Lancelot flushed. "I was just going to have some tea. I think it's five o'clock," he murmured.
"The very thing I'm dying for," cried Peter energetically; "I'm as parched as a pea." Inwardly he was shocked to find the stream of whisky run dry.
So Lancelot rang the bell, and Mary Ann came up with the tea-tray in the twilight.
"We'll have a light," cried Peter, and struck one of his own with a shadowy underthought of saving Mary Ann from a possible scolding, in case Lancelot's matches should be again unapparent. Then he uttered a comic exclamation of astonishment. Mary Ann was putting on a pair of gloves! In his surprise he dropped the match.
Mary Ann was equally startled by the unexpected sight of a stranger, but when he struck the second match her hands were bare and red.
"What in heaven's name were you putting on gloves for, my girl?" said Peter, amused.
Lancelot stared fixedly at the fire, trying to keep the blood from flooding his cheeks. He wondered that the ridiculousness of the whole thing had never struck him in its full force before. Was it possible he could have made such an ass of himself?
"Please, sir, I've got to go out, and I'm in a hurry," said Mary Ann.
Lancelot felt intense relief. An instant after his brow wrinkled itself. "Oho!" he thought. "So this is Miss Simpleton, is it?"
"Then why did you take them off again?" retorted Peter.
Mary Ann's repartee was to burst into tears and leave the room.
"Now I've offended her," said Peter. "Did you see how she tossed her pretty head?"
"Ingenious minx," thought Lancelot.
"She's left the tray on a chair by the door," went on Peter. "What an odd girl! Does she always carry on like this?"
"She's got such a lot to do. I suppose she sometimes gets a bit queer in her head," said Lancelot, conceiving he was somehow safe-guarding Mary Ann's honour by the explanation.
"I don't think that," answered Peter. "She did seem dull and stupid when I was here last. But I had a good stare at her just now, and she seems rather bright. Why, her accent is quite refined-she must have picked it up from you."
"Nonsense, nonsense!" exclaimed Lancelot testily.
The little danger-or rather the great danger of being made to appear ridiculous-which he had just passed through, contributed to rouse him from his torpor. He exerted himself to turn the conversation, and was quite lively over tea.
"Sw-eêt! Sw-w-w-w-eêt!" suddenly broke into the conversation.
"More mysteries!" cried Peter. "What's that?"
"Only a canary."
"What, another musical instrument! Isn't Beethoven jealous? I wonder he doesn't consume his rival in his wrath. But I never knew you liked birds."
"I don't particularly. It isn't mine."
"Whose is it?"
Lancelot answered briskly, "Mary Ann's. She asked to be allowed to keep it here. It seems it won't sing in her attic; it pines away."
"And do you believe that?"
"Why not? It doesn't sing much even here."
"Let me look at it-ah, it's a plain Norwich yellow. If you wanted a singing canary you should have come to me, I'd have given you one 'made in Germany'-one of our patents-they train them to sing tunes, and that puts up the price."
"Thank you, but this one disturbs me sufficiently."
"Then why do you put up with it?"
"Why do I put up with that Christmas number supplement over the mantel-piece? It's part of the furniture. I was asked to let it be here, and I couldn't be rude."
"No, it's not in your nature. What a bore it must be to feed it! Let me see, I suppose you give it canary seed biscuits-I hope you don't give it butter."
"Don't be an ass!" roared Lancelot. "You don't imagine I bother my head whether it eats butter or-or marmalade."
"Who feeds it then?"
"Mary Ann, of course."
"She comes in and feeds it?"
"Certainly."
"Several times a day?"
"I suppose so."
"Lancelot," said Peter solemnly, "Mary Ann's mashed on you."
Lancelot shrank before Peter's remark as a burglar from a policeman's bull's-eye. The bull's-eye seemed to cast a new light on Mary Ann, too, but he felt too unpleasantly dazzled to consider that for the moment; his whole thought was to get out of the line of light.
"Nonsense!" he answered; "why I'm hardly ever in when she feeds it, and I believe it eats all day long-gets supplied in the morning like a coal-scuttle. Besides, she comes in to dust and all that when she pleases. And I do wish you wouldn't use that word 'mashed.' I loathe it."
Indeed, he writhed under the thought of being coupled with Mary Ann. The thing sounded so ugly-so squalid. In the actual, it was not so unpleasant, but looked at from the outside-unsympathetically-it was hopelessly vulgar, incurably plebeian. He shuddered.
"I don't know," said Peter. "It's a very expressive word, is 'mashed.' But I will make allowance for your poetical feelings and give up the word-except in its literal sense, of course. I'm sure you wouldn't object to mashing a music-publisher!"
Lancelot laughed with false heartiness. "Oh, but if I'm to write those popular ballads, you say he'll become my best friend."
"Of course he will," cried Peter, eagerly sniffing at the red herring Lancelot had thrown across the track. "You stand out for a royalty on every copy, so that if you strike ile-oh, I beg your pardon, that's another of the phrases you object to, isn't it?"
"Don't be a fool," said Lancelot, laughing on. "You know I only object to that in connection with English peers marrying the daughters of men who have done it."
"Oh, is that it? I wish you'd publish an expurgated dictionary with most of the words left out, and exact definitions of the conditions under which one may use the remainder. But I've got on a siding. What was I talking about?"
"Royalty," muttered Lancelot languidly.
"Royalty? No. You mentioned the aristocracy, I think." Then he burst into a hearty laugh. "Oh yes-on that ballad. Now, look here! I've brought a ballad with me just to show you-a thing that is going like wildfire."
"'Not Good-night and good-bye, I hope," laughed Lancelot.
"Yes-the very one!" cried Peter, astonished.
"Himmel!" groaned Lancelot in comic despair.
"You know it already?" inquired Peter eagerly.
"No; only I can't open a paper without seeing the advertisement and the sickly-sentimental refrain."
"You see how famous it is, anyway," said Peter. "And if you want to strike-er-to make a hit you'll just take that song and do a deliberate imitation of it."
"Wha-a-a-t!" gasped Lancelot.
"My dear chap, they all do it. When the public cotton to a thing they can't have enough of it."
"But I can write my own rot, surely."
"In the face of all this litter of 'Ops.' I daren't dispute that for a moment. But it isn't enough to write rot-the public want a particular kind of rot. Now just play that over-oblige me." He laid both hands on Lancelot's shoulders in amicable appeal.
Lancelot shrugged them, but seated himself at the piano, played the introductory chords, and commenced singing the words in his pleasant baritone.
Suddenly Beethoven ran towards the door, howling.
Lancelot ceased playing and looked approvingly at the animal.
"By Jove! He wants to go out. What an ear for music that animal's got!"
Peter smiled grimly. "It's long enough. I suppose that's why you call him Beethoven."
"Not at all. Beethoven had no ear-at least not in his latest period-he was deaf. Lucky devil! That is, if this sort of thing was brought round on barrel-organs."
"Never mind, old man! Finish the thing."
"But consider Beethoven's feelings!"
"Hang Beethoven!"
"Poor Beethoven. Come here, my poor maligned musical critic! Would they give you a bad name and hang you? Now you must be very quiet. Put your paws into those lovely long ears of yours if it gets too horrible. You have been us
ed to high-class music, I know, but this is the sort of thing that England expects every man to do, so the sooner you get used to it the better." He ran his fingers along the keys. "There, Peter, he's growling already. I'm sure he'll start again, the moment I strike the theme."
"Let him! We'll take it as a spaniel obligato."
"Oh, but his accompaniments are too staccato. He has no sense of time."
"Why don't you teach him, then, to wag his tail like the pendulum of a metronome? He'd be more use to you that way than setting up to be a musician, which Nature never meant him for-his hair's not long enough. But go ahead, old man, Beethoven's behaving himself now."
Indeed, as if he were satisfied with his protest, the little beast remained quiet, while his lord and master went through the piece. He did not even interrupt at the refrain.
"Kiss me, good-night, dear love,
Dream of the old delight;
My spirit is summoned above,
Kiss me, dear love, good-night."
"I must say it's not so awful as I expected," said Lancelot candidly; "it's not at all bad-for a waltz."
"There, you see!" said Peter eagerly; "the public are not such fools after all."
"Still, the words are the most maudlin twaddle!" said Lancelot, as if he found some consolation in the fact.
"Yes, but I didn't write them!" replied Peter quickly. Then he grew red and laughed an embarrassed laugh. "I didn't mean to tell you, old man. But there-the cat's out. That's what took me to Brahmson's that afternoon we met! And I harmonised it myself, mind you, every crotchet. I picked up enough at the Conservatoire for that. You know lots of fellows only do the tune-they give out all the other work."
"So you are the great Keeley Lesterre, eh?" said Lancelot in amused astonishment.
"Yes; I have to do it under another name. I don't want to grieve the old man. You see, I promised him to reform, when he took me back to his heart and business."
"Is that strictly honourable, Peter?" said Lancelot, shaking his head.
"Oh well! I couldn't give it up altogether, but I do practically stick to the contract-it's all overtime, you know. It doesn't interfere a bit with business. Besides, as you'd say, it isn't music," he said slyly. "And just because I don't want it I make a heap of coin out of it-that's why I'm so vexed at your keeping me still in your debt."
Lancelot frowned. "Then you had no difficulty in getting published?" he asked.
"I don't say that. It was bribery and corruption so far as my first song was concerned. I tipped a professional to go down and tell Brahmson he was going to take it up. You know, of course, well-known singers get half a guinea from the publisher every time they sing a song."
"No; do they?" said Lancelot. "How mean of them."
"Business, my boy. It pays the publisher to give it them. Look at the advertisement!"
"But suppose a really fine song was published and the publisher refused to pay this blood-money?"
"Then I suppose they'd sing some other song, and let that moulder on the foolish publisher's shelves."
"Great heavens!" said Lancelot, jumping up from the piano in wild excitement. "Then a musician's reputation is really at the mercy of a mercenary crew of singers, who respect neither art nor themselves. Oh yes, we are indeed a musical people!"
"Easy there! Several of 'em are pals of mine, and I'll get them to take up those ballads of yours as soon as you write 'em."
"Let them go to the devil with their ballads!" roared Lancelot, and with a sweep of his arm whirled Good-night and good-bye into the air. Peter picked it up and wrote something on it with a stylographic pen which he produced from his waistcoat pocket.
"There!" he said, "that'll make you remember it's your own property-and mine-that you are treating so disrespectfully."
"I beg your pardon, old chap," said Lancelot, rebuked and remorseful.
"Don't mention it," replied Peter. "And whenever you decide to become rich and famous-there's your model."
"Never! never! never!" cried Lancelot, when Peter went at ten. "My poor Beethoven! What you must have suffered! Never mind, I'll play you your Moonlight sonata."
He touched the keys gently, and his sorrows and his temptations faded from him. He glided into Bach, and then into Chopin and Mendelssohn, and at last drifted into dreamy improvisation, his fingers moving almost of themselves, his eyes, half closed, seeing only inward visions.
And then, all at once, he awoke with a start, for Beethoven was barking towards the door, with pricked-up ears and rigid tail.
"Sh! You little beggar," he murmured, becoming conscious that the hour was late, and that he himself had been noisy at unbeseeming hours. "What's the matter with you?" And, with a sudden thought, he threw open the door.
It was merely Mary Ann.
Her face-flashed so unexpectedly upon him-had the piquancy of a vision, but its expression was one of confusion and guilt; there were tears on her cheeks; in her hand was a bed-room candlestick.
She turned quickly, and began to mount the stairs. Lancelot put his hand on her shoulder, and turned her face towards him, and said in an imperious whisper:
"Now then, what's up? What are you crying about?"
"I ain't-I mean I'm not crying," said Mary Ann, with a sob in her breath.
"Come, come, don't fib. What's the matter?"
"I'm not crying; it's only the music," she murmured.
"The music," he echoed, bewildered.
"Yessir. The music always makes me cry-but you can't call it crying-it feels so nice."
"Oh, then you've been listening!"
"Yessir." Her eyes drooped in humiliation.
"But you ought to have been in bed," he said. "You get little enough sleep as it is."
"It's better than sleep," she answered.
The simple phrase vibrated through him like a beautiful minor chord. He smoothed her hair tenderly.
"Poor child!" he said.
There was an instant's silence. It was past midnight, and the house was painfully still. They stood upon the dusky landing, across which a bar of light streamed from his half-open door, and only Beethoven's eyes were upon them. But Lancelot felt no impulse to fondle her; only just to lay his hand on her hair, as in benediction and pity.
"So you liked what I was playing," he said, not without a pang of personal pleasure.
"Yessir; I never heard you play that before."
"So you often listen!"
"I can hear you, even in the kitchen. Oh, it's just lovely! I don't care what I have to do then, if it's grates or plates or steps. The music goes and goes, and I feel back in the country again, and standing, as I used to love to stand of an evening, by the stile, under the big elm, and watch how the sunset did redden the white birches, and fade in the water. Oh, it was so nice in the springtime, with the hawthorn that grew on the other bank, and the bluebells--"
The pretty face was full of dreamy tenderness, the eyes lit up witchingly. She pulled herself up suddenly, and stole a shy glance at her auditor.
"Yes, yes, go on," he said; "tell me all you feel about the music."
"And there's one song you sometimes play that makes me feel floating on and on like a great white swan."
She hummed a few bars of the Gondel-Lied-flawlessly.
"Dear me! you have an ear!" he said, pinching it. "And how did you like what I was playing just now?" he went on, growing curious to know how his own improvisations struck her.
"Oh, I liked it so much," she whispered enthusiastically, "because it reminded me of my favourite one-every moment I did think-I thought-you were going to come into that."
The whimsical sparkle leapt into his eyes.
"And I thought I was so original," he murmured.
"But what I liked best," she began, then checked herself, as if suddenly remembering she had never made a spontaneous remark before, and lacking courage to establish a precedent.
"Yes-what you liked best?" he said encouragingly.
"That song you sang this afternoon,"
she said shyly.
"What song? I sang no song," he said, puzzled for a moment.
"Oh yes! That one about-
'Kiss me, dear love, good-night.'
I was going upstairs, but it made me stop just here-and cry."
He made his comic grimace.
"So it was you Beethoven was barking at! And I thought he had an ear! And I thought you had an ear! But no! You're both Philistines, after all. Heigho!"
She looked sad. "Oughtn't I to ha' liked it?" she asked anxiously.
"Oh yes," he said reassuringly, "it's very popular. No drawing-room is without it."
She detected the ironic ring in his voice. "It wasn't so much the music," she began apologetically.
"Now-now you're going to spoil yourself," he said. "Be natural."
"But it wasn't," she protested. "It was the words--"
"That's worse," he murmured below his breath.
"They reminded me of my mother as she laid dying."
"Ah!" said Lancelot.
"Yes, sir, mother was a long time dying-it was when I was a little girl, and I used to nurse her-I fancy it was our little Sally's death that killed her; she took to her bed after the funeral, and never left it till she went to her own," said Mary Ann, with unconscious flippancy. "She used to look up to the ceiling and say that she was going to little Sally, and I remember I was such a silly then, I brought mother flowers and apples and bits of cake to take to Sally with my love. I put them on her pillow, but the flowers faded and the cake got mouldy-mother was such a long time dying-and at last I ate the apples myself, I was so tired of waiting. Wasn't I silly?" And Mary Ann laughed a little laugh with tears in it. Then growing grave again, she added: "And at last, when mother was really on the point of death, she forgot all about little Sally, and said she was going to meet Tom. And I remember thinking she was going to America. I didn't know people talk nonsense before they die."
"They do-a great deal of it, unfortunately," said Lancelot lightly, trying to disguise from himself that his eyes were moist. He seemed to realise now what she was-a child; a child who, simpler than most children to start with, had grown only in body, whose soul had been stunted by uncounted years of dull and monotonous drudgery. The blood burnt in his veins as he thought of the cruelty of circumstance and the heartless honesty of her mistress. He made up his mind for the second time to give Mrs. Leadbatter a piece of his mind in the morning.
Merely Mary Ann Page 5