by George Moore
His thoughts were interrupted by the postman’s knock, and, listening to receding footsteps and fainter knocks, he once again began to ask himself if his aunt’s death was the cause of the delay. Should he write for news of her? Of what use? If she were dead, her daughter would have written. His aunt, who knew of his necessities, had never failed before, nor would she fail this time; all the same — He pulled a sheet of paper towards him with the intention of writing to her, and in doing this he disturbed a heap of papers, bringing into view some numbers of the Daily Courier. It must have been the landlady who left these for me, he said, and began to read of a blackbird who could whistle a tune of six or eight notes. The publication of the tune had encouraged other readers to send examples of blackbird melody, and a correspondence was in progress regarding the origin of these tunes, some correspondents averring that the blackbirds had not invented but learnt them, other correspondents holding that, since the cuckoo produced two distinct notes, there was no reason to suppose that any other bird might not produce eight. It was not likely that all the blackbirds that whistled tunes had learnt them in a captivity from which the birds had escaped, and the point was made that the musical ear varied in different birds. At last a correspondent wrote that he had taught a blackbird who frequented his garden part of a well-known air. The bird whistled correctly till he came to a minor third, and then, conscious of his failure to catch the note, he broke into an angry: Chuck, chuck, chuck, in the shrubbery. Wilfrid remembered a bullfinch that whistled a once popular song, Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green. The bird’s cage hung in the kitchen, and the best way to persuade him out of his silence was to rattle the plates on the dresser. The sound of the plates inspired him, and he whistled the song in fragments, breaking off suddenly. Why not write about the bullfinch? Wilfrid asked himself, and before he had made up his mind another thought came into his mind. It was to pick eight bars of tune from one of the many scores that met his eyes when he looked round his room, all of which were unknown.
Who, except myself, he asked, could whistle a single note from Le Canard à Trois Becs or from Les Quenouilles de Verre? Or if I were to send one of my own tunes the publication might bring me the harmonist I have been waiting for so long. A moment after he remembered the notes that a blackbird used to sing in one of the shrubberies that surround Bushfield Park, the notes that had inspired — His face lighted up for the first time since the day he left the museum in the midst of a twofold misfortune, and, catching up a pen, he wrote the notes.
I shall point out in a second letter that the phrase as likely as not comes out of one of the many French operettes composed in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties. The wiseacres will sit surrounded with scores, reading, reading, and for ever reading, and then the question will come: How did the blackbird learn a tune unknown in England? The editor will send for me, and perhaps will give me a job.
DEAR SIR, — I have followed with interest the letters you are publishing concerning the musical ear of the blackbird, a little surprised, however, to learn that the bird that picked up the well-known song mentioned by the correspondent signing himself X. could not manage the minor third. The bullfinch would catch the note, of a certainty, and I can but think that the blackbird I once heard sing the first bars of a waltz in the garden, or rather yard, enclosed by high walls shadowed by tall elms, would speedily have conquered and retained the minor third in his every subsequent rendering of the song. He alighted on the branch under which I and a friend were sitting at tea, and sang the tune twice over. To hear the first bars of a French waltz (part of a French operette I should guess it to be, but perhaps one of your correspondents will be able to identify it) was not a little bewildering. The friend with whom I was sitting at tea is no relation of Mrs. Harris; he exists in the flesh, and will testify that the bird’s song was noted by me on a scrap of paper which he handed to me, that no interval was changed, and that the time was waltz time. I am, Sincerely yours, WILFRID HOLMES.
The letter was published in the Daily Courier, and the conjecture that the little waltz was an extract from a French operette aroused many minds out of the daily torpor of existence, many deeming it to be a quatrain from one of Lecoq’s early and little-known works. Other writers detected a Germanic flavour, and Offenbach was spoken of, and then Suppé. Somebody thought that he remembered a waltz very like the blackbird’s in an opera by Serpett. An almost forgotten composer, Wilfrid said to himself as he sat eating his bread-and-margarine, who never caught the public ear with an air. I should have thought that his name was forgotten by everybody but myself; but there’s always somebody who remembers. Now what did he write? An opera for the Variétés; but the name?
He sat searching his memory for a long time, and, giving up the search for the moment, he said: Litoff’s name doesn’t seem to have occurred to anybody. And, drawing a sheet of paper towards him, he began a letter to the editor of the Daily Courier asking to be allowed to write the musical criticisms for the paper. He had not written many lines when he was disturbed by his landlady coming to tell him that a gentleman from the Daily Courier had called to see him and was waiting in the passage.
Will you be kind enough to bring him upstairs, Mrs. Douglas, or would you prefer that I went down to see him in your parlour?
There are people in my parlour waiting to see me; I think I had better bring him up to you, sir.
Yes, yes, bring him up; or shall I go down and speak to him? Wilfrid answered, his lethargic nature quickening to an intenser life than he had ever known before. And while hesitating at the stairhead he heard Mrs. Douglas’s voice saying: Will you come this way, sir? As soon as the footsteps reached the drawing-room floor he hurried back to his room to receive his visitor, who, he doubted not, was bringing him good news; news he was bringing him for certain, and any news was good news.
The editor of the Daily Courier has asked me to call and thank you for the little tune and the interesting letter that accompanied it. He would have written to you himself if he had not been suddenly called away; and the journalist began to tell of a Cabinet crisis, Wilfrid giving him an attentive ear, in the hope that his appreciation of his interlocutor’s narrative would influence the account of him the editor would get from his colleague; and he held his soul in patience till the journalist came to a sudden break in his story. The rest, he said, is on the knees of the Gods — and he apologised for having been so long-winded. Wilfrid protested, and the journalist revealed the object of his visit, which was to ask Mr. Wilfrid Holmes if he knew the name of the composer of the waltz measure. If the waltz be a French one, as I believe yourself has suggested, the bird was most probably a French bird imported into England; probably, I say, not necessarily, for most waltzes, French and German, if a waltz can be said to have any nationality, are known to — I was writing, Wilfrid interrupted, a letter to the editor of the Daily Courier dealing with that very question when you called. He picked up his half-finished letter from the table and continued: My proposal to the editor was to tell him the name of the waltz if in return for my doing so he engaged me on the staff of the paper. I can write English and French correctly, and know enough music to write criticisms, and my knowledge of light French music is as complete as anybody’s you’d be likely to find in London. For years I’ve collected the least-known scores; many of those you see are out of print, and to get a sight of them you would have to cross over to France and investigate the archives of most of the theatres in the boulevards. La Reine de Navarre is a very scarce score, Les Quenouilles de Verre still scarcer, and for the score of Héloïse et Abelard you would have to go to the Bibliothèque Nationale. Your editor may be able to procure the scores of Le Roi l’a dit and La Boite de Pandore through Messrs. Chappell, but I doubt if Messrs. Chappell would be able to supply La Fiancee du Rot de Garbe, Pont des Soupirs, or La Belle Poule. I run through these on my flute when the house is empty (our lodgers are more tolerant to the piano than to the flute), and in every one of these operettes there are some pretty passages, b
etter than any to be found in better-known works.
Nobody but you knows these forgotten scores? asked the journalist. I am sure that mine is the only copy in London of La Fiancee du Roi de Garbe. And if you did not run these scores over on your flute they would lie mute, replied the journalist. That thought has often come into my mind whilst standing by this window on a summer evening; and the journalist, beguiled by pity or curiosity, he knew not which, began to ask Wilfrid if the flute played an important part in the score of La Fiancée du Roi de Garbe, A good writer never forgets the flute, Wilfrid replied, for without the flute the orchestra would be inhuman. The journalist raised his eyes. The flute represents the human voice in the orchestra, Wilfrid continued, his face suddenly changing from gay to grave. He would have dearly loved to show his beautiful-keyed flute, a present from his aunt, to the journalist. It was in pawn, alas! But remembering his piccolo suddenly, he opened a drawer, and, taking from it a sheet of manuscript music, he pinned it to the wall by the window and said he was going to play the great air from his opera, The Mulberry Tree. And upon a diminutive instrument, hardly larger than a toothbrush, Wilfrid whistled out a simple air that the journalist began to perceive to be the summary of the author’s musical imagination, it never being far distant from all the subsequent pieces that were taken from the drawer.
But the top line, said the journalist, is but a small part of the music contained in a modern opera. Modern music can hardly be said to exist apart from the harmonies that sustain it. A modern air rises out of the harmony for a moment only, like a flag from the flagstaff. And then there’s the orchestration. The orchestration, Wilfrid answered, is mere colouring matter; the harmony, I admit, is essential. And what you or the editor of the Daily Courier might do for me is to give me a letter to —— — . Wilfrid mentioned a name famous in modern music, saying: A great musician, no doubt, but one who cannot write melody. Now I can, but in harmony I am deficient. What do you think? But, said the journalist, taking a piece of music from the heap, I see that you have not only composed the airs sung by the soprano, the tenor, and the bass, you have also written some concerted pieces — here is a quintet. And without some knowledge of harmony, at least of counterpoint, I don’t understand how you could have written it. I will play it to you, Wilfrid replied; and when he had played the quintet to the journalist on his piccolo he explained that he had followed the form of the quintet in La Fiancee du Roi de Garbe, writing other tunes, of course. And now, if you will allow me, I will play the air that the prima donna sings out of the branches of the mulberry tree in the second act. From a safe hiding-place among the leaves she has heard all the plotting of her enemies, who have discovered that she is an heiress to an uninhabited island in which is hidden immense treasure. After listening to the air, the journalist sat looking into Wilfrid’s large face, striving to read his history out of his little eyes. Of course, said Wilfrid, the air will sound much richer, completer, when it gets its accompaniment, for, as you say, in modern music the air rises out of the accompaniment; it is dependent upon it, too dependent to my taste, but still it cannot be denied that harmony is more important to-day than it was when Bellini and Donizetti were writing operas. All the same, melody is what the public follows. Don’t you think that the editor would give me a letter of introduction? Or perhaps you think that Mr. X. can write melody?
Your question, Mr. Holmes, can best be answered by another, the journalist replied. Before entering into a discussion as to whether Mr. X. can or cannot write melody, I would like to ask you if you think that Mr. X. is aware of his melodic deficiencies. Well, said Wilfrid, they should have become apparent to him by this time — at which the journalist laughed. But he stopped laughing suddenly, for Wilfrid’s courage gave way before this last rebuke. I am afraid, he said, drawing his hand across his eyes, dashing aside some tears, that there is very little hope for me. And, walking up and down the room, he related the story of the delayed cheque, saying that for twenty years his aunt had never failed to send him his cheque. Only once before did it arrive late, and then only a day late. But now fifteen days have passed without my getting any tidings of her; she may be dead. It was three days before I noticed the delay, so absorbed was I in the legend of Tristan and Isolde, a work on which I have been engaged for the last twenty years.
At work on the legend of Tristan and Isolde for twenty years! said the journalist.
Yes, quite that, Wilfrid replied; and the journalist, anxious to help him, began to ask him what discoveries he had made. And Wilfrid, taking courage, tried to relate his conjectures, till overcome by a sudden weakness he said: I cannot go on talking. I have lived for the last ten days on bread-and-margarine. Yesterday I had to buy a packet of cocoa and some milk; the success of my letter in the Daily Courier tempted me to risk the extravagance, and I hoped for a post on the paper. I hoped that something would happen, but nothing has. The journalist asked Wilfrid why he did not write to his relations for the loan of enough money to carry him over till, he received his allowance, and learnt that Wilfrid had broken with all his brothers and sisters. They are always quarrelling among themselves, he said, and I try to keep outside of the family strife, and the only way to do it is to avoid seeing them.
This little confession, so sincere and so artless, awakened the journalist’s pity still further, and then, his pity quickening to a sort of literary interest, he began to speak of the family as the worst enemy of the individual, with a view to leading Wilfrid into confidences. The journalist had some literary pretensions, and, foreseeing literary material in Wilfrid, he listened, saying to himself: He is typical of many; in every boarding-house in London there is the lag-end of a family, playing the piano in the evenings. We accuse these waifs of idleness, but they were born idle and cannot be else than idle, for they are without the needful instinct to pick up a living, or have lost it, as wild birds do after being kept in cages. This man’s mother kept him in a cage long after he should have been put out to work. And then, the journalist’s thoughts turning from the general to the particular, he began to consider if he might advise one of his editors to take on Wilfrid as a musical critic — For with all his short-comings he knows a little music, the keys, doubtless, whereas the ordinary musical critic cannot tell one key from another. But his copy would be unprintable. And certain that there was nothing to be done for Wilfrid in journalism, he began to think how he might take his leave. A knock came to the door. A letter has just come for you, Mr. Holmes. And from my aunt! he cried, forgetful of the journalist and Mrs. Douglas. She has been very unwell lately but is better now, and she sends a cheque for two hundred pounds. Two hundred pounds! he said, and held the cheque out to the journalist in trembling fingers. I feel as if I could buy half London. So you do not care that I should recommend you for the post or musical critic, if perchance I should hear of a vacancy?
I shall now be able, Wilfrid answered, to fill in the last links of the chain of evidence which shows that —
The moment seemed favourable to the journalist to take his leave, and it was not till he had left the house and was half-way down the street that he remembered he had not asked Wilfrid which illustrious composer was the author of the waltz tune that the blackbird had learnt in France, or from Wilfrid Holmes himself. Most likely the author of the tune is Holmes himself, he said stopping, for that moment the musical phrase that came from a top window seemed to represent, and completely, the man he had left — one of those weak, timid, harmless souls, come out of the mould that Nature reserves for some great purpose known only to herself, mayhap the preservation of pity and compassion in the world. And, humming the little tune over to himself as he went towards the railway-station, he said: — A humble aspiration, part of a chorus from The Mulberry Tree, no doubt.
PRISCILLA AND EMILY LOFFT
A BLACKBIRD WHISTLED in the garden when Emily flung the drawing-room door open and gazed into the emptiness of the old faded room, her eyes falling straightway upon a portrait painted in clear tones of two children sitt
ing on a green bank overshadowed by trees, turning the leaves of a picture book, twins, seemingly, so like were they one to the other, light-hearted girls, with brown ringlets showering about their faces. Emily had just returned from Priscilla’s grave, and the portrait telling a sunny past so plainly, warned her that henceforth she would be alone — she knew not for how long; and too terrified for tears, she began to ask herself if she could continue her life in this old house that she and Priscilla had grown up in from childhood to womanhood, everything in it associated with her sister, every room, every table and chair, dinner services and tea services, the books on the shelves and on the tables. All these things had belonged to Priscilla as much as they had to herself, and now they belonged only to her.
The old Victorian paper was still on the walls, hardly more stained or faded than it was on the first day they saw it; and in spite of her desire to put all memories behind her, she remembered her delight and Priscilla’s delight at the tapestry screens in rich wools, the faint water-colours on the walls, mills and ruins and mountain streams, the school exercises of their aunts. Aunt Clara and Aunt Margaret and Aunt Jane were dead; but their handiwork remained to tell of them. Priscilla and she had often talked of repapering the room, of replacing the squab sofa by a comfortable Chesterfield. It was only last week they were considering these things, and that the red damask curtains needed cleaning. The carpets would have had to come up.... If Priscilla had lived another month, the house would have been in the hands of the workmen; had she lived another two months, all would have been changed; and Emily asked herself if it would be harder for her to live in a new house, a house repapered, repainted, and refurnished, a house that would bear no memory of Priscilla, or to live in this old house in which her sister’s presence lingered like a ghost. Every piece of furniture, every picture, reminded her of something she had said to Priscilla or Priscilla had said to her. If that bird would only cease, she muttered, and fell to thinking that she had hated to hear him sing on the day that Priscilla died. Yes, he had sung that day — she had heard him, and to-day he was singing, the day of the funeral, forgetful of Priscilla, who had never forgotten to scatter crumbs under the great apple-tree in which he sang, or to bring a dish of water for him to drink from and to bathe in.
