It was Charles who first discovered the paragraph about Albert Sanger. He came upon it at breakfast and read it through twice over with close attention. Then he took a large bite of hot buttered toast and glanced across the table at his daughter, announcing:
‘Albert Sanger is dead, my dear Florence.’
‘Albert Sanger?’ said Florence, looking up absently.
She knew perfectly well who Albert Sanger was, but she was reading an article in her part of the paper on Poor Law Reform and she did not like to be interrupted.
‘Your poor Aunt Evelyn’s husband. My brother-in-law. Your uncle.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said she, with her eyes wandering back to the paper in her hand. ‘What about him, did you say?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Oh! More coffee, sir?’
‘Not yet, thank you. I’d no idea he’d written so much. Just listen to this!’
And he read the notice aloud to Florence.
‘ “Susanna”!’ she said with some disfavour. ‘I heard it once, in Dresden. I didn’t like it.’
‘No, my love. I daresay not. I never heard that Sanger ever wrote anything in the least like “The Magic Flute”.’
Florence ignored this jibe, which was quite unjust, and proceeded to give reasons for her opinion of ‘Susanna’. She invariably supported all her opinions with excellent reasons.
‘I don’t like subjects chosen from the Bible.’
‘The Apocrypha, Florence.’
‘Is it? Well, but it’s the same genre. These semi-sacred operas are nearly always treated with levity and bad taste, I don’t know why. They’ve no dignity.’
‘Not a very dignified theme,’ mused Charles.
‘And it’s dreary music. Ugly, you know, and noisy.’
‘Dear! Dear! Times change! Your aunt didn’t find it ugly. She thought the world and all of him, poor girl!’
‘That was a very odd affair,’ she commented thoughtfully.
She remembered her aunt very well. Nobody who had known the brilliant creature before her sudden and complete disappearance could possibly forget her. She played so beautifully. And she had a dashing, daring way with her and left vivid impressions of laughter and excitement and people crowding round to hear what she said. Her low voice and enchanting, husky laugh always seemed to inspire other people to make a noise; the dullest gathering, when she joined it, would gaily begin to sound like a party.
Florence was sometimes told that she resembled her aunt, but she could not feel it herself. She enjoyed a conspicuous popularity of her own, being clever, good-humoured, an excellent dancer and competent at games. And in appearance she was, perhaps, not unlike; she had the same clear, glowing brown skin, aquiline features, fine eyes, and neat, dark little head. She had the same choiceness of dress. But she lacked that overwhelming power to charm which Evelyn had possessed independently, as it were, from all her other qualities. Her simple, tranquil gaiety of manner, though pleasing, could never enslave a crowd. She was at her best in a small circle, while no stage had been too large for Evelyn in her prime.
Yet all that beauty and fascination had been squandered. There had been a time when Charles and Robert had hurried off to Germany, a discomposed interlude, full of telegrams and discreet family conclaves behind closed doors. Florence, a schoolgirl, could only guess at what had happened. She did not learn the full history until some years later, when she was considered old enough to hear it By then it was too late to come at the whole truth. The runaway aunt had become crystallised into a legend, a subject for stock sentiments She was “your poor aunt”! She had married the man Sanger, borne many children, had been, mysteriously, very unhappy, and died. That was all, and it gave very little food for the imagination. She remained, for her niece, a vital, audacious memory, an unlucky star which would not remain fixed in any charted constellation, but went streaming off, like a lost meteor, into the void.
‘Poor Evelyn! Poor girl!’ muttered Charles into his coffee cup. ‘That fellow was a brute.’
‘I expect,’ said Florence aggressively, ‘that she got a little bored with polite society. The world’s a big place.’
‘So it is! So it is!’ agreed Charles with a chuckle ‘And plenty of fine things in it. She needn’t have selected a dustman with a turn for music.’
He found it uncommonly difficult to keep a straight face when his daughter instructed him as to the size of the world, It was a point which had but recently attracted her attention, and, in his opinion, she had taken her time about coming to it.
‘He had more than a turn for music,’ she said rather grudgingly. ‘What was the matter with him? What sort of class?’
‘Upon my word I don’t know. He was no class, as my old bedmaker used to say. No class at all. A perfectly uncultivated savage, that’s what he was.’
‘A child of Nature?’ queried Florence, who was really very curious about Sanger.
‘Why yes! That’s more like it. “Red in tooth and claw.” ’
‘I think I like children of Nature.’
‘You never met any. I, for my sins, have met Sanger. I prefer a child of grace every time.’
‘Ne me laisse jamais seule avec la nature,
Car je la connais trop bien …’
quoted Florence sapiently. ‘But I daresay he was encouraging after a surfeit of clever young men. I’m getting very tired of clever young men myself.’
‘You cannot possibly be more tired of them than I am,’ replied the Master. ‘But when you are my age you’ll know that stupid young men are very much worse because there are more of them.’
Florence was nearly twenty-eight. She referred to the fact continually, for she had begun lately to take her age as a serious matter. She had quite suddenly grown out of a lot of things which had till then contented her.
‘It doesn’t say if he’s left a widow,’ said Charles, returning to Sanger. ‘But he’s bound to. Some sort of a widow. And children! He had children of all kinds, as you might say. Some of them are your cousins. I hope they are all right! Remind me to write to your Uncle Robert about them. We ought to make enquiries, I think.’
He got up, folded the paper, and brushed the crumbs off his waistcoat At the door he turned to say:
‘Oh … and the bishop will be here to lunch. And I’m dining in Hall.’
Florence, having finished her breakfast, went about her household duties with the methodical but unenthusiastic efficiency of a woman who is too intelligent to neglect such things. Then she put on her hat and went out to practise string quartettes with some friends. Unlike the rest of her circle, she had no profession, but she was a busy young creature. Since she left College there had been so many attractive things to do, books, music, exciting vacations abroad, eventful terms, full of political meetings and Greek plays, charming friends and, above all, so much to discuss that she scarcely noticed the flight of time. But it had gone on quite long enough. Sometime, quite soon, she meant to put an end to it. She would settle down to some serious work, or, if she could find a man to her taste, she would marry. At present her most favoured cavaliers were in their sixties, and for a husband she wanted somebody younger than that.
As she sauntered along Chesterton Lane, lugging her unwieldy ’cello and nodding to acquaintances, she thought curiously about her aunt, and wondered if it was just mere boredom which had prompted her to fling her bonnet so effectually over the mill. She had abandoned this delightful existence for another, unimaginably remote. Was it possible to presume that she had grown tired of the refinements, the endless demands of civilisation? Or had there been a force more potent than mere discontent? There had been, of course, the musical dustman. They had gone to Venice, which sounded the right sort of place, but it was difficult to guess how they had occupied themselves. They did not discuss architecture or pictures because Sanger was an uncultivated savage and could not, presumably, discuss anything. Florence actually paused in her walk, trying to figure out what one would do in Venice with a sava
ge. Even supposing an ungovernable passion had brought them there, it seemed that they must have been without occupation for many hours, compelled to row about silently in gondolas.
And then it was impossible to guess whether Evelyn had ultimately repented of her bargain. The family assumed that she did, but, all things considered, their grounds were slender. It looked as though they found it more decent to suppose that she regretted her conduct. They had never been able to forget that the wedding had taken place after the Venetian expedition. But Florence, who was nothing if not broad-minded, took little exception to that. The only really inexcusable thing that her aunt had done was to call Sanger a great musician.
Still, there must have been more in him than was apparent to Robert and Charles since Evelyn had chosen to remain with him. A lady of such spirit would not have done that unless she had continued to be satisfied with him. So thought Florence, who had never herself gone anywhere without a full assurance that she would be able to get back. To her it was clear that Evelyn had been happy, content in the life she had chosen, finding romance in it perhaps – a splendid quality, dark and violent and exciting, like a Russian novel. Indubitably the family must have been wrong.
A week later she found her father tearing his hair over a bundle of letters.
‘Florence,’ he said, ‘you never reminded me to write to your Uncle Robert about those children.’
‘What children, sir?’
‘Your poor Aunt Evelyn’s children.’
‘Oh, yes! I’m so sorry. I forgot all about them.’
‘Well, I’ll have to write now, for it’s obvious that something must be done. I’ve a letter here from one of Sanger’s other children. A nice fellow he seems to be, too nice to be a son of Sanger’s I should have thought. The old rascal left nothing but debts, and our children – there seem to be four of them, all under sixteen – are left to starve, unless something is done for them.’
And he handed her a letter from Caryl, an excellent letter, deferential but independent. He had thought it right, he said, to discover the views of the Churchill family before making arrangements for his young half-brother and sisters. It appeared that he and Kate had got employment and were willing to contribute towards the support of the others if no other help was forthcoming. They would all be staying on in the Tyrol for another month, should Charles be disposed to communicate with them.
‘Poor little dears,’ exclaimed Florence. ‘How old is he, do you think, and sister Kate?’
‘I should imagine that they are all short of twenty. But just read this; it’s amazing!’
He handed her a letter from Jacob Birnbaum, who began:
As a very old friend of Albert Sanger I take the liberty of writing to you. He has left four children who are, I think, related to you. Sir, you may not be aware that his death has left them penniless. The eldest is now sixteen. They are not able to support themselves without help. A brother and sister they have who are able to work, and they have said that what is possible they will do. But these, too, are very young, and I hope you will agree with me, sir, when I say that it is too much for such young people to support the whole family. I do not think it possible. I do not know if you are able to help these children, but it is right that you should know how they are left. Before arrangements shall be made, your wishes should be asked. I have wished to pay for the little boy, for five years at a school. Also I will pay something if you should think of placing the young ladies in an establishment I would like to do this; I have loved their father.
‘Well! That’s generous!’ commented Florence.
‘Humph! I’ll believe in his money when I see it,’ grumbled Charles. ‘I distrust the common sense of anybody who could be fond of Sanger. I shouldn’t worry to read the next letter, if I were you. It’s very long. It’s from another friend of the family who writes the most surprising English. Very flowery! He condoles with me, in two pages, upon the loss of a unique brother-in-law, spends three more in explaining what a blow it is to the whole world, and ends up with his own bereavement and the privileges of knowing Sanger. At the end, just before sending me his distinguished sentiments, he mentions that he will subscribe £500 if anything is to be done for the children. He’s crazy!’
‘Where do they all write from?’ asked Florence, looking at the postmarks. ‘All posted from Weissau! Is it a sort of settlement, do you think?’
‘Heaven knows! One of us will have to go and find out They seem to be uncommonly free with their money. Personally I favour the gentleman who wrote the postcard. He’s the only one who professes no regard for Sanger.’
Florence looked at the postcard, which said:
Are you thinking of taking the girls away? Somebody should. If money is short, I could let you have £50. That is all I’ve got, but I daresay I could send you some more some time. – Yours, etc., Lewis Dodd.
‘Dodd!’ she cried, in great excitement. ‘Lewis Dodd! Why! That must be the man who wrote the Symphony in Three Keys! You know, Father! I’m sure you’ve heard me speak of it. I heard it last time I was in Germany. It’s so unfair of you to accuse me in that wholesale way of not caring for modern music. Nothing could be more modern than that symphony, and I felt quite transported when I heard it. Fancy his being a friend of Sanger’s! His music is immeasurably better. The second movement is quite beyond praise. It opens with a twenty-bar theme for strings which …’
‘I know, my dear, I know. He seems to have got fifty pounds out of it anyhow.’
‘And he wrote this postcard!’ she said, looking at it respectfully.
‘Rather uneducated handwriting,’ was Charles’s comment.
Florence turned it over. On the back of it was a picture of a bright blue lake surrounded by very black pines and pink mountains. A small blotchy steamer was crossing the lake in the middle of the card. Along the azure sky Mr Dodd had written a postscript, an afterthought:
It would be a good thing if they were put into a convent.
Charles was saying:
‘But who can go? Somebody must. Somebody ought to be on the spot to settle things. And, as you know, I can’t get away with this Commission coming next week.’
‘Of course you can’t. But I can. I’ll go at once and bring all the poor little dears back with me.’
‘Well, my dear, I’m not sure if I ought to let …’
‘I assure you I can manage it perfectly. I’m not a child. I’m twenty-eight.’
‘I doubt if any woman could tackle it alone. We must see if your Uncle Robert can’t go.’
‘Uncle Robert?’ Florence looked very doubtful ‘Do you think he would be any use at all?’
Charles began to laugh.
‘Robert!’ he shouted. ‘Ho! Ho! Poor Robert!’
Florence also laughed. It was their custom to be amused at Robert, who was supposed, in Cambridge, to be incapable of making or seeing a joke.
‘No, it’s not Robert’s job,’ conceded Charles with a subsiding chuckle. ‘He was pretty well at sea, I remember, when we went out to look after your poor aunt. But this I will say for him: he has a good head on his shoulders where money is concerned. He’ll deal with these philanthropic friends and their cheques.’
‘But really I think a woman ought to go. He won’t know a bit what to do with all these little girls. They are probably very startling children. There may be all sorts of things to be settled on the spur of the moment.’
‘Well then he can take your Aunt May with him, and she can deal with any widows there may be around.’
‘Widows?’
‘As I said, there is bound to be at least one. More probably there are half a dozen, if I know Sanger. But we’ll hope they will have taken themselves off before Robert and May arrive.’
‘Oh, I should like to go!’ cried Florence with sparkling eyes. ‘I should love to see Uncle Robert confronted with the widows. And I’m sure Aunt May won’t go, for Hilda and Betty have the measles. If she can’t, I think I really must.’
‘I do
n’t like it, my love; I don’t like it. You’ll have plenty to do later, when we get the children over here. I think Robert had better go by himself to fetch them.’
‘But I should enjoy going. I’ve always wanted to see the Tyrol in the Spring. And I’m so much intrigued by all these queer friends and … and their postcards.’
‘It’s these queer friends and their postcards that I don’t want you to see. I know what Sanger’s queer friends are probably like. You may depend upon it, they aren’t fit for a decent young woman to associate with.’
‘My dear father! Do you really think I can’t take care of myself? After all I’ve been about a good deal, and I’ve met some pretty odd people. I don’t suppose I shall be nearly as shocked at the widows as Uncle Robert will be.’
‘I daresay not. I’d rather you were more shocked. But you’ve lived a very protected life …’
‘Father!’
This was an unendurable accusation and she looked very much hurt.
‘But you have, my dear! And I can’t help remembering how my poor Evelyn – I was very fond of your aunt, you know, Florence … she was younger than you, of course … but …’
‘That was quite different. I don’t see what can possibly happen to me if Uncle Robert goes too.’
‘Well, well! We’ll see. But you must really be careful in your dealings with any boon companions of Sanger’s you may meet. They are probably the sweepings of the earth. Give me that postcard.’
‘All we know at present,’ she said, taking another look at it before she gave it up, ‘is that they are generous.’
‘On paper, Florence, on paper!’
‘Really, sir, I think you are being unjustly suspicious. You are prejudiced because of Aunt Evelyn. But you know, I often wonder why you take it so for granted that she was miserable. We can’t know. That sort of life is attractive to some people. There is something rather fine, when you come to think of it, about an uncompromising demand for freedom. Our life is, in a way, so cramped …’
The Constant Nymph Page 9