A Note in Music

by Rosamond Lehmann

  “I wouldn’t have made it any nicer,” she told herself heavily.

  Norah put on an overall and painted cheap chairs and tables in pretty colours; other women re-decorated their rooms with their own hands, for ninepence-half-penny, they told you smugly; adding that of course the only way to get the colour you wanted was to mix the distemper yourself. If she were to try she would only make a thorough mess of it. But at least, she thought, even if her house was dreary and impersonal—at least she knew it. She did not have a mauve and gilt drawing-room and rejoice in it, as some of them did. She did not express herself in royal blue with a frieze, or orange and black stripes, and feel satisfied. It was only that … only that she could not express herself at all, in any way—least of all through possessions; through walls and pieces of furniture and ornaments, and all the incredible paraphernalia of household things. She hated possessions: so she did what was easiest, and then forgot about them. Besides, she was not here really … no, she was not here: not in this cage.

  Annie brought in the chocolate shape and set it down in front of her. She came with her gentle, slow step, and lingered as usual, waiting for a word.

  “Jolly good fish pie, Annie,” said Tom heartily.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said softly. But it was never for Tom she lingered.

  The eyes of the two women met over his head, and they smiled. They understood each other without speech.

  Annie’s gaze said soothingly:

  “There. Cheer up. Your favourite pudding. Eat a nice big helping, and you’ll feel better, poor dear.”

  She knew that she was the object of an obscure pity and solicitude from Annie—she was not sure why: perhaps because of her childlessness. She thought that Annie was the only person in the world whose sympathy she could bear. Annie had the gift of a perfect animal tenderness in her ample form, her voice, her gestures.

  She had two helpings; and after that it was not so hard to unlock her tongue and answer quite agreeably when Tom asked:

  “What about a movie? Feel like going out? No—too cold, I expect. Or would you?”

  In his anxiety not to say the wrong thing he floundered, poor wretch, and contradicted himself.

  “There’s a new film at the Imperial,” she said. “We might see that.”

  “Sure you feel like it?”

  On the point of replying “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t go,” she checked herself and merely nodded; then went upstairs to put on the ancient fur-lined grey cloth coat that had been his wedding-present to her.

  As she pulled a hat painfully over the great knob of her hair, she thought that shingling might improve her temper. After all, Tom would probably never notice if she shaved off every hair on her head, or wore it in a reckless frizz. He never looked at any one much: only slight, unseeing, almost furtive glances. It must be years since he had looked at her.

  And still, she thought, going downstairs again and seeing him below her in the hall, massive, red-necked, buttoning his overcoat—still she went on watching him, his presence remained a constant paradox: still, though she had taken him and marriage and all for granted long, long ago, she could not quite get used to living with this man.

  They sat through the film in silence. He bought her some chocolates, and she steadily ate through them while she watched; and, lost at once in the illusion, felt the familiar tide of well-being creep sluggishly over the mud-flats of her daily life. The heroine’s fair wild crest, dramatic eyes and lips, slender limbs ravished and absorbed her. Tom faded in the darkness and became blent with the rest of the mass of dimly-seen forms, and with the fumes of tobacco smoke, and all the unreality of the cavernous pillared hall.

  The lights went on, and at once the sphere of illusion crumbled beneath her feet and vanished, leaving scarcely a memory. She dragged herself to her feet as the tinted portrait of King George appeared on the screen, and the violins started to rasp out the National Anthem. Immediately Tom caught her arm and began to fuss and push, trying to get out before the rest of the crowd. As usual, she resisted, making herself a lump.

  Suddenly he nudged her.

  “Look,” he said, “that’s young Miller.”

  “Who’s young Miller?”

  “The new chap in the office—the one I told you about. In the middle of the row there, sitting down. Funny, he must have been just behind us all the time.”

  She looked, and by the dirty pinkish glare of the lights saw the solitary figure of a young man. She saw thick, untidy locks of light hair falling over a head thrown back and still. His face was in shadow. His hands were laid out on his knees, his body sunk deep in the chair; and he seemed in a deep abstraction.

  “Wonder what he’s waiting for. … Shall we go up and have a word with him?” whispered Tom, trying as he passed to catch his eye.

  “No,” she said sharply.

  But he was not convinced.

  “Don’t suppose he knows a soul up here,” he said. “Not much fun going alone to a movie your first night. I think I’ll just go up and say we’d have asked him to join us if we’d seen him before. It ’u’d seem civil, wouldn’t it?”

  He looked dubious and self-conscious. She thought: “He wants to make a good impression on the old man’s nephew.”

  “Let him alone,” she muttered. “He’s all right.”

  What had that imperturbable Oxford head to do with a provincial couple such as they? He was deliberately ignoring his surroundings, and he would resent any intrusion with cold politeness. She felt herself begin to blush, and she hurried Tom forward.

  At the exit she glanced back and saw that he had risen and was lounging along the empty row towards another door. She noticed his height and his very broad shoulders, and it flashed across her for a second that she had seen him before. … Had he merely been waiting till the gangways emptied, and he could walk out at his ease; or (more probably), had he seen her and Tom, and deciding that she looked even worse than he, stayed behind in order to avoid them? The idea filled her with a sudden sense of humiliation. She had been all right once—her father had been at Oxford, he had taken her there several times, and she had seen how he harmonized with it, bore its stamp. The last time had been just after her engagement, when they two and Tom had made an expedition from London. That day had been a failure. Tom had looked quite out of place in Oxford, and she had suddenly felt that she did not want to be identified with him in any way—that the idea of marrying him had arisen in some state of mental distortion only now perceived. … But when they got back to London the angle had shifted again, and he, piloting them both over the crossings with manly and stern encouragement, had seemed more or less in perspective. She had lazily wondered if all emotional truths were impermanent, only a matter of changing moods and circumstances; and then drifted on.

  They came out into the cold streets.

  “There’s the tram,” said Tom. “Hurry.”

  He took her by the elbow, and they broke into an absurd trot. Running at any time was bad enough; but to be run with made her feel murderous. They arrived at the tram-stop to find a solid wedge of humanity struggling to get aboard.

  “What was the point of hurrying like that?” she panted. “You might have known there wouldn’t be any room. I’m not going to scramble in all that disgusting crowd.”

  “Come on,” he urged. “There’ll be room on top.” He caught the rail and swung himself on to the step; then held out a hand to pull her after him. But she dropped back and said sulkily:

  “I’m going to walk.”

  She wanted to stay out all night; wanted to run away; wanted to…

  He did not hear her. Arms and legs and bodies pressed indignantly against his form, swept it on up the stairs. The tram started; and the last she saw of him was his red face peering down and grimacing at her with puzzled anxiety.

  The moment she was left alone, she felt the black oppression drop
from her. The street seemed all at once quiet and deserted. She buried her chin in her fur collar and walked on, feeling light, calm and solitary. Ahead of her, the great black outline of the cathedral cut into the purple sky, and beside it the Victory on top of the monument spread giant upsweeping wings. Yes, there was beauty here. But round the corner, the wind struck bitterly. After all, she thought, faintly smiling in self-mockery, it was too far to walk home. She jumped into the next tram and sat staring blankly in the middle of a row of blank faces till she was set down at her very gate. She let herself in; and with the locking and bolting of the door behind her felt heaviness come upon her again.

  Tom had gone upstairs. She heard him in his dressing-room coughing and clearing his throat loudly. She sat for a few minutes by the whispering gas fire, glanced idly at a paper, ate half an apple; then put out the lights and climbed wearily to her room.

  “Tired,” she whispered to herself on each step. “Tired, tired.”

  How long since she had really felt well?

  She undressed in the cold bedroom and got into bed, and lay moving her hot-water bottle up and down her as a shield against the piercing chill of the sheets. But she could not get warm all over. She hoped Tom would hurry: he would make her warm.

  She heard the last tram come moaning down the avenue and stop beneath the window; then start again with a wrench. It was the limping tram, the wounded one that screamed and faltered as it went. At first she had thought she could never sleep for the sound of trams trailing themselves up and down from dawn till midnight; and now, together with late footsteps and motor-horns, and the dustman’s rumbling early cart, and Saturday night laughter in the streets, and the crying of the next-door baby before daylight, it was like the sound of life.

  A thought of the country came and she turned over, burying her face in the pillow the better to see a January sun on the fields. Along the hedgerows the tall ash and hazel rods thronged stiffly; they sprang up gleaming in the sun like lances of bronze and silver. The first lambs of the year were crying. … The light of the January fields was a pale shining violet. … But in this northern town the light had no colour. She thought of the little park with its deserted bandstand, hopping robins, struggling shrubs, keep-off-the-grass signs, silent nursemaids, dejected dogs on leads. None but the saddest, sparsest flowers grew in its beds; and even at midsummer it never quite lost its look of grieving wintry sadness.

  Ring up the plumber to-morrow, the damned plumber about the loathsome plug. Count the washing. Take a skirt to be dyed. … The film hadn’t been a bit good really. What had that young man been thinking about, sitting alone and disdaining his surroundings? For a moment she had thought she had seen him before somewhere. …

  Tom came in and shut the door softly behind him. Without a word he switched out the light, got into bed, and turned over on his side. They lay with their backs to each other, far apart.

  Soon she heard him begin to breathe deeply and evenly: and then he turned again with a sigh and came nearer to her.

  “You’re cold,” he murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “Poor Gracie. … Soon get warm.”

  He flung an arm over her and drew her close to him. It was a gesture almost mechanical—the habit of years.

  After a bit he muttered indistinctly:

  “Sorry about this evening. Whar on ear’ happened? … I couldn’t help … Sorry. …”

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Never mind. It was me.”

  He sighed heavily with sleep, making a little plaintive noise in his throat, like a child.

  “There,” she murmured. “There.”

  She gave his hand a little pat.

  They slept.

  Part Two

  The year slid imperceptibly from the first to the second month of its course.

  In the southern counties February will come in with a sudden stillness, with mild blue watery air, with the ploughed earth mysterious in the dark fields, yielding to bear the young corn. From the lime tree the blackbird calls, one primrose dusk, a new call, and in the moment of that sound spring bursts upon the imagination, sealed buds have swollen, crocuses crowd the lawn, the swallows are over the river, stark branches swim in fresh mists of green.

  But in the north there is no change. In February the wind-carved snow-wreaths still lie on the brown moors, old drifts heap the ditches. Should the rain unbind the earth for one day, an iron frost will lock it once again on the morrow.

  There is no change at all, thought Norah, standing on Grace Fairfax’s doorstep and observing by means of a prolonged squint that her nose was red and be-smutted. (Winter smuts were more deadly than the summer ones: they ground themselves into the rough cold-puckered skin.) The heavy sky sagged down over the roofs, and the wind blew bits of paper about the street.

  A moment later Grace could hear Annie in the hall, engaged in a conversation of her usual type, and saying softly:

  “Quite well, thank you, madam. … Oh, yes, madam. … And the little boys, are they well?… It was ever so nice when you used to bring them round to tea, in their prams. … Well, of course it’s quite a long time ago, now, isn’t it? I was forgetting … time does fly. It used to be a nice change for Mrs. Fairfax. …”

  Norah’s laugh rang out.

  “Oh, Nannie’s afternoon off! My friends must have dreaded it as much as I did. I always dumped them on somebody. Do you remember when we left them in the kitchen with you, and went off to the Fair?”

  So they had! thought Grace, listening in the sitting-room: put on their hats quickly and gone off giggling to ride on the merry-go-rounds while Annie minded the children: two cheerful undignified creatures making the round of the side-shows, then helping each other push the pram back, give a superficial scrub to the children and bundle them into bed a good hour past the proper time.

  She saw an old self in a flash: an even-tempered young married woman with a hopeful outlook and the average activities of her kind. What in the world could have happened to her? … It was all her own fault, for she had had no troubles, no real ones. It must be that she had been too unspiritual to keep a young heart: she had allowed the years like a slow and fleshy vegetable growth, to stifle her. It was her own fault; or perhaps the fault of Tom—so coarse-fibred, drinking so many whiskies-and-sodas. … But then, was it really to be stifled—to be thus packed inside with a gradual accumulation of brooding and critical thoughts? She was probably less stupid than she had been, if only people knew.

  How like Annie to remember the Fair! She was always raking over the details of old times: she was the greatest bore in the world. There she was just outside the door now, droning on:

  “Oh, yes, madam, it was very nice. Little pickles! The big one, he would lock himself in the larder. And the baby—he was such an old-fashioned little soul, wasn’t he? He gave me such a look, so solemn and majestic, when I jumped him on my lap. I nearly begged his pardon for the liberty. It seemed almost like … I told Mrs. Fairfax afterwards—” (Annie bent her head, overcome with respectful roguishness) “I really felt for the moment I must have forgotten myself and was trying to jump Mr. MacKay. … That child was his living image when he gave me that look.”

  Norah’s chuckle came again.

  “Little monsters!” she said. “You should have tried spanking them, like their mamma.”

  From Annie came soft sounds, murmurs of deprecation, of protestation, as who should say no better children ever existed, and—though she saw the joke—no mother less liable to spank; and she ushered Norah into the sitting-room with an expression of triumph: for there was a treat in store for Mrs. Fairfax. Mrs. MacKay had come to take her for a drive in the car.

  “Anywhere special?” asked Grace, as they drove off.

  “Yes—to see the aunts for a moment. One of them broke her leg out hunting last week, and I haven’t even inquired. Reckless old thing. But will any
thing kill her? No.” She sighed despondently. “How am I to send Robin and David to school if they don’t die and leave me their money? … But it’s no good hoping.”

  Norah had relations all over the country: a couple of hard-riding, close-fisted maiden aunts in a stone barracks on the moor; a family of cousins, who, living on a large estate, sent sons into the services, kept daughters at home uneducated, moulded to their sagging tweeds, organizing girl guides, breeding sealyhams, riding to hounds inelegantly, astride on comic ponies, or following the hunt in a derelict Ford; finally, a bearded elderly cousin who lived in a charming house in a green valley, collected first editions, prints, tapestries, and early English water-colours, and dwelt altogether in a certain haze of culture and mystery and tobacco-smoke: dwelt, moreover, in almost unbroken silence, for his wife was stone-deaf, and spent her days in the rose-chintz drawing-room, the world forgotten, reading the French and German classics; or in the garden, tending her rockery, looking at her roses and delphiniums. Yes, Norah was well-connected; her relations abounded. She had come often as a child from her home in London to stay with one or other of them, had ridden, walked, picnicked, and run wild with them. One of the naval cousins had madly loved her, and she had assisted the girls (in a spasm of yearning after personal embellishment caused by her presence) to do their hair. But when she grew up they lost sight of her. She had taken up dancing in London, they heard—or was it singing?—and gone to a great many parties; and nursed in France during the war; and finally, after years, returned to the county, but not to the fold: returned married to Gerald MacKay, penniless professor at the University, of quite a different class, they said, able neither to ride nor shoot nor hold a rod; very queer too: simply an ill-mannered boor, one would say, if it were not more charitable to think that early brilliance at Cambridge, or perhaps shell-shock, had unhinged him a little. It was quite disconcerting to find him there—if one came to call—restless and resentful, with the look of a trapped animal, only opening his mouth to dart a snub or a glance of blue fire at Norah if she attempted to include him in her remarks, or appealed to him, with her broad smile, for corroboration of some statement; as likely as not snatching up a book suddenly and stamping upstairs to his bedroom. Whether or no Norah resented his behaviour it was hard to say. She was full of spirit, or had been once; but one never saw temper in her eyes even, and she smiled on and never complained at all.