Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Elizabeth again interrupted.

  “You needn’t say any more, Aunt Julia,” she said. “Certainly I will go to church on Sunday. It seems to me that it would be an offence against your hospitality for me to refuse. It is part of the routine, is it not, a rule of the house? On those grounds I will go. Will that satisfy you?”

  Mrs. Hancock found that all that had “shocked and distressed her” was sensibly ameliorated. The feelings of Lind and Filson would be spared, and the chat at the churchyard gate would be as cheerful as usual. She beamed on her niece.

  “I knew you would see it in the right light, if it was put to you,” she said. “And, with regard to your reasons for not wanting to go, would you like to talk to Mr. Martin about it? He is so wise. Anyhow, you will hear him preach, and I cannot imagine any one hearing Mr. Martin preach without feeling the absolute truth of what he says. But that we will talk of another time. Dear me, we are back at the golf links again; we have made a loop, you see. And if that isn’t Mr. Martin going into the club-house. Fancy seeing him twice in a morning! Well, we have had a nice drive, after all. And when we get in you must remind me to give you a volume of sermons by your grandfather, in which he tells about his own doubts when he was a young man, and how he fought and overcame them. It is all so beautifully put, and after that he never had any more doubts at all. And we shall get back ten minutes before luncheon-time, which is just what I like to do.”

  Edward was the only guest that evening, and during dinner Elizabeth found herself observing him somewhat closely, and coming to no conclusions whatever about him. Certainly he was good-looking, he was well-bred and quiet of voice, but she found nothing in him to distinguish him from the host, nothing that to her could account for the lighting up of Edith’s face when she looked at him. He had a couple of Stock Exchange jokes to repeat, one of which made Mrs. Hancock call him naughty, and the subjects of perennial interest, such as the weather and the train-service — it appeared that the directors were going to cut off the vexing three minutes in the evening train from town — took their turns with the hardy annuals, such as the forthcoming croquet tournament and the ripening strawberry crop. New plays going on in town, the criticisms of which Mrs. Hancock had read in the Morning Post, followed, and the much-debated action of the Censor in refusing to license the Biblical drama called “David” infused a tinge of extra vividness in discussion, and Mrs. Hancock exhibited considerable ingenuity in avoiding the word “Bathsheba.”

  “Mr. Beaumont was talking to me about it the other day,” she said, “and he said his cousin, who is in the Lord Chamberlain’s office, told him that there was no question about its having the licence refused. There were episodes quite unfit for the stage.”

  Everybody looked regretfully at the dessert.

  “I am very glad it was stopped,” continued Mrs. Hancock. “I feel so uncomfortable at the theatre if I think there is something coming which isn’t quite — —”

  “But we have it all read in the lessons in church, don’t we, Aunt Julia?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Yes, my dear; but what is suitable to read is often not suitable for the stage. For my part, even if they do give ‘Parsifal’ in town, I shall not think of going to it.”

  “But that is not quite parallel to David and Bathsheba,” said Elizabeth straight out. Lind was at her elbow, too, with the savoury.

  “And do come in to-morrow afternoon, Edward,” said Mrs. Hancock, with extraordinary presence of mind, “and play these two young ladies at croquet.”

  Smoking, of course, was not allowed in Mrs. Hancock’s drawing-room, and Edward was firmly shut into the dining-room, with the injunction not to stop there long. No word was said regarding Elizabeth’s awful lapse, nor did any silence reproach her. The one swift change of subject at the moment of the crisis had called sufficient attention to it. The table with patience cards was set ready, and Mrs. Hancock, over her coffee, got instantly occupied and superficially absorbed in her game. Before long Edward, as commanded, reunited himself.

  “And now give us our usual treat, dear Edward,” said Mrs. Hancock, building busily from the king downwards in alternate colours, “and play us something. That beautiful piece by Schumann now, where it keeps coming in again.”

  From this indication Edward was quick enough to conjecture the first of the Noveletten, and opened the Steinway grand, covered with a piece of Italian embroidery on which stood a lamp, two vases of flowers, and four photograph frames. Edith moved round to the other side of the card-table, where she could see the player; Elizabeth, with a flash of delighted anticipation, shifted round in her chair and put down the evening paper. She adored the piece “which kept coming in again,” and, knowing it well herself, felt the musician’s intense pleasure at the idea of hearing what somebody else thought about it. Somewhat to her surprise, Edward put the music in front of him; more to her surprise, he did not show the slightest intention of moving the lamp, the vase of flowers, or the photograph frames.

  Then he began with the loud pedal down, as the composer ordered, and Elizabeth listened amazed to an awful, a conscientious, a correct performance. Never were there so many right notes played with so graceless a result; no one could have imagined there was so much wood in the whole human system as Edward contrived to concentrate into his ten fingers, those fingers which, Elizabeth noticed, looked so slender and athletic, and for all purposes of striking notes properly were as efficient as a row of wooden pegs. He made the piano bellow, he made it shriek, he made it rattle; and when he played with less force he made it emit squeaks and little hollow gasps. As for phrasing, there was of course none at all; each chord was played as written, each sequence that made up the phrase played with laborious and precise punctuality. To any one of musical mind the result was of the most excruciating nature, or would have been had not the entire performance been so extremely funny. As a parody of how some quite accomplished but unsympathetic pianist performed the Novelette it was beyond all praise. Elizabeth rocked with noiseless laughter. So much for the sound, and then Elizabeth, looking at his face in the twilight of the shaded lamp, saw that in it was all that his hands lacked. The features that at dinner, when she somewhat studied him, had appeared so meaninglessly good-looking, were irradiated, transfigured; he heard all that his fingers could not make others hear, his eyes saw and danced with seeing, all the abounding grace and colour that lay in the melodies his hands were incapable of rendering. Then, in three inflexible leaps, as if a wooden marionette jumping down from platform to platform of rock, the piece came to an end.

  Edith gave a great sigh.

  “Oh, it’s splendid!” she said.

  Mrs. Hancock triumphantly put the knave of hearts on to the queen of clubs.

  “Thank you, Edward!” she said. “I like it where it comes in again. There! I believe it’s going to come out!”

  He faced round on his music-stool to receive their compliments, his eyes still glowing, and met Elizabeth’s look. Perception flashed between the two, wordless and infallible. He knew for certain that she knew, knew all the exultant music meant to him, knew all the entire incompetence of his rendering. He got up and went to her.

  “You play, don’t you?” he said, speaking rather low. “Can’t you take the taste of that out of our mouths?”

  Elizabeth almost laughed for pleasure at the complete understanding so instantaneously established between them.

  “Yes. What shall I play?” she asked.

  “If only you happened to know that first Novelette,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Shall I really?” she said. “I think I know it.”

  “And won’t you give us that other delicious one?” said Mrs. Hancock, plastering the cards down. “The one I like next best, which is sad in the middle.”

  Elizabeth did not answer, but went straight over to the piano. He had shut the book from which he played, and she did not open it, for, though she suspected she might not be note-perfect, she intended to play,
not to practise. Mrs. Hancock, absorbed in the patience that really was “coming out,” did not notice that she had no reply to her question, and the click of her triumphant sequence of cards continued. Edith, who had not heard what had passed between the two, remembered that Elizabeth was fond of music, but felt surprised and slightly nervous at the thought that she should think of playing when the echoes of that reverberating performance still lingered in the air. But neither Elizabeth nor Edward seemed to heed her.

  Elizabeth sat down, then half-rose again, and gave a twirl to the music-stool. Then she paused for a moment, with her hands before her face, and without any preliminary excursions, plunged straight into the first Novelette again. And all that had been in Edward’s brain, all that could not communicate itself to his hands, streamed from her firm, soft finger-tips. The images imprisoned in his brain broke out and peopled the room with colour and with fire. Banners waved, and a throng of laughing youths passed, jewel-decked, in wonderful processions down a street of noble palaces. At every corner fresh members joined them, for on this joyful morning the whole world of those spirit-presences kept festival, and whether they sang or not, or whether the marching melody was but the sound of joy, he knew not.... Innumerable as the laughter of the sea they glittered along, until by some wonderful transformation they were the waves on a spring morning, and over them a song floated.... Or were they a field of daffodils, and over them the scent of their blossoming hovered? From the sunlight they passed into a clear blue shadow, and out of it, as out of waters, came the strain.... From shadow into sunlight again they passed, and from sunlight into waves with singing sea-birds flashing white-winged over them. Once more sun and banners, and in the sunlight a fountain of water aspired.... Where under his hands the wooden doll had tumbled from rock to rock, bouquets of rainbowed water fell from basin to basin of crystal.... And that was the first Novelette.

  Mrs. Hancock had noticed the change of performer, though not at first, for it only occurred to her that Edward was playing the same piece over again. But it struck her very soon that he was not “keeping the time” with such precision as usual, and the moment afterwards that this was altogether different from the tune that kept coming in again, as rendered before. Then, looking up, she saw it was Elizabeth at the piano, and there followed a couple of obviously wrong notes. How foolish and forward of this girl to play after Edward, to play his piece, too, and make mistakes in it. And when the tune came in again she didn’t put half the force into it that Edward did. Certainly she had not Edward’s “touch,” nor his masculine power, that stamped out the time with such vigour.

  Her natural geniality prevented her saying or even hinting at any of these things, and she was extremely encouraging.

  “Thank you, Elizabeth!” she said. “What a coincidence that you should be learning one of Edward’s tunes. Now you have heard it played, haven’t you? I am sure you will get it right in time. You must play it to Edward again next week, when you have practised, and he will see how you have got on.”

  “Ah, do play it again to me next week,” said he, “or before next week.”

  “And now, Edward,” said Mrs. Hancock, “do let us have the tune that gets sad in the middle.”

  He turned to her, with face that music still vivified.

  “After that all my tunes would be sad,” he said— “beginning, middle, and end. But won’t Miss Fanshawe play again?”

  Mrs. Hancock thought that charming of him; it was so tactful to make Elizabeth think she had played well; poor Elizabeth, with her wrong notes that any one with an ear could detect. As a matter of fact she did not care one particle who played or if anybody played, so long as her patience came out. She perceived nothing of the situation, guessed nothing about the fire from the girl’s fingers which tingled in his brain.

  But Edith saw more; she saw, at any rate, that something in Elizabeth’s playing had enormously pleased and excited her lover. And he had said that it was surely she herself who lay behind melody, she whom he sought. She went to Elizabeth and gently pushed her back on to the music-stool.

  “Do play again, dear!” she said. “It gives us such pleasure.”

  Elizabeth, as her father knew, was conscious of little else than her “German Johnnies,” when there was singing in her brain, and she sat down at once.

  “Do you know this?” she said. “Quite short.”

  She touched the keys once and then again, as if to test the lightness of her fingers, and then broke into the Twelfth Etude of Chopin, letting the piano whisper — a privilege so seldom accorded to that belaboured instrument. Even Mrs. Hancock responded to it, and laid down her cards and spoke.

  “What a delicious tune, my dear,” she said. “Tum-ti-ti; tum-ti-ti!”

  The tune was still hovering and poised. Elizabeth put her hands firmly down on a suspension and stopped.

  “But what an abrupt end!” said Mrs. Hancock.

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth, turning round on the stool.

  When Mrs. Hancock had had enough patience and conversation she secretly rang an electric bell which was fixed to the underside of her card-table, upon which Lind brought in a tray of glasses and soda-water, which was rightly regarded by her guests as a stirrup-cup. This signal occurred rather earlier than usual to-night, for it was likely that the two lovers would wish to say a few words to each other in the library before parting. This was made completely easy for them by Mrs. Hancock’s suggestion that Edith would find Edward’s hat and coat for him, as Lind no doubt had gone to bed — he had left the soda-water tray about three minutes before — and the two went out together.

  The words of parting were short, and Edward, still tingling with music, still inflamed by that lambent fire, went back to his house. In musical matters, despite his own incompetence in matter of performance, he had an excellent judgment, and he knew that he had been listening that night to the real thing. There was no question as to the quality of Elizabeth’s playing; she had authority, without which the most agile execution is no more than a mere facility of finger, acquirable like the nimble manoeuvres of a conjurer, and in itself as devoid of artistic merit. That magic, like his, is a matter of mere manipulation, and no more constitutes a pianist than does the power of pronouncing words without stammer or stumbling constitute an actor. But behind Elizabeth’s playing sat the master, who understood by virtue of perception the meaning of music, and by virtue of hands co-ordinated with that burning perception, could interpret. And, above all, he felt that in music she spoke his language, uttered the idioms he understood but could not give voice to. Her soul and his were natives of the same melodious country; not foreigners to each other.

  He told himself, and honestly believed it, that there was no more than this — as if this was not enough — in the hour he had spent in Mrs. Hancock’s drawing-room. He was not even sure whether he liked Elizabeth or not; certainly she was as different as might well be from the type of marriageable maidenhood which had so greatly and so sanely attracted him that he rejoiced to know that his future life would be intimately and entirely bound up in hers. All through dinner Elizabeth had meant nothing at all to him, and he had noted, rather than admired, her vitality, for certainly she was like a light brought into a dusky room, dispersing the shadows that completely and somnolently brooded in the corners, and restoring colour to mere grey outlines. But he was not very sure that he desired or appreciated this unusual illumination; they had all of them got on very nicely in the dark, where if you dozed a little, there was not much probability of being detected, and of late he had sat with chair close to Edith’s, so to speak, and listened with tenderness to Mrs. Hancock talking on in her sleep. Into this had Elizabeth come with her vivid bull’s-eye lantern, which got in one’s eyes a little, and was slightly disconcerting.

  So had it been until she played, and at that moment and in that regard he found her simply and utterly adorable; and he poured out his homage for her as he would have done for some splendid Brunnhilde awaking and hailing the sun. And he
knew the nature of the homage he brought, so he as yet confidently told himself, a homage as sexless and impersonal as that which prompts the presentation of wreaths to elderly and perspiring conductors at the close of an act. It needed not a Brunnhilde to evoke that, for it was merely the tribute to artistic interpretation manifested by man or woman, and responded to by those who could appreciate. Mrs. Hancock’s deplorable ejaculation of “Tum-ti-ti; tum-ti-ti” was of the same nature. It was not a tribute to Elizabeth, nor was his abandonment of himself to her spell, or, at the most, it was a tribute to her fingers, for the music that flowed from them. But how he would have worshipped that gift in another; if only it had been Edith who played!

  He had sat himself down in the broad window-seat of his drawing-room, which looked out into the garden and trees that a fortnight before had stood made of ebony and ivory in the blaze of the May moonlight, on the night when the house next door had been empty. To-night it was tenanted, tenanted by the girl who, within a few months, would come across so short a space of lawn and make her home with him, tenanted also by the dark, vivid presence of her who had made music to them. In his drawing-room where he sat, empty and blazing with electric light, for some unaccounted impulse had made him turn on all the switches, stood his big black piano, with inviolate top, standing open. How would Elizabeth awake the soul in it, even as Siegfried had by his kiss awakened Brunnhilde, by the magic of her comprehending fingers! Almost he could see her there, with her profile, a little defiant, a little mutinous, cut, cameo-wise, against the dark grey of his walls, with her eye kindling as she listened to the music in her brain, which flowed like some virile, tumultuous heart-beat out of her fingers. How well she understood the tramp and colour of that Novelette! — yet he knew he understood it quite as well himself — how unerringly her fingers marshalled and painted it! In her was the secret, the initiation, and — oh, how much it meant! — in her also was the mysterious power of communication. She was not one of those incomplete souls who are born dumb, as so many were. She could speak.... Others were born empty, and so their power of speech was but a bottle of senseless sounds, of flat wooden phrases.... And then, with a shock of surprise to himself, he became aware that he was thinking no longer about the music which Elizabeth made, but Elizabeth who made it.