“He is feeling terrible,” whispered Sarah, as Finch crossed the platform. “I can tell by the way he holds his hands.”
“He’ll be all right,” reassured Renny.
Finch bowed with gravity and that look he had, somewhere between distinction and awkwardness. He sat down and began to play. The first half of his programme was classical. In the Bach “Prelude” his nervousness was evident. They could see him trembling as he rose and bowed. But he overcame this. His playing was fluent and firm. It was hard to believe in his suffering before the concert. Renny and Sarah strained their ears to hear the comments of approval about them. It was his playing of Chopin that brought most of these.
Renny faintly remembered some of these pieces. One of them was played by Nicholas, though somehow his playing made it seem different. Two others he had often heard Finch play at Jalna in the old days. They were the best, he thought. Some of the others made him feel pretty restive. He was glad he had been firm and refused to bring Adeline. She would never have sat still. Strange, this ear for music — that is, difficult music. Martial music he himself liked, and church music — in the right place. Passionate Spanish music, gypsy dances, were not without their effect on him. His eyes slid toward Sarah’s profile. Nothing there. Face of a statue. And not a nice statue, either. And Finch, poor devil, would have to go home and sleep with her!
She turned to him smiling, clapping her hands with all her might.
“Clap!” she urged. “The first half is over.”
He made sharp, explosive clappings. People turned their heads toward him. He felt chagrin, folded his arms, and tried to look like a musical critic.
The second half of the programme was modern music. Finch was no longer nervous but he faltered strangely. He seemed strangely moved by his own playing. Once in a Ravel number he stopped and stared straight ahead of him. Sarah clasped her hands against her heart to still its thudding. Was he going to break down? No — he was going on, and with such swiftness and passion that a ripple as of wind across a field of grain passed over the audience. That brought his best applause of the evening. On the whole the recital was a success.
He joined Renny and Sarah outside his dressing room. Two newspaper reporters and some girls with autograph albums had been with him. As they got into the taxi a hilarious grin spread across Finch’s face. He threw his arms about Renny and Sarah.
“Thank God, that’s over!” he exclaimed. “How did I do?”
“You’re the greatest living pianist!” cried Sarah.
That was nonsense, he knew, but he was in the mood to accept all praise. Indeed he had at one moment believed in his own greatness and the flush of that moment still burned on his brow.
“I’m glad it’s over, too,” said Renny. “I find that sort of thing quite a strain. Shall we go and have something to eat?
“I was never hungrier in my life,” said Finch.
Their cousin, Paris Court, overtook them. He had been sitting in the gallery and had heard there what Finch thought of as true criticism. It had been almost entirely favorable. Paris was enthusiastic.
“I wish you could have heard them! One said, ‘His technique is far from perfect but he more than makes up for it by his feeling. He makes you see pictures. We shall hear a great deal more from him.’ Wasn’t I proud? I put my head over his shoulder and whispered — ‘I’m his cousin.’ And he answered, ‘Well, tell him from me that I had rather hear him play than any pianist I know — except the French fellow.’”
“Good,” said Renny. “Come along and have supper with us.” He liked Paris as much as he disliked Malahide.
Finch was in a state of such relief that he had a feeling of incredulous bliss. Again and again he said to himself — “It’s over. I’ve got through. Tonight has gone into the past with all the other nights. It’s melted and gone and even the sound of the piano will never be heard again. It’s staggering to think how I worked and worked to be able to make those sounds on the piano, and they passed into nothing, just as quickly as the sound of that motor horn.”
He stood in the middle of the road, thinking. He might have been knocked down but Paris caught him by the arm and pulled him along.
“Upon my word you’re not fit to be out alone,” he chaffed affectionately.
In the glowing heart of the restaurant they found a table for four. Renny ordered champagne. They sat looking about them, happy and relieved. They felt as though all the other people had been in the concert hall and recognized Finch. But not one of them had.
“I know that the woman with the red dress and the man with the eyeglass were there,” said Sarah. “I saw them.”
She knew that she lied but she had to do it. She had to draw those two people into the circle of ripples emanating from Finch. She held his fingers under the edge of the tablecloth. It seemed to her that they two were flowing together like a single stream through the brightly lighted night. But behind the lights the darkness was waiting for them, and she smiled when she thought of its wild strangeness. She put the glass of champagne to her lips.
“It’s wonderful to me,” said Paris, “to be here with you three. Just think — I might never have met you! Renny, I wish you weren’t leaving so soon but I envy you, going to Canada.”
“Better come back with me,” said Renny.
Parry’s face lighted. “If only I could get a job out there!” he sighed.
“I think you could. I’m pretty sure of it. Anyhow, I could find plenty for you to do through the summer and autumn.”
“I’ll come — if my parents will help me! I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”
“Lucky dog,” said Finch, “I envy you.”
“There’s nothing to prevent your coming too,” said Renny.
“Nothing, except me,” said Sarah. “I’d die rather than see him throw up the place he has made for himself here. What is there for him there?” She spoke with intentional scorn.
“The best in life, in my opinion. You’ll see, he’ll end by coming back.”
Paris broke in to ask questions about the cost of the journey and what he should provide himself with. His face sparkled with animation. He was so eager and enthusiastic that he could always get a job, but he was so volatile and so ready for change that he seldom kept one. Only the week before he had been full of hope over his latest, his employers were the best yet. Now he gayly considered how short a notice he might give them.
“I’m sure my parents will let me go,” he said.
“We shall be glad to have you at Jalna,” said Renny. “I miss my own boys there.”
Now that Finch’s recital was over the attention of all was focused on the first night of Wakefield’s play. They saw little of him for his time was taken up by rehearsals. Renny said he should like to see one of these and Wakefield readily agreed. Once more his relations with Renny were natural or he made himself believe they were. As the thought of Renny’s care over him, his generosity and gentleness, came to him more and more often in these days before Renny’s departure, Wakefield had an almost passionate desire to draw nearer to him, to erase from his own mind any feelings of bitterness he had had.
This was one of the last rehearsals and, as a matinee was in progress at the Preyde Theatre, it was held in the clubroom of a Foreign Waiters’ Association. Renny arrived rather late. The last act was being rehearsed.
In the lobby he had to push his way through a number of foreign-looking men, waiters out of work. Advertisements were pinned to the walls and they stared eagerly up at these. He made his way up a hare staircase and found the room to which Wake had directed him. It was a large one and many chairs stood in rows or were piled in corners. Framed certificates of chefs hung on the walls. At one end there was a sort of dais with a red plush chair standing on it. This was not used as a stage but merely stood as a reminder of the room’s real use. Skylights let in a cold light and the whole effect was shabby and down-at-heel. The scene however, which was being acted in the open space, was dramati
c enough to make one forget surroundings.
It was between Phyllis Rhys, her lover of the play, and her son, played by Wakefield. Renny sat down in a chair rather far back and tried, at first unsuccessfully, to find out what it was all about. Then he discovered that Wakefield was giving the two older people his unvarnished opinion of their behaviour. And how well he did it!
“By God,” thought Renny, “how the boy can act!” Amazing how these half-brothers of his were so talented. Of course they had got it from their mother. It was curious that Piers was the only true Whiteoak among his brothers. Yet, sitting there, Renny suddenly marveled to think that it was to these artistic, temperamental brothers that his heart went out most strongly. Perhaps it was because they required more looking after, called more often on his protective instinct.
He was annoyed when Wakefield was interrupted by Robert Fielding.
“It won’t do! It won’t do at all!” objected Fielding. “I’m so very sorry.”
Wakefield turned to him excitedly but submissively.
“Could you do it more like this?” said Fielding. “Not quite so big, you know, but — shall I say — more poignant?”
He looked and sounded extraordinarily foolish, Renny thought, doing Wakefield’s part, but he watched him with intensity and, when Wakefield repeated the words, Fielding ejaculated, “Good! Much better!”
The rehearsal proceeded toward the curtain. Frederick and Catherine, their mother having left them for her lover, were alone. Catherine had given up the man she loved, for Frederick’s sake. Inexperienced, terribly vulnerable, inarticulate in their emotion, the two talked of commonplaces as the play ended.
Ninian Fox had come and introduced himself to Renny. He annoyed him by making noises of disapproval whenever Molly was saying her lines. At the end he groaned.
“That girl,” he declared, “will ruin everything!”
“Why?” asked Renny coldly.
“She has no fire. She has no feeling. Only Miss Rhys can save the play from annihilation. Hmph, well, I might have known it.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said Renny. “I think she’s good.”
“Do you? That’s comforting.” But he did not look comforted. He rose.
“Will you two young people please do that last bit again?”
Molly Griffith, her young face drawn with anxiety, returned to the charge. Wakefield, tense and determined, exclaimed: —
“‘It’s as though we were children again, Cathie.’”
“Come, come,” interrupted Ninian Fox. “That’s not the way you said that line before.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“I feel that this last scene needs something done to it. It’s really hard to put across.”
The sandy-haired author, sitting in a distant corner, jumped to his feet.
“I agree,” he declared.
“But what can be done?” asked Mr. Fox.
“I’ll try to think of something.”
Every eye was on him as, with his large, pale eyes fixed on the ceiling, he meditated.
“This play,” offered Ninian Fox, “is going to be a failure.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t,” said Robert Fielding, “but I do think something ought to be done about this last scene.”
“Can you think of anything, Phyllis?” Ninian Fox turned pathetically to the leading lady.
She was playing with her pomeranian.
“I might come on again,” she said.
He looked dubious.
“If we just had some stronger lines at the end, it would be fine,” said Wakefield.
The author stared helplessly at the ceiling.
The pom began to run in circles about his mistress, barking.
“Darling, be good!” she exclaimed.
The leading man offered — “I might come back, just for a moment, and say something ironic — if Mr. Trimble could think of anything.”
Mr. Trimble grasped a handful of his hair.
“I had an idea,” he said, “but it’s gone.”
“No one can think in a noise like this,” said Fielding. He bent and picked up the Pom. It bit him and he put it down.
“Bobby, how could you!” cried Miss Rhys. “I’ve warned you about touching him”
“It’s nothing!” But he reddened and sucked his knuckle.
“I lost three thousand pounds on my last play,” said Ninian Fox. “I’m a fool to tackle plays by unknown authors.”
Mr. Trimble also reddened and turned a vindictive look on the manager.
Wakefield’s eyes filled with tears.
“Poor boy,” said Miss Rhys, and patted him on the shoulder.
“Well,” said Robert Fielding, “the play opens on Monday. We can’t go on like this. We’ve got to do something.”
The various members of the company stood about in melancholy groups.
“I was thinking,” said Renny, “that the boy might say something spirited at the last, such as — ‘Oh hell — let’s go for a ride!’”
They gathered about him, friendly and companionable, eager for any suggestion.
“That’s an idea,” said Fielding. “Perhaps not those very words but something of the sort. Perhaps you could do something with it, Mr. Trimble.”
Trimble took out a notebook and retired to a distant corner. The company proceeded to rehearse the play from the beginning.
Renny ceased to listen to it. He saw only the slender figure of Molly Griffith, moving in and out of the scenes. Each time she spoke her voice stirred some memory in him which he could not recapture. It was a memory of mingled tenderness and pain and an indefinite something. A perilous state of recollection went through him — of what he did not know.
Wakefield was not in this first scene. Renny found him at his side, staring at him. Wakefield’s eyes seemed to accuse him of treachery. Perhaps not quite that, but there was accusation in them.
Wakefield asked — “Well, what do you think of it all?”
Renny answered, with a calculated exaggeration of his own manner — “An awful life! I should hate to live it.”
Wakefield laughed rather bitterly. “All life is awful, I guess.”
“That sounds like the things Eden used to say.”
“Perhaps I am like Eden — bound for unhappiness.”
“No, you’re not. You’re not in the least like Eden.” He put his hand on Wakefield’s arm. “Is this thing nearly over? Will you come to dinner with me?”
“Shall I bring Molly Griffith too?” Wakefield looked him straight in the eyes.
“No, no. I shall soon be leaving for home. I want to see all I can of you — with no others about.”
He did not see Molly Griffith again till the night of the play.
In the house in Gayfere Street the tension was almost as great as, and had a wider scope than, before Finch’s recital, because now Adeline and Henriette had their share in it. Renny came to the house at least once every day. He, Finch, Sarah, Adeline, and Henriette were one in their admiration of Phyllis Rhys, their disparagement of the rather phlegmatic leading man, their anger at Ninian Fox’s nagging of Molly Griffith. They knew all about it, but possibly Henriette’s feelings were deepest of them all.
As she arrived with Sarah’s breakfast tray the morning before the first night her expression was woebegone almost beyond belief. She was out of breath with the long ascent but she did not set down the tray. She stood with it poised against her stomach, towering above Sarah. “If that there play,” she said, “is a failure, there is only one person to blame and that is Mr. Fox ’isself. In the first place, he don’t pay a decent wage to any but the leading lady. In the second, ’e’s always predicting failure. In the third, ’e won’t let that lovely young lady alone. Wot’s the matter with ’im is, ’e’s jealous of her and Mr. Wakefield. I’ve seen every sort of person under the sun and I know ’is sort well. ’E’s biological — that’s what ’e is.”
Sarah, in her delicate
ly carven beauty, lay on the lacy pillow looking up at her.
“You’re quite right,” she said. “I’ve been so annoyed by the whole affair that I wrote a very strong letter to Mr. Fox but Mr. Wake wouldn’t let me send it.”
“’E was right. ’T would only have made matters worse. No — we’ve got to go through with it. Though ’ow I shall live through the first performance, I can’t imagine.”
“Well, you have a good seat, Henriette.”
“Yes, and I thank you for it, but I’d ’ave been better suited to the gallery with my clothes and all.”
“Nonsense. People will take you for a dowager duchess.”
“I’m going to have me hair done at the hairdresser’s this afternoon. I fancy a few little curls about the back of the neck. Dear, oh dear, I wish it was all over!”
“You’ll enjoy it when the time comes.”
“I suppose I shall but just now it seems more like something weighing down on me than something lifting up. Well, you’ll want your breakfast before it’s cold.”
She set down the tray in front of Sarah. As she raised herself, one of the many pins and needles stuck in her front caught the topmost piece of toast and held it fast. Quite oblivious of this she departed, sighing heavily.
Finch found Sarah sunk in the pillows weak with laughter.
“My toast, my toast,” was all she could say. “It’s gone.”
“But where?”
“With Henriette! Don’t ask me.”
Sarah was very happy in these days. She was living in the midst of excitement with no exertion on her part. She was constantly with Finch. Renny’s presence, his antagonism, gave spice to their reunion. Their connection, through Wakefield, with the theatrical world gave colour.
Renny had wanted to give a supper party, after the play, at his hotel. But Sarah would not hear of this. It would look strange, she said, for him to give a party in a hotel when she and Finch had a roof over their heads. Renny might provide the supper but she wanted the party in the house in Gayfere Street. When Renny objected to the smallness of the rooms she insisted that a crush was jolly and that Henriette would be brokenhearted if they went elsewhere. He gave in.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 376