from the suitability of the match.
These were high matters which appealed to my imagination. But they also affected my daily life, or would affect it. I took it for granted that my role of postman would now cease.
I was glad of this for several reasons. I still did not see how my secret missions could be combined with Marcus’s return to normal life. They had excited me and become a habit with me and before the cricket match I hadn’t really wanted to abandon them. The current of my endeavour flowed in them; I was most myself when I was carrying them out. I liked the secrecy and the conspiracy and the risk. And I liked Ted Burgess in a reluctant, half-admiring, half-hating way. When I was away
from him I could think of him objectively as a working farmer whom no one at the Hall thought much of. But when I was with him his mere physical presence cast a spell on me; it established an ascendancy that I could not break. He was, I felt, what a man ought to be, what I should like to be when I grew up. At the same time I was jealous of him, jealous of his power over Marian, little as I understood its nature, jealous of whatever it was he had that I had not. He came between me and my image of her. In my thoughts I wanted to humiliate him, and sometimes did. But I also identified myself with him, so that I could not think of his discomfiture without pain; I could not hurt him without hurting myself. He fitted into my imaginative life, he was my companion of the greenwood, a rival, an ally, an enemy, a friend—I couldn’t be sure which. And yet on Sunday morning he had ceased to be an unresolved discord and had become part of the general harmony.
At the time I did not wonder why; I was content to accept the peace that my thoughts offered me. But now I do wonder and I think I know. I had disposed of him. Twice I had overcome him in fair fight. Of what use were the fours and sixes of this village Jessop when I had caught him out and snatched victory from him? My catch would be remembered when his sparkling innings was forgotten. And in the same way I had eclipsed him at the concert. His songs of love had moved me and brought him plenty of applause; but it was applause mixed with laughter, for a personal not a musical success; they clapped him for his hesitations and mistakes, as well as for the rough charm of his singing; they clapped him as they might have clapped him on the back. And what a figure he had cut on the platform, with his red face, his board-stiff suit, and his strength turned to heaviness! Whereas I, with my songs of death, my high, pure, church music, had captured the admiration as well as the emotions of the audience. From the human plane of badinage and teasing, of jollity and good-fellowship, I had transported them to the region of the angels. I had given them real music, purged of human frailty, not a knock-about turn; and Marian had set her seal on this, she had left her throne and taken my hand and curtsied to me. If the Cricket Concert of 1900 was remembered, it would be remembered for my songs—my songs of death, not for his songs of love. I had killed him, he was dead, and that was why I no longer felt him as a discordant element in my orchestra.
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