“Yes, my dear.”
“Did it hurt much?”
“Not so much, my dear, as when a boy is unkind to his mother.”
One morning the child looked at him solemnly.
“Nuncy, am I a soldier yet?”
“Well, nearly. You’re twice the man you were when you came here. I’m getting quite proud of you. Now, let’s see you salute.”
The child drew himself up, put his heels together, and saluted.
“Splendid. And when a soldier salutes he says to himself: ‘For King and Country and Mother.’ A soldier should never tell a lie, or be cruel. He should be gentle to women and children and all animals, because he is strong and brave.”
“Nuncy, when can I see mother? I want to show her how I can salute.”
“I think very soon, my soldier.”
So Hereward Blount wrote that letter.
“My dear, come. Ronnie wishes to salute you.”
He kept her coming as a surprise for the boy; but when he saw Cesca Tarleton on the steps of the villa, and the child standing stiffly to attention with his hand to his forehead, something cried out in him.
“Ronnie, splendid! The soldier may kiss his mother.”
The child rushed into the outstretched arms.
DISCORD
Moral courage!” said Old Mischief, poking the granite chips with the point of his stick, and looking sly, “what about moral courage? Beastly phrase.”
The man who had provoked the argument was lighting a pipe, leaning forward in one of the blue garden chairs, with his hat tilted over his eyes, for the morning was sunny, and beyond the balustrade the sea sent up a flickering glare.
“Doing something you don’t want to do,” he said.
“But—why call it moral?”
“Well, there’s a difference, isn’t there?”
“How?”
“Physical courage, like facing a lion, or facing a yelling crowd.”
“You call that moral?”
“One does; one draws distinctions.”
Old Mischief sat and smiled.
“I’d like to turn your hypothetical lion on to your yelling crowd. Courage, yes; there are all sorts of courage. Personally, I have a prejudice in favour of the monkey courage that sits and gibbers and shivers, and then comes down off its bough—in spite of its shiverings. And not for a coco-nut——”
“That’s my point,” said the earnest young man with his high colour under the turned down brim of his hat.
“Something you don’t do for the sake of a coco-nut.”
“Exactly.”
The orchestra in the kiosk under the palms showed signs of life; the violinist, a little, dark-eyed man with a fuzz of black hair and the face of a marmoset, was standing and cuddling his beloved instrument under his chin. His eyes met the eyes of Old Mischief and smiled. The little figure bent slightly at the hips, and Old Mischief’s truculent white head answered with a benedictory nod. There had been some talking, a scraping of feet and chairs on the shingled terrace, but when the little violinist began to play the “Chant Hindu,” a silence fell, and that silence was maintained.
At the end of the piece Old Mischief led the applause, and it seemed to the earnest young fellow that he was applauding the man as well as the music. The violinist’s polite little bow was directed to the old man’s chair, and the young man asked a question.
“You know that violinist chap?”
“I do.”
“He can play.”
“Other things, too. Talking of moral courage! I have never seen anything that got me so hot in the soul——”
“Oh—how? Something he did?”
“Last season—here.”
“I’d like to hear about it. He makes me think of your monkey on a bough.”
“So he is—but a super-monkey. I’ll tell you about it, if you like.”
“Do.”
And so, in the pauses between the music, Old Mischief told the earnest young man whose name was Spargood—the tale of the monkey and the Blatant Beast. He told it with fierce emotion, and a little twirling smile, and glimmers of irony and of pathos.
He began by pointing to the stony dressing of the terrace.
“See that stuff?”
“The shingle, or whatever they call it here?”
“Yes. Not exactly a musical surface—is it?”
“Hardly.”
“And the chairs. Drag a chair—with its heels trailing—and you make a nasty sort of noise.”
“I’ve heard it.”
“Not during the music.”
“No.”
The orchestra played “Tales of Hoffman,” and Old Mischief sat in silence until the applause had died away.
“Warm blooded people—some Italians. Make good husbands and fathers. Sarto has a wife and three kids; immensely attached to them, almost more than to his violin.”
“But that kind of attachment is rather different.”
“Oh—in a way. Haven’t you heard of men dying for their crafts, a bit of chemistry or a bit of medicine?”
Spargood thought that he had; he was wondering when Old Mischief would get on with his tale—but Old Mischief had his own way of telling a tale. He appreciated atmosphere, the live details of a drama.
“They live in a flat, top floor in one of those big blocks behind the church. Maria dries her washing on the flat roof, and the three kids play there, jolly, brown little beggars; and Sarto grows a few mangy plants in boxes. He is not much good at plants—is Sarto.”
“Better at throwing coco-nuts,” said Spargood a little restively.
Old Mischief paused for another selection, thinking the while that one of the most important lessons a young man has to learn is not to be in too much of a hurry.
“Sarto threw his coco-nut all right. I may say at the time that Maria had been ill—and he was over-worked and over-worried, trying to wash the children and nurse his wife and pay the doctor, and play his violin. Of course—his violin was his tonic, his safety valve—a man’s job is.”
“He played here?”
“Yes, just the same, in his little suède-topped boots, and a red handkerchief sticking out of his pocket. Played like blazes, and the more serious Maria’s illness grew—the better he played. Perhaps you would not have expected that?”
“Oh—I don’t know,” said Spargood, relighting his pipe. “I remember, during the war——”
But Old Mischief would not allow him to be reminiscent.
“Same orchestra, same people, same chairs, same silly stones, same kids trundling their hoops. Sarto didn’t like the hoops, but he made allowances for children. One has to. As for the people—they are always much the same, rather stupid and self-absorbed and over-fed—most of ’em. You have to burn brown paper under their noses before they sit up and take notice.”
He sat and smiled for a moment.
“To them—Sarto was just a little, fuzzy-headed Dago who could make rather nice noises on a violin. To some; not all. But it is always the somes who make trouble. She—was one of them.”
“Ah—she was,” said Spargood, realizing that the other important person was being pushed on to the stage.
Old Mischief allowed himself a brief reverie, an enjoyable moment of gazing at one of the most piquant pictures in the gallery of his recollections. In repose his long, sun-tanned old face wore an expression of sardonic benignity, his grey eyes looking out under his white eyebrows with a steady glitter at the sea.
“Yes—she was immense,” he said; “one of those masses of over-fed egotism trailing about with a wheezy Pekinese on the end of a leash. Her husband—I believe—had founded some big business, fifty or sixty retail shops scattered about along the south coast. Anyway, he had been knighted. Sir Augustus Pork. He was dead—but Lady Pork——!”
He gave an almost soundless and wicked chuckle.
“Imagine a surface of raw ham dusted over with baking-powder. Add custard-coloured hair, a pair of American spectacles, a double chin, a
vastness dressed in white, and ankles that made you think of sandbags. No; I’m not being cruel. Good nature can redeem most things, like a spice of parmesan in spaghetti. She was a beast.”
“I know the sort,” said Spargood; “incredibly stupid and incredibly arrogant.”
“Buried in mental fat. Well, she had the No. 1 super-suite in the hotel, and her blessed dog was the only one allowed to enter the sacred portals. The ‘Grand’ was not doing too well last season; the manager was jumpy and worried, and of course—a prize pig like Lady Pork wallowing in the best pen——! An animal to be worshipped, a sacred symbol—almost. Yes, she really did wallow. She used to come down in crimson and blue dresses, like a Max Beerbohm cartoon, her red mottlings plastered over. And what that woman could eat! I sat at the next table. She dug up her victuals like a dredger. The staff buzzed about her like flies; she threw money about, oozed with it. Not generosity—you know—but mere ostentation.”
He drew an exultant breath.
“Now for the monkey! Can you imagine an enraged and chattering little ape hurling a coco-nut at such a magnificent and potent creature?”
“In a way—oh—rather. But how——?”
“I’m coming to that. See—the kiosk, and the stones, and the chairs, and the little Sarto in an ecstasy of worried emotion and music, and people—some of them—talking all through the music, and a lot of French on the parade chattering like a flock of dingy jackdaws.”
“I can see it.”
“And the sea a purring blue, and the flowers smiling, and the mimosa making a golden smell, and Sarto playing the Kashmiri Love Lyrics. ‘Pale hands I loved——’ Eleven a.m.; just about then—always—the Pork arrives.”
“In a butcher’s cart!”
“Trailing that Pekinese, who had a way of yapping at everybody and everything. But it wasn’t the dog—but the woman. She liked to make a noise. Lady Pork—forward! She must have a particular chair in a particular place, and there was a chair kept labelled—‘Lady Pork.’ ”
“That’s fame!”
“Rather. Now, mark you, she could have had both chasseurs from the hotel carrying chairs all over the place for her, but that was not my lady’s way. She was the sort of woman who likes making a noise, simply can’t help it, must bang doors, and clatter things. Form of stupidity, insensitiveness—same thing. People who bang doors ought to be bow-stringed. As I say—the Pork woman loved noise, or seemed to, personal noise—her noise. It came out even in the matter of that chair. It never appeared to be standing just where she wanted it to stand, and she would take it by the nape of the neck and drag it with its heels trailing——”
“Over the stones?”
“Over those damned stones, and right through the sentimentado of Sarto’s soft movements. It always seemed to happen like that; yes, every morning, just as though she had timed it to a nicety. It used to make me grit my teeth.”
He stretched out his long, thin legs, and crossed one over the other, and his movements were rather like the movements of a bird.
“Of course, it got poor Sarto. The first time it happened I saw him wince. He looked as though he were going to burst into tears. Ever seen a monkey weep? The second day he looked surprised, puzzled, as though he simply could not understand anybody trailing that damned noise right through his music. It wasn’t so much the obtuse discourtesy of the thing as the insult—to music—all music. On the third day when he saw her coming, and the orchestra was in the middle of a piece of Schumann’s—he did what was for Sarto a quite dramatic thing——”
Old Mischief paused: he liked the artistry of pauses. He appeared to be interested in something out to sea. Spargood waited—but he might have waited for ever had he not slipped into the slot of Old Mischief’s mind the necessary penny of curiosity.
“What did Sarto do?”
“Stopped the music.”
“Did he though!”
“And stood there waiting—with his bow trembling like a fencing foil, until my lady had finished with the chair and had sat down.”
“Did she notice anything?”
“Would she?”
“I suppose not.”
“No more than a raw ham would have missed the buzzing of a fly. Sarto tried it twice.”
“Without effect?”
“Quite.”
“Poor little devil.”
“Not so poor a little devil. He had his orchestra with him, and I suppose they put their heads together, for next day they timed themselves to be in the middle of some raging, banging jazz tune. They were making a devil of a noise, when my lady came and dragged her chair through the middle of it, with the Pekinese snuffling with his nose in the air, and Sarto stopped the music——”
“You could have heard a pin fall.”
“You could hear the dog snuffling. But did she notice the silence? Not she. I saw little Sarto go as white as his shirt front. His teeth showed. Remember that he had a sick wife and debts——”
“Yes; but didn’t anybody——?”
“We just sat. I admit I was on the edge of my chair, ready to jump into the breach—but, on the next occasion, the whole business was on fire before one could think of water.”
“Sarto lost his—hair?”
“Oh, it was more stately than that. The little fellow really behaved like a gentleman; but he said things—he must have said pretty nasty things—with a smile and a bow.”
“Went for her?”
“Yes. She trailed her chair right through the ‘L’Après Midi.’ He stopped the music; walked across to her. I was rather too late.”
“You didn’t hear——?”
“Only the tail of it, if one can hear a tail wagging. I think he just told my lady in broken English exactly what she was. Raw ham! My lord!”
“Some row?”
“She got up like a mottled fishwife. She walked straight up to the hotel. As a matter of fact we had applauded; I led it off. And the woman’s face! She went straight for Mathers, the manager.”
Old Mischief surveyed his neighbours, and then dropped his voice a little.
“Well, you know Mathers. Nice chap, but a smiler and a cynic; sort of fellow who shrugs his shoulders and tries to slip round an obstacle instead of getting over it. Lady Pork went for Mathers hammer and tongs. She said she had been grossly insulted by a little hired monkey who played the fiddle. Sarto must be sacked, yes, instanter, or my lady would have her trunks packed. I suppose Mathers did a little calculation. Violinists are cheap, and Lady Pork was occupying the most expensive suite and spending more money than anyone else in the hotel.
“Mathers suggested an apology—but she would not hear of an apology; she was not apologized to by foreign fiddlers. She threatened to write to Mathers’ Company and tell the directors that she had been insulted, and that their manager had refused to give her proper satisfaction.
“That—got Mathers. He saw that she meant to be nasty, and he happened to know that the directors were not satisfied, and that he was none too sure of his job, so he became very polite and sympathetic and promised to sack Sarto that very day. It would be cheaper to pay the fellow a month’s salary and clear him out than to offend Lady Pork.”
“So Mathers sacked him?”
“Yes.”
“Rather awkward for Mathers.”
“Life is very awkward for people without independence, but I must say those musicians came out of it rather well. The whole orchestra struck when Sarto told them that he had been fired.”
“Did they though!”
“And that was how we discovered what had happened, for the ‘Grand’ had no orchestra that night, and the people who wanted to dance began to grouse.”
“Well—naturally. Just because an arrogant and vulgar old woman——”
“I went and saw Mathers, and Mathers shrugged his shoulders, and said that he had to think of his directors and the hotel.”
“Didn’t mention himself?”
“No. Why should he? And then I wen
t to see Sarto. I found him sitting in a chair beside his wife’s bed, feeding her with bread and milk, his eyes as big as saucers. He made a sign to me to say nothing. He hadn’t told her, didn’t mean to tell her—while she was like that. Rather plucky of him. He was pretending that he had an evening off, and he was going to go on pretending—until he got another job.”
Old Mischief allowed himself another pause, and Spargood lit another pipe.
“We went up on to the roof, and there—little Sarto let himself explode. He talked at me and at the stars—and I tell you—I felt rather small. Why hadn’t we—the people who sat and listened to music and applauded it—helped him to quell the Blatant Beast? Had we sick wives, and doctors’ bills, and children to be fed? And he had nothing but a violin. Well—I took the little man by the arm. I told him that I would see what could be done, and I can tell you that I meant something to be done. The little chap had me hot about the ears.”
“It—was—rather fine of him.”
“He had thrown his coco-nut. It was up to us, the comfortable and secure people, to throw ours. I went back to the hotel and into the smoking-room and the billiard room, and got hold of several sober fellows and told them to collect their wives. Then we had a little gathering in the bridge room, with the door locked, and I put Sarto’s case and how I felt about it.”
“Did they rise?”
“In bits. Very awkward—you know—for comfortable people to jeopardize all their holiday arrangements, but I talked them over. I made them see that if the whole hotel acted pretty solidly we could outweigh the pork merchant. Old Sandeman, a very decent old fellow who occupied No. 2 suite, helped me a lot by coming out strongly on Sarto’s side. We formed a small committee.”
“I see. And canvassed——?”
“Yes, every blessed resident; and by twelve o’clock next day we had persuaded three-quarters of the people that it was our duty to get Sarto back. We actually persuaded them to sign their names.”
“Splendid,” said Spargood earnestly; “splendid.”
Old Mischief appeared to be enjoying the sweet savour of a pleasant memory, staring at the toes of his shoes as though he loved them.
“Of course the committee went and interviewed Mathers and put the proposition to him.”
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 56