‘I don’t want to offend her,’ she said. ‘She carries a good deal of weight in some quarters. It wouldn’t be at all difficult for her to put a spoke in your wheel.’
‘I haven’t got a wheel.’
‘She has contrived to get her opinion respected upon musical matters. I can’t think why. I don’t like her voice.’
‘A filthy rat squeak!’
‘Still, I’d like to ask her.’
‘Then do! It’s only for once.’
‘And I’m asking the Mainwarings … my cousins, you know. They’re quite harmless. He’s in the city, but he knows a lot about music. She’s very nice. And then, if he’ll come, I want to get Sir Bartlemy Pugh.’
Sir Bartlemy Pugh had written a quantity of church music and some choral pieces in a melodious, old-fashioned style which Lewis heartily despised. He made some strong remarks about it, but showed no other objection to the proposed invitation. Florence said serenely:
‘You never heard any of it, dear. He’s a charming old man. I’ve known him since I was that high. Then Dr Dawson. He’s another old friend I’d like to have.’
Distinguished old men who had rocked her cradle were to be very much to the fore at these early parties. She used all her pretty ways to induce them to come. Dr Dawson, who was a fine conductor but a terrible bear, said when she tackled him:
‘Don’t make eyes at me, Florence Dodd! I’m coming because I want to meet your husband.’
Whereat she almost kissed him.
Lewis was quite pleased at the sound of his name, but looked less agreeable when she said that she wanted the Leyburns. He demanded who they were.
‘Oh, you know! She’s a very fine singer. She used to be the wife of Jimmy Jansen, but it didn’t work. They run the Guild of Beauty, she and Edward Leyburn, I mean.’
‘What is the Guild of Beauty?’ he asked unpromisingly.
‘Those people who give those concerts down in the slums. You must know! They have quite a good choir; and they practically run the Nine Muses. Their idea is to educate the popular taste in the Arts, beginning with the proletariat; that’s such a much more promising field than the middle classes. They try to give the people really good music. That concert we went to at Notting Hill Gate was got up by them.’
‘Call that really good music?’
‘N—no … It was a good level for amateurs, and …’
‘Amateurs,’ said Lewis, pronouncing the word as if it made him a little ill, ‘have no business to have a level. Is this Leyburn an amateur?’
‘Don’t talk in that tone of voice about amateurs. I’m one myself. Yes, he is. He sings very nicely too. And he’s done a lot of splendid work bringing music to the people.’
‘What’s he want to do that for?’
‘My dear Lewis! Why do you write music?’
‘God knows!’
‘Don’t you want to give pleasure to people?’
‘No.’
‘That’s a pose.’
‘It’s not! I’ll swear it’s not. I tell you this, Florence. The sight of a lot of them listening to my work, or Sanger’s work, or anything decent, makes me sick. I swear then I won’t write another note, if that’s what it’s for. Sanger too! I know how he felt. Once I remember they made a demonstration round the door of a hall when he came out, shaking hands with him and so forth, and an old fellow came up and said: “Mr Sanger, I’d like to tell you of the pleasure that you’ve given to a poor working man.” “Oh?” said Sanger. “I suppose you think I ought to want to please every son of a bitch who can pay for a sixpenny ticket.” ’
He paused to laugh at this retort, but Florence was not amused. She said, rather angrily:
‘That was abominable, and not at all funny. Not a bit. It’s a thing I can’t understand in you, Lewis, the way you repeat the perfectly disgusting things that Sanger said as if they were good stories.’
‘They are good stories.’
‘It was particularly odious to say that to a poor man.’
‘He’d have said it, just the same, to a grand duke. I wish it had been my father that he said it to. No, but you miss the point. That’s how Sanger felt about pleasing people. And I think I feel in much the same way.’
‘It’s quite the wrong attitude. I hope you won’t say that sort of thing to the people at my party.’
‘Write down beforehand what I have to say and I’ll learn it off.’
She was reassured, a little, by his manner of saying this. To reward him she asked if there was any guest he wanted.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d like to ask Ike and Tony.’
‘Ike and Tony?’ She was very doubtful. ‘Do you think they would enjoy it?’
‘Tony loves any sort of party. And Ike would enjoy moving in such high circles. I want him to meet Millicent. He might give a cheque to the Guild of Beauty.’
Florence shuddered.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’d love to have them. But at this particular party they might feel just a trifle out of it. Everyone who is coming knows everyone else rather well.’
‘Then I shall feel out of it, and so will the children. It would be nice for us to have the Birnbaums to consort with.’
Florence explained that the children were not to be there and they wrangled over this for several minutes. At length they compromised; he would ask Jacob without Antonia, and later on he would give a party himself for the Birnbaums and the children. Florence was most cordial over this idea.
‘I’ll have Nils Stavgröd,’ said Lewis. ‘He’s coming next week for a season here.’
‘You know him?’ cried Florence.. ‘Of course we’ll have him. Why didn’t you suggest him before?’
‘I didn’t mean your party, I meant mine.’
‘Ask him to both.’
‘I doubt if he’d like yours. He wouldn’t get on with Millicent. It isn’t his line.’
‘There’s no privilege in meeting Teresa and Paulina.’
‘He’s met them. He knows them. He’s like me and prefers them, I expect.’
‘You’re very arrogant.’
He said nothing.
‘And small minded.’
‘Yes,’ he said complacently.
Exasperation almost choked her. For a few minutes she could say nothing; she sat still, wondering dumbly how much longer she was going to put up with their crazy ways. Not any longer, it seemed, for as soon as she had got her breath she heard herself proclaiming instructively:
‘Your attitude is completely wrong. You put the wrong things first. Music, all art … what is it for? What is its justification? After all …’
‘It’s not for anything. It has no justification. It …’
‘It’s only part of the supreme art, the business of living beautifully. You can’t put it on a pedestal above decency and humanity and civilisation, as your precious Sanger seems to have done. Human life is more important.’
‘I know. You want to use it like electric light. You buy a new saucepan for your kitchen and a new picture for your silver sty. I’ve seen it. My father’s cultured. He …’
‘It’s a much abused word, and one is shy of using it. But it means an important thing, which we can’t do without.’
‘Can’t we? I can! By God I can! Why do you suppose I ran away? To get free of it. Why do you think I loved Sanger?’
He broke into a wild tirade against the people who would chain him and his labour to the chariot wheels of a social structure. He tried to urge his own conviction that beauty and danger are inseparable; that ideas are best conceived in a world of violence; that any civilisation must of necessity end by quenching the riotous flame of art for the sake of civic order. But he could not say what he meant. He was not furnished with any of the right words for such a discussion, and used, moreover, so many inexcusably wrong ones that she lost the thread in her indignation.
‘I can’t stand this obscene language any more,’ she said, jumping up. ‘And I’m sure the world would be an unspeakably awfu
l place if you could have your way in it.’
‘If you had yours, the only people who would enjoy themselves would be sick persons and young children.’
‘Well, why not? Lewis! I will not have it. Is it impossible to you to discuss anything without swearing? Very well then! We’d better let it drop!’
After preliminaries like these it was scarcely surprising, even to Florence, that the party was a failure. Jacob Birnbaum, reporting on it to his wife, said:
‘Lewis is a fool! He does not take his opportunities.’
‘Was it very grand?’ asked Antonia, who had stayed awake on purpose to hear all about it.
She supposed that she had not been invited because she was not grand enough. In many ways she was a very humble creature in spite of a pearl rope and fifty pairs of silk stockings.
‘No,’ said Jacob. ‘The women were comme il faut, but they had no style. You in your chemise are worth all of them together. You are not invited because Mrs Dodd is growing tired of the Sangers. She does not think that you are altogether a credit. Also, Lewis is not to be a second Albert, even though she is a little like Evelyn, you understand?’
‘I don’t think I do. I think she’s fond of us. But how is Lewis a fool? Was he drunk?’
‘Not so much. But he is throwing away all his good chances. These people might help him. He has insulted every one of them, I think, but old Dr Dawson. There was this man there, Leyburn, who manages the Nine Muses, does he not? He will produce “Prester John” there, and Lewis shall conduct it. But Lewis! He would do nothing but abuse the piece!’
‘Well, but it’s very bad. Sanger was ashamed of it himself. He was very young when he wrote it. At home we thought it a joke. It was howled down in Paris, and quite right too.’
‘Still, it is foolish of Lewis. If his own work is to be heard later he should be glad to take these chances. And his wife is so very anxious, poor woman! I think she has arranged this party just for that. I wonder what she is saying to him now. There will be a terrible scene going on!’
But Jacob was wrong. Though the evening was an unmistakable disaster it led to no immediate quarrel.
Florence had known all day that she would not be able to control her husband; she was quite certain of it when, with a heavy heart, she went to dress. To encourage herself she put on a very beautiful new gown; and she needed all the spirit she could muster, for he was impossible from the first. Not that he succeeded in discomposing the guests, who were, for the most part, too well mannered and too fond of Florence, to show offence, even if they took it. But he forced her to be terribly ashamed of him. He interrupted Sir Bartlemy, contradicted Edward Leyburn, professed the blankest ignorance of any music save Albert Sanger’s and his own, and played Millicent’s accompaniments in such a manner that she was unable to get through a single song. Millicent was outraged past forgiveness and would not sing again, even when Edward Leyburn offered to play for her. Mrs Leyburn, kind soul, filled the awkward gap by singing herself, though she had an audibly bad cold. Lewis listened for about ten bars and then left the room with a good deal of ostentatious noisiness, inviting the other men to come with him and have a drink. Jacob and Dr Dawson followed him, and they seemed to be going to stay in the dining-room for the rest of the night. At last Sir Bartlemy went too, and by some unknown persuasions brought them back, but the evening, by then, was past retrieving. Everybody, in spite of themselves, looked glum. Florence could not suppose that there was any charm about her house and she trembled to think of the tale which Millicent might make of it all.
The Mainwarings did their best and so did Sir Bartlemy. They were very sorry for Florence because she had married Lewis. But she had not invited them out to Chiswick to be that. Edward Leyburn, who adored her and had once wanted to marry her himself, made tremendous efforts. He sat down at the piano and embarked upon a regular recital of songs to save them all the spasmodic difficulties of conversation until it should be late enough that they could decently go home. Florence, for a time released from her hospitable struggles, sat down with her back to the light, hoping that her wretchedness was not too bleakly apparent. Her face felt quite stiff with the continued effort of smiling. She listened sadly to German Lieder full of true lovers, forests and nightingales.
Her failure had crushed her so much that she was not even angry. Tomorrow, after a night’s sleep, if she could get it, she might recover enough spirit to scold Lewis. Just now she only wanted to crawl away into the dark and cry a little. Even the music unmanned her, for it brought to her mind the Spring and the Tyrol and all the little flowers that she had picked with her lover, as they wandered over the mountains. And she remembered her happy, confident schemes for their life together; and the first days of her marriage when she had forgotten schemes and plans and lost herself, for a time, in the delight of being with him. At last she turned to look at him, wondering if he too would remember. She found his eyes upon her, strange, bright, questioning; a glance which she could not interpret.
She glanced at the clock and saw that it was twenty minutes past eleven. She had instructed Roberto to beat up some eggs at a quarter past that she might make zabaglione, a dish at which she excelled. As quietly as possible she slipped out of the room and into the pantry, where he had put a tray with the Marsala, the powdered almonds and the little glass cups in which the confection was to be served. Just for a moment, giving way to the exhaustion of disappointment, she sank down on a chair and leant her head against the pantry dresser. She was thankful for the dark and quiet.
She felt shattered; as though she could scarcely face the brightness of the kitchen.
‘But taking in the zabaglione will make it easier,’ she said to herself. ‘They won’t know what it is, and I can tell them about it. It’s something new, anyhow!’
She heard herself saying brightly:
‘It’s only Marsala and beaten eggs, cooked ever so little, just to set it …’
She thought that Roberto had come in from the kitchen and was turning to tell him that she was ready when she felt herself lifted up from her chair and caught close in the arms of her lover.
‘Lewis!’ she whispered. ‘You oughtn’t to be here! Go back there and look after them.’
‘That’s all right. They’re busy singing. I’ve come to help you with the zabaglione.’
But he seemed in no hurry to let her make it and she murmured in expostulation:
‘Roberto is in the kitchen.’
Lewis stretched out a hand behind him and shut the kitchen door.
‘But we can’t make zabaglione in the dark.’
‘We’ll go in a minute. Why be in such a hurry? You were sitting doing nothing when I came in. Tell me!’
She was lost again. When he was like this, he could do what he pleased with her. She sighed.
‘Those songs,’ she said, ‘… they made me think of the Tyrol. Did they remind you of those times?’
‘Yes.’
‘Somehow … since then … Oh, my dear Lewis! What has come over you?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Oh, well … I suppose I do. But you’re so … sudden.’
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he muttered. ‘Florence … I wish all these people would go away.’
‘They’ll go soon,’ she said soothingly. ‘But we must go back to them now. This is no time for dalliance. You’re tearing my frock!’
‘I’ll get you another,’ he said grandly, forgetting that he had not a penny of his own in the world.
‘That won’t make me presentable at this immediate moment. Come along …’
And she slipped into the kitchen, where Roberto was looking quite pale and spent with beating the eggs for such a long time.
And so her ill-starred party did not end, as Jacob had supposed, in a scene. But it marked an epoch. From that day a subtle change came over the house at Strand-on-the-Green. This was in time perceived by all its inmates. But the first to feel it was Roberto, who had not, up till then, found himself
entirely at ease in his new quarters. He discovered that they were suddenly becoming more homelike. In this clean, strange, frigid house, he recognised an atmosphere which he could not have defined but to which he was well accustomed. It spread rapidly from his cosy kitchen to the rooms occupied by his employers.
He first noticed a change on the morning after the party when he took to Mrs Dodd her early cup of tea. Usually she would answer his knock or she would wake up when he put the tray on the little table beside her bed. While he drew up the blinds she would address herself with energy to the business of rousing her companion. Upon this morning, however, she continued to sleep, after the blinds were up and with the newly risen sun shining right into the room. Their slumber was so profound that discreet little Roberto paused and peered at them anxiously and saw that Madame’s lovely hair, generally braided back at night into a thick rope, was loose and flung all across the pillow in a dark cloud about the still paleness of her face. Roberto, who admired Madame above all women, approved of this; he peeped at her with appreciation and with that strange, wordless pity which a sleeping person will awake in an observer, the compassion of a guarded spirit for helplessness. He stole out and stumbled over something on the floor; it was the new dress, flung down as not even a petticoat should have been flung. Roberto, lately converted to neatness, was shocked. He picked up the gown and spread it over a chair; next he rescued a silk shift. Then, realising that the unaccountable disorder which had overtaken the room was something significant and past his mending, he smiled broadly and slid out on tiptoe. Down in the kitchen, as he fried the bacon, he sang Puccini and Verdi with a joyous heart.
Nor was his peace of mind shattered when, a week later, he was aware of a dispute, a quarrel so formidable that the house literally rang with it. This, too, was quite in order. He listened respectfully through the bedroom keyhole to two voices, a shrill voice and a surly voice, and he said to the children with many winks and nods:
‘Lewis and Madame … dey fight … I tink … yes …’
The Constant Nymph Page 21