by James Hilton
But when the waiter had gone she laughed. “I think that’s rather a symbolic act,” she said. “Wouldn’t Browdley be shocked?”
“Possibly. But without reason. It’s merely another instance of the quite exceptional things that can happen during an Einstein interlude.” He smiled buoyantly, yet a moment later, after watching the pale brown liquid stream into the glasses, he took up his own with a certain sense of significance. It was true, of course, that this simple glass of beer was quite sufficient to shatter all kinds of reputations that he possessed in Browdley; but somehow he could not bring himself to be concerned about it. The cool drink, slightly iced, gave him far different thoughts, breaking through the years till he remembered himself, a young man in his early twenties, on that first thrilling holiday abroad, walking along a winding Rhenish lane amidst blazing sunlight, and calling for a drink at a little wayside refreshment-house where he had sat outside at a bare scrubbed table with a group of working men in peaked caps. He had asked for mineral water, but the girl, misunderstanding his German, had brought him a mug of something which he drank and enjoyed before he realised that it was actually that horrible and dreaded infamy—beer.
He told this story now and she was highly amused, and they went on talking gaily, yet with certain intervals of seriousness, throughout the rest of the meal, until the black coffee, accompanied with cigarettes, provided just that epilogue of reflectiveness that prepared them for the next stage of the evening’s progress. The concert was timed to begin at eight, and at seven thirty he called for the bill and paid a sum which, if he had ever thought about it (but he did not), would have seemed entirely fantastic.
On the pavement outside the restaurant someone said “Taxi, sir?” and he answered “Yes” in the same mood of impulsiveness that had made him ask for Pilsener.
* * *
CHAPTER EIGHT — FRIDAY EVENING
In the taxi he began to wonder what was really happening, and after musing for a time a word occurred to him, a rather astonishing word, he thought, but so definitely the right one that he did not seek for any other. It was all a ‘lark’. It was quite the most gigantic lark he had ever had; but then, in fact, his life up to the present had been somewhat deficient in larks of any kind. And it was good for him, he felt, or at any rate, not bad for him, to indulge in such an occasional escapade. Dinner, talk, music—what could be more harmless? After all, he reflected, he had something to celebrate as well as she.
Besides, like all the best larks—perhaps it was what made them the best—it was all to be such a transient thing. To-morrow she would be abroad, to-morrow he would be in Browdley, and possibly, indeed probably, they would never see each other again. She would have those hours and hours of fiddle practice that she longed for, and he would be back in his little world of guild meetings and chapel services, good works and bad cooking. He saw, with a certain grim relish, the years stretching ahead of him; viewed in mind from the dark recesses of a taxi after a good dinner they seemed to reflect, mirror-like, something of that queer quality in the present-which could only be indicated by that same word—a. ‘lark’. After all, the spirit of fun, of adventure, of enterprise, was surely not to be confined to a single place or occasion. Why should there not be adventure in Browdley? He felt, with conviction, that he would be all the better for this London ‘night-out’ when he got home; it had been a revelation of something he had so far rather missed—the joy of life, that unreasonable and illogical human joy that made a man buy what he could not afford and drink (for once) against his convictions and progress to sudden enchanting intimacy with someone whose very charm, perhaps, lay partly in the unlikelihood of any further meeting.
He looked out of the cab-window and glimpsed again the throbbing and incredibly lovely world—the omnibuses and taxis and private cars passing by with people in them he would never know, each with a life-history, ambitions, and a soul to be saved; the whole pageant of life, no more real of course than was to be seen in Browdley, yet somehow swifter, more picturesque in its setting of electric sky-signs and opera-cloaks. He felt like an explorer, almost, in a strange land; all this goes on, he thought, night after night, just as night after night in Browdley the factory-sirens scream at half- past five and the crowds come tumbling into the streets—the curious, animated routine of two worlds, each ignorant of the other, and meeting, when they did, only in the gaze of some bewildered intermediary like himself. He thought of how such a contrast would strike Councillor Higgs, how it would all seem to him no more than a demonstrated theorem from the economics text-book; which might be very sound and scientific, but now Howat was perceiving another aspect—there was this question of joy, of ‘having a lark’, in which, despite Councillor Higgs, the poor were altogether in agreement with the rich. Both understood perfectly the technique of ‘the good time’, and both were looked at askance by the intermediate class. That made him think of the girl’s description of his Browdley congregation—’respectable middle-class people’, she had called them, and it was accurate enough; he tried in vain to call to mind a single ‘chapel’ family that did not come easily within the category. Some were hard up, he knew, but all were of the class that could sniff superiorly in both directions. Why was it that none of the really poorest and commonest people ever came to his chapel? He had seen them often enough outside the Catholic church. Was it possible, he thought, with an uprush of indignation, that he had been doing nothing for a dozen years but preach to the already converted? Suppose for the future he were to concentrate on the rest? But what had he to offer them? Respectability? The right hand of fellowship as dispensed by a narrow-minded and tight-fisted shopkeeper? A Letitia Monks Vestry complete with sham-Gothic gargoyles? Sermons about the Christian life by one who had passed the age of forty without knowing much about any kind of life?
She interrupted his stormy self-questionings to ask what it was that had kept him silent for half the length of Regent Street.
“Rather an odd thought,” he answered. “It just occurred to me that if ever there’s armed revolution in this country I daresay I shall escape, if I wear my collar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if those fellows in opera-hats over there escape too, but the gutters will probably be running with the blood of respectable middle-class people who go to chapel.”
“That sounds rather fierce.”
“Yes, perhaps I don’t mean it very seriously. But I feel fierce enough when I call to mind all the lies that were told me about you.
“Oh, don’t bother about them. Why do you care any more than I do what people say?”
“You really don’t care, do you?”
“Not a bit.”
Accidentally in the darkness of the cab his hand touched hers, and the contact, together with her answer, gave him a suddenly warming affection for her, and through her, for all struggling and adventurous humanity—for the street urchin fighting his first fight, for the speculator staking a fortune on some hairline of probability, for the artist never quite succeeding, and for all kinds of obvious heroes and heroines as well; he saw her spirit in them all, and that such a spirit should be maligned by the secure and the unadventurous swept him again into passionate indignation.
But they had reached the concert-hall and the uniformed commissionaire was holding open the taxi-door.
As soon as he was settled comfortably in his seat he wanted to laugh. He felt so happy, and he had been anticipating this moment of settlement for so long, and the people all around him looked so very solemn, and the girl at his side stared ahead with such radiant eagerness at the sleek grand piano on the platform. The Cavendish was one of the older concert halls, and gazing round at its chocolate and gold decorations he said: “This is nearly as ugly as my chapel, isn’t it?”—“Rather uglier, if anything, I think,” she replied, and the retort pleased him obscurely and made him want to laugh more than ever.
But soon they found something definitely merrymaking, for the printed programme contained a series of verbal descriptions and interpreta
tions of the music, such as—“Now all the noontide rapture and pulsating vitality of the preceding movement have given place to a calm twilight atmosphere in which the soul begins to glimmer like a star”; and they made the sudden mutual discovery that this was the sort of thing that amused them both intensely. For the next few minutes it seemed a pity to do anything but rummage through their programmes with occasional remarks of “Oh, do read this—it’s better still!”—until they became so uproarious that people near them began to look round reprovingly. “Really,” he exclaimed at last, after laughing a great deal, “is this a proper mood for approaching great music?”—and she answered: “Yes, I think it is—much better, anyhow, than the mood of the person who wrote that programme stuff.” He responded: “Yes, yes—oh, yes,” with almost worshipful eagerness; he knew what she meant, and it was somehow deep with all kinds of meanings that were his also.
“It would be much more intelligent to call music just a nice noise, as a child might,” she said.
“I agree. These attempts to describe tunes in words are ridiculous. You can’t ever be sure what a composer means.”
“Why should he mean anything at all? Isn’t the nice noise that he invents reason enough?”
“Reason enough for us, but is it his reason? Why does he compose?”
“Because he feels like it, or because it’s his job. Or, most often perhaps, because he can’t help it.”
“The person who wrote these programme notes would think your reasons very unromantic.”
“I think they’re tremendous reasons. Especially to do something because you can’t help doing it.”
“Yes, I think I’ve had that feeling myself at odd times.”
“When you first became a minister, I suppose?”
He seemed puzzled for a moment. “No doubt,” he replied at length. “But that wasn’t really in my mind. I was thinking of once or twice when I’ve tackled music composition.”
“You’ve composed?” she queried, her eyes showing more surprise than her words.
“Only a little. When I was younger I was very keen.”
“What did you compose?”
“Songs, hymn-tunes, all sorts of things. I once won ten pounds for a string quartet. That was my biggest hit.”
“Where was that?”
“At a musical festival in East London. I had the pleasure of hearing my quartet played once, very badly, at a special festival concert; that was twenty odd years ago, and I’m fairly certain it’s never been heard anywhere since.”
“It must have been pretty good.”
“It wasn’t bad, I admit. But it wasn’t very good, either. I won the prize because the others were worse.”
“I’d like to know more about it. I never guessed you’d done that sort of thing.”
“Well, I never guessed you were interested in music at all.”
“I know. It was a pity.”
And while he was pondering on what exactly she meant or could mean by that, the pianist and violinist appeared on the platform and the audience broke into applause. The first item was the Kreutzer Sonata, and from the very opening notes Howat had the impression of never having heard it, or even any music, before. He was amazed and a little awed by the feeling; it was terrifying, this acuteness of perception that had come over him—something beyond his mastery, threatening to engulf him in a flood of turbulent sensation, and though he could not identify it with anything known or imagined, yet during the Andante movement it rose in him to such a curious ache that but for the girl at his side and the thought of making a disturbance he might have left the hall. He gripped with his hands tightly on the arm-rests and commanded himself not to be so foolish, so overcome; it was absurd that even music should create such emotional tumult; but it was not the music alone, he explained to himself, but the strange sequence of events that had been happening all day. To-morrow, anyhow, he reflected, would see him reduced to his normal temperature; to-morrow, walking down the slope at Browdley Station, he would step into his old accustomed groove. But the final presto movement swept him out of all such reassurance into a world in which even thought could not be resolved into words, or even feeling into thought. Only the applause at the finish wakened him to reality. He felt dazed, then, and exhausted, as if he had been fighting some secret battle all alone.
The girl, fresh and confidant, turned to him immediately. They discussed the Kreutzer performance for a time, and then she wanted to know more, in detail, about composing work. He told her, as well as he could, and she listened with grave attention. “Why don’t you do any of it now?” she asked, afterwards.
“I do, occasionally. I put in an hour or two only this last week—trying a song for the school Christmas concert.”
“But you’ve given up your big ambitions?”
“Oh, entirely.”
“Is it because you don’t think any more that you could do anything big? Don’t you think it’s in you to do it?”
He pondered and replied slowly: “Honestly, I don’t know for certain, but I should say probably not. I was far too ambitious years ago, that’s obvious. Of course I have a certain amount of talent—it could perhaps be developed if I had the time. But I haven’t the time, and never will have, so really it’s not much use thinking about it, is it?”
“I believe,” she said, thoughtfully, “that these things usually work themselves out in the right way. I mean, if there is great stuff in anyone, it does come out—it has to—nothing else can happen. One would just give up everything for it. The same old reason—doing something because you can’t help doing it.”
He smiled. “Very well, when you hear that I’ve given up my pastorate in Browdley to go and compose string quartets in some garret in Chelsea, or wherever they do compose them, you can assume that I’ve done it because I couldn’t help doing it.”
The programme then continued. The pianist played a Schumann group; next followed the Brahms A Major Piano and Violin Sonata.
Howat had hoped all along that they would play this, and its name on the programme had set a further seal upon the perfection of the evening. Now, as it began, he fell into a second storm of emotion, but he did not, as during the Kreutzer, attempt resistance; he let himself be carried along the crest of the flood-tide and, at the end, found himself tranquil, though in a strange harbour. He could not collect his thoughts for a time, but it was the end of the concert and people were already chattering and shuffling out of their seats. He rose with his companion and joined the crowd streaming to the exits; “I like that Brahms,” he said, soberly; and she answered: “So do I.” There came a point in experience, he reflected (and he felt that she realised it also), when understatement was the less absurd of alternatives. When they were halfway to the doors renewed applause brought on the performers again; they played a short encore piece—some little modern thing which Howat did not know and did not particularly care for either. Nor did she; and he thought: How I like that way she has of being so effortlessly cool and downright—the way she says ‘I like this’ or ’I don’t care .for that’—with her eyes clear as crystal and her nose in the air like some high-spirited thoroughbred. But there was something warm and excited behind the crystal coolness, and in the lobby outside the hall she suddenly took his arm and exclaimed: “I don’t want to go in yet—it’s quite early. Are you tired? Do you want to go back to your hotel?”
He had never thought about the matter until now, but he answered: “Oh no, I’m not tired, either.”
“I’m afraid it’s selfish of me—I’m forgetting the long day you’ve had.”
“I’ve had one of the most extraordinary days of my life—far too wonderful to have been tiring.”
“You’ll be tired to-morrow.”
“I shall probably sleep in the train all the way.
“Then at Browdley I suppose your work begins again immediately?”
“Yes. I’ve got a Bazaar Committee meeting and the Young Men’s class to-morrow night, and Sunday’s going to be even b
usier than usual, because it’s Armistice Day.”
“And I shall be on my way to Vienna. Isn’t it odd to think about it? Do you suppose we shall ever meet again?”
“If you come to Browdley, perhaps, or if I go to Vienna.”
“Neither of which seems very likely, does it?”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t.”
“Then we’ve got to make the most of what’s left. When I think of all those hours we spent over the German without ever guessing how much we both liked—Brahms—”
“I once heard you humming the opening theme of that sonata. I was rather surprised.”
“There was your chance. If you had only asked me about it—”
“I know. I wish I had asked you. I’m an awful misser of chances.”
“Does nobody in Browdley know anything about you?”
“Oh, I’m not really such a mystery as all that. I think quite a number of people know me fairly well.”
“But the music?”
“That’s not a secret—it’s merely that most people aren’t interested. You wouldn’t be, unless you were keen on the thing yourself.”
They had walked away from the hall and were now in quiet and almost deserted side-streets. “Where shall we go?” she asked, and he could not give any definite answer, except a suggestion that they should make their way nearer to the the theatres and restaurants. He knew little about London’s night civilisation and at that moment cared even less. His senses were full of enchantments, and he was perfectly happy to be strolling in a direction which, by instinct rather than calculation, he believed to be correct. With her arm in his they walked all the way, skirting spacious squares and across the main traffic highways and into narrow yards and alleys and diagonally across short streets from lamp-post to lamp-post, past shuttered windows and cabmen’s shelters and cats sitting delicately in doorways; till at last a distant glow over roofs came so near that they walked abruptly right into it—it was Piccadilly Circus. All the way they had been talking, but now they stopped, dazzled by the brilliance, and felt for a moment like country cousins. There were so many restaurants where evening dress was clearly expected, and so many others whose precise character did not look too obvious, that finally Howat made for the swing doors of the Regent Palace Hotel; he had heard of it; it was where people from Browdley sometimes stayed.