‘We have Sanger’s circus with us still,’ exclaimed Dr Dawson. ‘This is one.’
He stretched an arm, caught Sebastian by the back of his jacket, and turned him round. Branwell Baines looked a little surprised at such cleanliness and order, and commented:
‘Well, well, I wouldn’t have guessed it! I was sorry to miss “Prester John”, Mrs Dodd, but I’m getting on, you know, and I don’t go about very much. Saving your presence, I had a little chill on the liver, and these east winds …’
Here there was a great outcry from the children that Ike and Tony had come and was it not very soon for Tony to be out? Florence and her three cavaliers turned to look downwards, and saw that eight out of every ten people were glancing curiously their way. Antonia, still a little frail but regal, in black velvet with the most amazing pearls, was leaning upon Jacob’s arm, receiving the compliments and obvious congratulations of a number of Semitic-looking gentlemen, who most of them found it necessary to kiss her hand. She looked up to where Florence was sitting between Sir Bartlemy and Branwell Baines, with Dawson leaning over the back of her chair, and waved gaily. Florence smiled serenely back and bowed to Mrs Leyburn and a good many other people.
The lovely ladies who were to play the harp in Jansen’s Turkish Suite were proceeding to their lone post in front of all the forest of music stands and shirtfronts. The noise of tuning was beginning to subside and Sir Bartlemy, with a hasty farewell, ambled back to his seat on the far side of the circle. Florence, settling herself and her trappings comfortably into her seat, felt that Teresa, beside her, had stiffened and was sitting bolt upright. She looked down and saw that Lewis was making his way up on to the platform. There was a little applause, not very much, not enough to call for acknowledgment, and he took no notice of it. A moment later he had mounted the estrade, and his back was turned upon them all. He tapped on the rail and the hum of the hall behind him sank to a rustle. The rustle was silence.
Music stole out like a mist into the great spaces of the building. It hung in the air in front of Florence, an almost visible fabric, a flowing pattern of strings cut through by the sharp notes of horns, blurring the piled tiers of faces which went up, and up, to the dark, high gallery. Down below, the orchestra was a chequered tapestry of black and white, across which the slender white bows moved all together. Only Lewis stood out clearly, and Florence discovered how very well shaped his head was, when seen from the back, a thing which had been long known to Teresa. Standing thus, he looked a different man altogether. She examined him curiously through the pleasant measures of the Turkish Suite, which seemed nice music, if a trifle saccharine. His carriage as a conductor pleased her enormously, but she wished that she could see his face. He was very still and there was, to her eyes, almost too much gravity in his pose, considering the work in hand. The orchestra, sweating their way through the Caucasian dances of the second movement, must be finding some source of energy in his expression for he did almost nothing, and his immobility contrasted strangely with their manifest toil. Then, as a crescendo swelled on a faint quiver of his baton, she wondered what sort of a noise would be heard if he should take it into his head to exert himself. The Symphony in Three Keys had plenty of noise in it. She began to get excited.
The thing was over unexpectedly soon and the applause was considerable. Florence found herself a little enthusiastic; it was better music than she had thought. More people were coming in. The clapping went on. Lewis, pale, wild and unconcerned, came back and bowed unsmilingly to the gangway between the stalls. The clapping went on. They wanted Jimmy Jansen. He came and bowed energetically to everybody, but he did not look very pleased. Dr. Dawson leant across his railway rug, and poked Florence in the back, and whispered:
‘Good man! Jansen wrote that last allegro ma non troppo, and he took it presto. ’Pon my word, it’s a vast improvement!’
‘I expect he thought he’d written it himself,’ said Teresa with a little chuckle. ‘It’s a mistake he often makes when he’s conducting a piece. He stops and says, “Now why did I do that?” ’
‘That’s nonsense,’ said Florence coldly.
She had almost succeeded in forgetting Teresa, and it was necessary that she should. To be married to a man like Lewis was not easy; there would be, always, so much to forget. But she did not think that anything in the future would be as difficult as this estrangement for which Teresa was responsible. Almost she felt that she could not pardon it; it was too outrageous. The only way was to banish the whole episode from her mind, to send the girl away, out of their lives, to think of her, if possible, in a spirit of tolerance and pity. It was unjust to hate her, for she could not help being what she was, an unfortunate little animal without training, without very much intelligence, so ignorant as to be almost blameless, obeying blindly the instincts which commanded her. But she had been, unwittingly, the cause of much grief; it was her fault that Lewis had said those heart shattering things. Really, he was too cruel. It was impossible to live with him. The scene tonight must have ended it. Only that they were all like that; some of them were much worse. Sanger used to beat his wives. Lewis never did that.
All these thoughts were flashing through Florence’s mind as she told Dr Dawson that she had liked the Turkish Suite.
‘Very noble, he made it sound,’ agreed Dr Dawson. ‘It’s a trick he has.’
She remembered how he had played the Kreutzer. It was certainly a trick he had, if nobility, grandeur of interpretation can be called a trick. Her mind roved over their life together, as she tried to decipher in the man she knew the features of the artist thus revealed. He displayed, as a musician, a largeness of spirit which she had never divined in the man. She confided to Dr Dawson that she had never known that he was so good a conductor.
‘Very few of us knew,’ was his reply.
He was with them again, looking different, looking more collected, mounting the estrade with a sort of brisk determination which took her by surprise. The silence, under his lifted baton, was complete and sudden like the flash before a thunder clap, a soundless shock, a pause. The baton fell and the lordly racket of his Symphony was let loose on them. An astonishing pandemonium it was, written at a time when Sanger dominated all his ideas, yet with a shape and contour which passed perpetually beyond the purely revolutionary formula invented by his master. Its long, striding intervals, its violent rhythms, fell upon the ear, at first, like an outrage, and Florence felt, as she had always felt when she heard this Symphony, that her powers of criticism were failing her. She was helpless under the force of ideas stronger than her own; her musical idiom, generally so crystal clear, was losing shape, growing dim, crumbling. She was transported into a region of wide spaces, formless ether, mist and the flames of lost stars, where the imagination, suddenly enlarged, grasped ultimately the idea of order, the slow procession of the glittering worlds weaving a pattern in the void.
‘I wasn’t mistaken,’ she thought. ‘It’s wonderful. He’s a great man. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.’
She looked down and watched him, as he directed this uncharted storm which he had willed, his baton darting and flickering in a great wind of sound, his red hair pushed away up on to the top of his head. Then she looked at the hall and saw no more planets, but Jacob and Antonia listening with their mouths open. Tony did not like it; she hated loud noises and the drums, of which Lewis was making lavish use, frightened her as much as a thunderstorm. Jacob was patting her hand to soothe her. Jimmy Jansen and the critics, just behind, were grinning broadly. Florence scanned more faces anxiously; a good many people looked amused. She found herself growing resentful of their impenetrable stupidity; she could better forgive those who looked horrified. Then she fell to listening again, wholly lost in the delight of the second movement and its theme for strings. The drums had died away; they could just be heard, the faintest heart beat, through the dying cadences of ’cellos and violas. Clarinets and horns were silent. Lewis, having bludgeoned his audience into submission, havi
ng broken down their powers of resistance, that defence against dangerous beauty which the sane mind will preserve, was prepared to play them a tune. He could do what he liked, now, with those who had accepted his art. And even to those who did not, his theme was beautiful, for he could, for all his self-denying, write those inevitable tunes of which there are so few in the world. This interlude, heightened to a supreme simplicity by contrast with the din which had gone first, was so short as to be little more than a reprieve, an illustration of the peculiar effect of melody heard after a shock. It passed, and the beat quickened to the fury of a last movement and a return to Sanger’s methods. Teresa and Sebastian, who loved Lewis when he was tuneful and loathed his work with the drums, sighed deeply as the respite ended.
Florence, coming out of her dream, remembered suddenly that she had been upon the point of parting with this man, she could not clearly remember why. But she had actually thought of going back to Cambridge, of allowing him to go away without her. She had nearly lost him, and yet he had been hers. He should be that again. All her charm, all her wisdom should be used to win him back: He was a great musician; he was worthy of all the love and devotion she could give. If he wanted to live abroad, she would go with him. If he was difficult, she would bear with him. If he was cruel, she would steel her heart to endure it. But she would never, never, never let him go.
The storm swept on to its climax, ending with a crash, and Lewis, frantic, distraught, leapt into the air, as though he would dive head first off his little platform into the midst of his perspiring orchestra. The shattered audience pulled itself together and applauded doubtfully. A few enthusiasts shouted a little and somewhere, at the back of the house, there was an attempt at hissing. An atmosphere of disorder hung over the hall, as though it had seen lately some deed of incredible violence. Many people took their departure, and others hurried off to get a drink somewhere. Listening had been thirsty work. Dr Dawson pulled himself up, handed his railway rug to one of his ladies, and stumped off to bed, snarling, as he passed the benevolent Baines:
‘What d’you make of it, hey? Never heard such a filthy hullabaloo in your life, did you?’
But the kind old man merely waved a deprecating, benignant hand complaining:
‘Ah, these young men! These young men! He’ll change everything, will he? Why should he? I don’t want it changed. And why, when he can write a second movement like that … but,’ turning to Florence, ‘I trust I may tell you that his conducting is … like nothing that I’ve ever watched … and I’ve seen a good deal in my time. The most triumphant …’
Millicent came up and said:
‘I’m afraid it’s been rather a failure, my dear. You like it, I suppose? Of course, these polytonic things don’t seem ugly to some people. Personally, I thought those drums were like having the plumbers in. And what instrument in the world is it that makes those queer, yawning noises?’
Florence could not tell her. But Sebastian, who could, explained it all very lucidly, to the amusement of Sir Bartlemy, who had come round to sit in Dr Dawson’s place.
‘Well, Florence,’ he said, ‘it’s a little like an ogre at a tea-party; your husband’s Symphony after the Turkish Suite. Why has Dawson gone? Isn’t he going to listen to the Concerto? Silly fellow! Why that’s the crux of the whole affair.’
‘I don’t feel up to it,’ said Millicent. ‘I feel as if I’d fallen down several flights of stairs. And where’s the sense of putting a weighty classic after a thing like this. How can people be expected to listen? It’s too late.’
‘That’s it! That’s it!’ chuckled Sir Bartlemy, rubbing his hands. ‘That’s a little joke our friend Dodd has got up his sleeve. Listen! Lord bless you, of course they’ll listen. They won’t be able to help it, now. That’s his doing. Nothing makes you listen so well as a good shaking up. They’ll find it as easy as tailing off a log, you see!’
‘They like it better,’ said Millicent vaguely.
‘Like it better? Of course they do. We all do. We like it so much that we don’t listen to it. We miss half. Tonight we’ll miss nothing; he won’t let us.’
Florence wondered, later, if this was indeed true. Although she was herself moved, as never before, by the next item, the overpowering applause surprised her. To many people present its success was a vindication of the old music against the new. The Press, next morning, hailed Dodd as a conductor and laughed at his Symphony. But Jacob Birnbaum, down in the stalls, was discussing with his friends the details of the next concert, with much guttural joviality. It must be very soon, said Jacob.
Lewis, however, never gave another concert in London.
23
The train, running over points near Ashford, changed its smooth rhythm for a succession of loud, clanking jerks. Lewis roused from an uncomfortable doze. He opened his eyes at the morning sunlight shining in his face and discovered confusedly that the night was over.
He tried to think. It was one of those bad days when everything is out of gear, and he could not put two ideas together. He was aware of the slowness of mind, the extreme lassitude of spirit, which always overtook him after a concert. He was listening for some coherence in the noise of the train and could find none. The sun in his eyes gave him a headache. He blinked at it angrily.
The person opposite leant forward and pulled down a blind so that his face was shaded. Looking towards her, in a sort of dumb gratitude, he was not much surprised to discover that it was Tessa. But it took him a little time to remember why she was there and that they were on their way to Dover. He recollected slowly how Roberto had brought him her message, the night before, and how he had nearly missed the train. He had bounded down the platform at the very last moment and she was waiting for him, steadfast but a little pale, by the barrier. And as they slid clear of the murky station, into the sunlight, he had fallen asleep, only rousing for a second when they crossed the bridge because Tessa opened the window and hung out, taking a last look at London and the glittering river. Now, as far as he could see, they were deep in Kent, rushing southwards through a bright, windy morning.
It was lovely to be with her. She was the only person in the world with the wits to draw blinds without being asked. He found his tongue and enquired if she had breakfasted. She shook her head.
‘Nor have I,’ he said. ‘We’ll get something on the boat.’
‘You can if you like. For me to eat on a boat is simply a waste of good food. I’ve a queasy stomach.’
The other people in the carriage looked at her with a sort of wondering, dull resentment, and Lewis said:
‘It’s inconsiderate of you to talk in that way. We’ve all got to go on the boat.’ Then, vaguely: ‘Are you ill?’
He hardly knew why he asked this; but she did not look right somehow.
‘No. It’s all the fuss yesterday, and the concert, and not sleeping, and getting up early, and having no food.’
This catalogue of hardship almost reassured him. Perhaps, after all, she did not look so very queer. He told her to wake him up when they got to Dover. Then he shut his eyes, but opened them again a moment later to take another look at her. She had put on, for this expedition, a new serge school suit, very neat and brief, and she had a brown paper parcel by way of luggage. It occurred to him, for the first time, that she might be unhappy and frightened at the step she was taking. He smiled at her and she returned his look a little dimly, like a person a long way off. He tried to think of some very protecting, comfortable thing to say but could only manage to demand if she was quite all right. She nodded, and he reflected that she ought to know how to look after herself, having been brought up to it. The blessed peace of being with her stole over him again and he drifted off into sleep.
She sat staring out of the window at the long rows of hop poles, spinning like the spokes of a wheel. These had interested her, she remembered, when she came first to England, less than a year ago. And now, so unexpectedly soon, she was off again, having learnt in this short time a number of things
which would be in future of no use to her whatever. She had an idea that, for her peace of mind, she had best forget everything that had happened since Sanger’s death. She was going back to the ways of her childhood, not because they seemed admirable to her but because there was no place for her elsewhere.
She was profoundly happy, but a little bewildered at this sudden change in her life. It was such a miracle to find herself alive and with Lewis instead of dead and at school. It seemed to her now as though she had escaped annihilation by the merest chance and she could hardly believe in her recovered safety. Having chosen life instead of death, she was secure for ever. She sat very still with her hands folded, watching her friend as he slept. He was all huddled up in his corner, and his face in repose looked young and weary, the harsh lines which scored it in his guarded hours seemed now painful and innocent. She saw that he was tired out, and she felt sorry when they flashed in and out of the chalk cuttings by the sea and she knew that she must wake him.
The morning air at Dover was very cold and her paper parcel, though not large, had grown so heavy that she nearly dropped it as she followed Lewis up the gangplank on to the boat. A chattering crowd pushed her this way and that and she could see no place where she might sit down and rest herself.
‘Oh, dear,’ she gasped, ‘I’m so cold! I’m so tired! Couldn’t we get a chair or something? There are some men with chairs.’
‘Those are for the first-class passengers, my dear. Let’s walk about a bit and get warm.’
She shivered so much that he opened his bag and pulled out his old yellow muffler to wrap round her throat and shoulders. It brought back the old times very suddenly, for in the Tyrol he had worn it on all occasions and she had never seen it since. Florence had suppressed it. It smelt of a good many things, chiefly tobacco. She snuggled into it gratefully and they found a sheltered place where they could watch the great, rattling crane which heaved up endless loads of luggage and plunged them into the hold. Teresa thought of all the clothes in all those boxes and looked at her own parcel and felt glad that she had kept so free of possessions during her English sojourn. Even her lustre bowl was broken; she was as free as the sea-gulls flashing through the sunlight over their heads.
The Constant Nymph Page 29