Beggars May Sing

by Sara Seale

  A Beggar may sing before a Pickpocket.

  Old Proverb.

  Beggars May Sing

  Sara Seale

  CHAPTER I

  I

  SEBASTIAN began to play the Dead March in Saul very loudly. Almost at once, one of the doors which opened on to the gallery above him banged, and a girl, wearing nothing but a man's old bath-robe, leaned over the banisters, her thick red hair falling wildly over her face.

  "Who's it for?" she inquired fiercely.

  Her brother looked up at her and grinned. "The Judge is coming," he said.

  "Oh, lord!" She came slowly down the stairs, clutching her bath-robe tightly round her, its superfluous folds trailing behind. She swung herself on to the grand piano, and thrusting out a long thin leg, she contemplated the old slipper dangling from her bare foot. "I'm in rags," she remarked irrelevantly. "What's he coming for? It isn't Friday."

  He shrugged, introduced a vein of syncopation into the Dead March, and said regretfully, "Sebastian fails to take his scholarship. Georgina aids and abets. Argal: Cane for Sebastian, gruel for Georgina."

  "Oh, lord!" she said again.

  She crossed her arms, in their enveloping sleeves, tightly over her narrow chest, and frowned heavily. When she frowned, she looked like a young witch, with her pointed chin thrust forward and her short flaming hair springing from a high, rather delicate forehead. She shared with Sebastian the tilted eyes and bitter-sweet mouth which were the characteristics of all the Gales, but her whole body had a nervous, half-suppressed air of tension which his entirely lacked. He had about him an alive awareness which made him a charming companion when he chose, but he took life more easily, charmed with less effort than did his sister.

  Gina said slowly, "Yes, they do treat us like that."

  "Rot, I call it," Sebastian remarked good-naturedly.

  "Well, I don't know. I do feel most frightfully old at times, but I'm nineteen really; you're eighteen, so I suppose to them we must seem quite young," she said, and frowned more deeply.

  Sebastian began playing a waltz, an elaboration of his first theme, breaking off halfway with a quick, "No—like this," and repeating a phrase with a fresh harmony. When he had finished, he lifted his broad square-tipped hands from the keys and looked expectantly at his sister. "Any good?"

  "Yes, good, but change to the major in the last phrase, and then back again to the minor in the last bar. That'll give it a twist."

  "Clever little Ginny," he said, using his old nick-name for her, then tried the waltz again with the new variation.

  "Can't you make Julie see that this is what you must do instead of wasting time at Oxford?" Gina said impatiently when he had finished. "She generally listens to you. If you could get her on your side, the Judge might be more amenable instead of making our lives a burden to us."

  "Oh, I like old Mark," said Sebastian easily. "After all, he has a lot to put up with, I suppose."

  She was silent, then burst out suddenly, "I wish we'd never come to live here."

  "Why, darling? It's much more comfortable than living on nothing a year."

  "I know. But always under some obligation."

  "Oh, I don't look at it like that at all. The Judge had the house on his hands. His uncle might just as well have left it to Julie, anyway, only he didn't. Much better to have Julie running it for him. After all, she's his own sister, and since she would marry Father, we have to come too."

  "That's what seems so rotten."

  "Rubbish! Mark has money, we haven't. It's a very good arrangement. I could always have told Julie that our father would die insolvent. She doesn't complain."

  Gina was still speculative. "Julie's still very good-looking," she remarked thoughtfully.

  "I always said so," retorted her brother.

  "But not in the least 'appealing withal," she continued calmly.

  "Oh well, that depends on how you look at these things. A little unimaginative perhaps—a lack of subtlety now and again, but still—the good Victor has his ideas, anyway."

  "Oh, that bounder! I can't think why she doesn't see it. But she likes the man!" Gina exclaimed. "Oh, go on, darling! That's going to be good. Play it again."

  They became engrossed in the music, inventing ridiculous rhymes to fit it and shouting with laughter at each new absurdity.

  It was already after half-past seven, and the July evening was resolving into the chilly, rather depressing grey-ness that characterized the end of most of the days of that wet summer. Gina was just beginning to shiver a little when she heard the sound of a car drawing up outside, and a few minutes later the front door opened to admit the tall figure of a man carrying a suit-case.

  Sebastian stopped playing abruptly, and they both turned to stare at the newcomer, who put down his suit-case, threw his hat and gloves on to a table and advanced into the hall, limping slightly as he walked.

  "Hullo! Still at it?" he remarked.

  The little silence which followed was curiously hostile, then Sebastian laughed. "Hullo, Mark," he said easily, but he shut down the lid of the piano with a gesture of finality.

  "You'll be late for dinner if you don't go and change soon," Mark said, and as he turned to Gina sitting motionless on the piano-top, the long bath-robe slipping off her bare shoulders, his voice became suddenly warmer. "Well, Gina? You look like an Augustus John model! A garment of mine, I see."

  She flushed faintly. "Mine's in holes," she said quickly.

  "Is it? I'm sorry. Ask Julie to get you another," he said.

  At that moment a dark graceful young woman leaned over the banisters above them and called Gina's name. She sounded very angry.

  "You left your bath running—it must have been ages ago, and it's overflowed and the whole place is flooded. It's coming through underneath," she said sharply. "Really, Gina, you might think!"

  "Gripes!" said Gina, and leapt off the piano.

  "I wish you wouldn't say 'Christ,'" Mark said quickly.

  She wheeled round on him with hot cheeks. "I didn't! I said 'cripes,' and I got it from Sweeny," she cried furiously, and tan up the stairs as fast as her draperies would let her.

  Mark watched her disappear, then turned with a slight shrug. "Stupid of me," he said quietly.

  Sebastian got to his feet and stretched. "She's been known to say it all the same," he remarked with a grin, and followed his sister up the stairs.

  II

  The Barn House, 'as its name implied, was originally an old barn which had since been converted into a house. It was not a big house, and the rooms were all rather small, offering the unusual curiosity of making nearly every door visible from the hall itself. Thus Sebastian, who always managed to effect a change of dress quicker than anyone else, was first down, and watched from his seat at the piano the other occupants of the house emerge from their rooms.

  First Sweeny, groom-handyman, and on occasions cook-parlour-maid or anything else required of him, descended the stairs, having completed some errand or other. It was his day for waiting in the dining-room, since the maid was out, and he crossed the hall muttering to himself and shaking his head. Sweeny was beginning to look his age of late. He had never really settled down since they had brought him with them from Ireland nearly two years ago.

  Next came Julie, tall in her long black gown, still very good-looking, as Gina had remarked; probably more handsome at thirty-four than she had ever been at twenty.

  Mark followed soon after, tall and dark like his sister, but with a sensitiveness of face that she had never possessed. Only a year made him Julie's senior, but he looked older, and his lameness made his movements appear rather deliberate.

  Last of all came Gina, very late and wearing an old frock which was too short for present fashion, making he
r look like a long-legged child as she flung herself violently down the staircase.

  "The fish has been waiting this fifteen minutes, mam. Will I give it a bit of a warm?" said Sweeny's plaintive voice from the dining-room door.

  "Oh dear, Sweeny! You should have kept it in the kitchen until we came in. I'm always telling you that," said Julie impatiently.

  "Yes, mam. But cook locked the door on me, mam. Will you ate now, mam?"

  "In England you have to say 'eat,' Sweeny," Gina said in a hoarse whisper as they went into the dining-room, and Julie frowned.

  She glanced across at her brother at the opposite end of the table. "You look tired, Mark. Have you been working very hard lately?" she asked.

  "Yes, I have been pretty busy," he admitted. "This arbitration case still goes on, and there are several other things piling up as well."

  "You lawyers must rake it in when you get going." Sebastian observed cheerfully. "I saw a picture of you in some paper the other day, Mark. Mr. Proctor, well-known counsel, etcetera, etcetera. Won't you be taking silk soon?"

  Mark smiled and shook his head. "Not for many a year yet. Apart from anything else it costs money, you know," he said.

  Sebastian made a small grimace and said, "The ever filthy lucre bars the way." But Gina, sitting silent on Mark's right, looked up quickly from her plate, bit her lip and looked down again. Mark, whose observant eye missed very little, glanced at her sharply and changed the subject.

  "It's cold tonight, so I had a fire lit in the study, Mark, 'and I thought we'd all sit there," Julie said as they rose at the end of the meal.

  She left the room, followed by Gina, and began to make coffee at a small spirit-lamp in Mark's study. She allowed the coffee to come twice to the boil before she said pleasantly to Gina:

  "I asked Mark to come tonight specially, because I think he's stopping in town this week-end, and I want him to talk over this scholarship business with Sebastian." She poured out a cup of coffee and handed it to the girl, lifting her dark eyes to Gina's for a moment. "I do want this thing discussed amicably, Gina," she went on, "so please, will you try not to interrupt or make things difficult in any way? Sebastian really did rather disgrace himself in his exams, and some future arrangement has got to be made."

  "Julie—I—you—can't we—" Gina began, but broke off abruptly to say quietly, "All right, I won't utter." She sat sipping her coffee and exchanging desultory small talk with her stepmother until Mark and Sebastian joined them.

  When Sweeny had finally taken away the coffee-cups, Mark filled a pipe and sat smoking in silence for a little before tackling his subject. He didn't always enjoy the position which the recent re-arrangement of his household had thrust upon him.

  "Now what about this scholarship?" he said at last.

  Sebastian beamed. "Well, I just didn't get it," he said happily.

  "I know. But why didn't you?"

  Sebastian shrugged. "I dunno. Too stupid, I suppose."

  "Nonsense! That's just what you aren't, and you know it as well as I do," said Mark brusquely, and leant forward in his chair. His grey eyes, as they looked directly at Sebastian, were the keen, penetrating eyes of a shrewd, very wide-awake man, and the boy began to fidget. "Now look here, Sebastian. I'm not going to say much about your performance. You have brains enough to get a scholarship easily, and you gave a bad exhibition which was entirely due to slackness and lack of concentration. But that's done with now. You've finished with school and you must begin to make something of your life."

  "Well, I haven't had a chance yet. Hang it, I'm not very old!" Sebastian expostulated.

  "My dear, of course. We know that. But that's what we want to discuss now." Julie spoke pleasantly and persuasively. She instinctively took more trouble with Sebastian than she did with Gina.

  "Well, what do you want me to do?" he said a little resentfully.

  "You must take your scholarship again in December for some other college," said Mark. "And this time there must be no nonsense about winning it. You've got to get down to work, Sebastian. It shouldn't be difficult for you. You've got over four months, and I'll coach you in the long vacation. I shall be at home most of the time."

  "Oh, lord!" groaned Sebastian, glancing across 'at Gina, who was crouching silently over the fire and smoking endless cigarettes. "Why can't you let me alone, Mark? I'm not cut out for Oxford, really I'm not."

  "But, Sebastian, you've got to do something," said Julie quickly. "You don't seem to have any idea of what you want to do eventually, and Oxford will give you time to readjust your ideas. You can't hang about here all the time, making up your mind."

  "I don't want to hang about. I want to go abroad," Sebastian said a little sulkily. "You know all about it, Julie."

  "Oh, this jazz! I know that," she retorted. "That phase will pass; you can't expect us to take that seriously."

  Mark glanced across at his sister and raised an eyebrow slightly. "But the point is, Sebastian," he said, turning back to the boy, "I can't afford to keep you at Oxford, I'm afraid, unless you get a scholarship, and any other alternative such as going 'abroad is not catered for in that way."

  "The point is, Sebastian," said Julie rather sharply, "that Mark is under no obligation to keep either of you."

  "It isn't a question of that at all," Mark said rather impatiently. "Not an awfully kind way of putting it either, Julie." He smiled at his sister. "I'm not a poor man, Sebastian, but I'm not rich either. There's this house to keep up, though it isn't large, and Julie runs it admirably. Then there's my flat in the Temple. Very tiny, it's true, but it all costs money. I do well enough at the Bar, but I'm not one of the big noises, and never will be. So you see, I'm afraid it is up to you to help a bit. It may seem a waste of time and a bore to you, but you'll gain something by it all the same. What do you say?"

  Sebastian laughed a little uncomfortably. "I've not much choice, have I?" he said, getting up and moving restlessly about the room. "You've been awfully decent to us really, Mark."

  Sweeny's melancholy face appeared round the door. "Dogsbody has taken a turn on your bed, mam," he said. "Will I change the blanket this night?"

  Julie went to the door saying, "I'd better go and see to things," and Gina and Sebastian followed her with alacrity.

  Mark caught the girl's hand as she passed him, and said quickly, "No, not you, Gina. I want to speak to you a moment."

  "Me?" said Gina in startled tones, and watched with resignation the door closing finally upon the other two.

  Mark knocked out his pipe and put it on the mantelpiece. He looked at the girl waiting nervously for him to speak, and pictured her again as she was the first time he had ever seen her. She had been finishing her last year at a school in Dublin when her father had died, leaving them entirely unprovided for, so that the move to England and the Barn House had been accomplished by the time she had left school for good and followed her family from Ireland. He had gone to Euston to meet the boat-train, and had escorted a thin, rather resentful little schoolgirl back to Sussex. The crossing had been rough, and Gina, always a bad sailor, looked white and plain. Her school clothes were unbecoming, and she had a lost, unhappy look in spite of her air of defiance.

  "Awfully difficult, Mark dear," Julie had said of her before she arrived, but there had always been something about her which had appealed to him, even in her most unprepossessing moments.

  "Why won't you be friends with me, Gina?" he asked her suddenly.

  She looked alarmed. "Oh, I—Mark—I am friends," she said lamely.

  He raised an eyebrow doubtfully and smiled. "Well—I don't know about that," he began, then broke off to say kindly, "You're a mass of nerves tonight, child. What's upset you?"

  Her face altered at his tone; she smiled—that sudden sweet smile which she had in common with her brother, but used so much more rarely.

  "I'm all right," she said quickly. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

  "I want you to help me with Sebastian," he replied
at once. "Do you know it was your fault as much as his own that he failed?"

  "My fault? But he was at school!" she exclaimed.

  "Yes, I know. But you were behind him. You didn't want him to get a scholarship any more than he did himself. You don't want him to go to Oxford, do you?"

  He was watching her intently now, as he had watched Sebastian.

  "No," she said.

  "No. Now I'm going to be quite frank with you, Gina. Sebastian at the moment is setting out to be just a charming waster. That's why I consider Oxford will be invaluable to him. He'll have to shift for himself a bit, and he'll meet other people of his own age and sex. But if you hold him back all the time by pandering to every ridiculous idea he may get, he'll never do anything. Why don't you push him on instead of siding with him against Julie and myself all the time?"

  She came across the room to his chair, and stood over him, her little pointed face sharp with tension.

  "Mark, why won't you let him do what he wants?" she cried desperately. "Surely it's the best way. It can't ever do good to force someone out of their right channel and leave them for ever unsatisfied."

  "But, my dear," he said gently, "you can't apply all this anguish to a career of jazz!"

  "Oh, don't sneer like Julie," she said, and ignoring his quick gesture of denial, dropped on her knees beside his chair, and rested her elbows on the arm, and her chin on her hands. "Mark, you have imagination, which so few people seem to possess. Can't you understand a little?"

  "I'll try," he said simply.

  "Sebastian is good in his own line—really good," she went on. "He doesn't want to write things about sugar babies and blue birds, except perhaps as pot-boilers. He believes in the future of jazz. He's working on a jazz symphony now. And his things will sell eventually. His work is marketable. That ought to appeal to you," she finished a little bitterly.

  "I'm afraid you and Sebastian think that I only consider the money aspect," he said quietly. "But you at least have intelligence enough to know that isn't so. You make out a good case for him, Gina, and I appreciate your side of the thing. I don't profess to know anything about modern music or its future, but Sebastian is very young and has plenty of time to consider the position. Even supposing I could afford to send him to Paris and pay for his training and his keep, he's at the stage now when he doesn't know what he wants. He would be just as likely after a year to discover that he had a flair for sculpture."