A Note in Music

by Rosamond Lehmann

  He heard the clocks strike twelve as he started to walk home after dropping his sister at Norah’s door.

  He whistled because he felt dispirited; he decided to take the longer way home and let a good dose of night air clear his head.

  He walked down two little streets and turned into the avenue.

  Perhaps he would not see these streets much longer. In the taxi, Clare had said to him: “My dear, this is a terrible place. Shall you stay?” And then teasingly:

  “Don’t the great open spaces call any more?” Little did she know what went on inside him sometimes, the restlessness, the bothered feeling. … If only Oliver were to write from wherever he was, abroad, lost, and say “Join me,” he would be gone to-morrow. …

  Well, it was no good realizing now how much one missed him.

  Now, where was it that woman lived?… in the middle, somewhere on this side.

  With a feeling of discomfort, he pictured her standing alone at the window, watching him go past. And he had never so much as given her a thought. She was a nice odd woman: he wouldn’t mind a bit if she turned up to-morrow­. It had suddenly seemed such a shame to know she felt like that about the country and not give her the chance of a peep at it.

  She had been nice about Grock.

  He quickened his pace. The dear old boy would be waiting for him.

  The clocks struck one.

  Pansy left a dark back street in which shone out, with ambiguous emphasis, a solitary hotel lamp. She walked past the barracks, turned into a street of mean little red-brick and stucco dwellings, and let herself into her brother’s house. He had left a candle burning. She took it, made a cursory inspection of the kitchen, raked out the ashes, sniffed. Coming in one night she had smelt burning. Will had thrown a cigarette end down, the edge of the rug was beginning to smoulder. He tried to be tidy, but he hadn’t much sense.

  How her legs ached; what a shame it was to have to work as she did, nine-thirty till six on her feet, endlessly shampooing, cutting, waving; and the tips next to nothing; and not a good class of shop, she knew that—a nasty cheap little place, a common class of people. … It must be months now since she had seen him going out of the gent’s saloon, the other side of the shop. What a shock that had been! She had felt her heart jump. To think of him there! She had watched for him since in vain. Probably he had found a better-class place now—had been in a hurry that first time, or had nobody to tell him the best place for a gentleman to go. Most likely he went to Louis’ now in South Street. She had often thought of trying there for a job in the ladies’ part. It was quite the most select in the town. Probably they wouldn’t take her, though: she had Enemies in her place, nosey-parkers, who might speak secretly against her. That morning in the shop was the first of the times he hadn’t noticed her. Then there was the evening in the Palace Galleries, when he had sat with a crowd of young fellows round him, laughed and danced so gaily, not with her; and then to-night, coming out of the pictures with a beautiful girl on his arm. … Ah! It gave her a kind of pain in the stomach to think of those times when he had not seen her; or pretended he hadn’t. If only she could chance on him when he was alone, and she dared go up to him.

  She was dead tired, dead tired. To-morrow she would get home early and have a good long sleep. She went slowly upstairs, past Will’s door, heard his heavy regular breathing, trailed on to her own bedroom.

  She set the candle on the high deal dressing-table and peered into the mirror. How pretty she was, how pretty; what a lovely shape were her red lips! That one to-night in the hotel had told her she ought to go on the films: he had said she could do anything she liked with a face like hers. Ah, but they all said the same sort of things, specially the fat, smooth-spoken, elderly ones. Ugh!… Funny, she never could remember them half an hour afterwards—not their looks, or anything, thank God. One didn’t need to think it over: it was all wiped out as if it had never happened, except for the money. That was solid, luckily. But him—she’d have remembered him all right, and not cared about the money. He had left her there in the street (she thought, anxiously, for the thousandth time), and she saw him offering the money, looking, not green and awkward, but kind and shy, haughty and very polite. Her refusing it, quick, on an impulse, must have shown him she wasn’t just an ordinary … But was it that she hadn’t pleased him? She gazed at herself again. Like a flower, she thought. Surely nobody could think her bad with a face like hers. Perhaps that’s what he had thought: too frail, too flower-like to touch. She heard him saying, very gently: “How I hate this for you, Pansy—an exquisite refined creature like you.” He would ask her why. … She would explain to him how she’d always had to struggle, how different she was really, how unhappy. He would understand.

  Perhaps he was engaged to be married to that girl: perhaps that was why he hadn’t … They made a splendid couple: but she looked hard, not good enough for him, nothing like.

  She was seized with a fit of coughing. Yes, she was very delicate, she never got rid of her cough now: far too delicate to go on the films—to do any work really. Supposing she had the pneumonia again next winter. … The doctor­ had ordered her to wear good thick combinations. … Was it likely! She would have liked to tell him how seriously the doctor had warned her. Sometimes she wondered if she wasn’t in a consumption already. … And the face she stared at hung mournfully in vacancy—[like a flower, thought one; or another, a little monkey].

  She started to undress.

  Then what would Will do without her? Only one little job he had had in ten months, and now out of work again and not a hope of anything this summer. It wasn’t only that the building trade was in such a bad way: it was poor Will himself: simple he was; nothing actually wrong, of course, but a bit silly, poor fellow. Nobody wanted to employ him. The very last thing Mother had said was that Will would always need looking after. It was true. Here he was, close on forty, and quite like a child. He was snoring now. … Good old Will: he was good to her, he cleaned up the house, cooked his own dinner; he thought the world of her, never asked questions—hadn’t the sense to, thank goodness.

  She dropped into her creaking bed, blew out the candle, and, sinking into sleep, saw him as she saw him always, in a huge gold and pink ballroom, coming towards her, noble in a tail-coat, a flower in his buttonhole, bowing over her. The band struck up. She laid her white ringed hand on his shoulder. Round and round they went in the waltz; her frock swung out, glittering with diamanté. “How beautifully you dance, Pansy,” he murmured. “How delicious your hair smells.” He clasped her to him, and on they went, round and round, dreamily, for ever and ever.

  Part Four

  The car drew up before the porch, and they all sat still for a few moments, dazed with forty miles of torrential moorland air upon their faces; for Hugh’s was the kind of swift, napping, manly car whose broken windscreen engulfs its occupants in a perpetual gale from the four quarters.

  The house was a white stone Georgian block, symmetrical, ample, dignified, with a massive carved and pillared porch. A low stone wall bordered the terrace in front of the house, and a shallow semi-circular flight of steps dropped from the centre of it to a sunken garden set with a pattern of formal beds, bright now with wallflowers, primulas, and bordered with low clipped hedges of beech in fresh leaf.

  The central paved walk ran down through lines of tall, crowding, rosy tulips to the small circular basin of a lily-pool; and by the water’s edge upon an ancient bench of carved Italian stone sat a dark masculine figure. Presently it rose and vanished on stealthy tiptoe into the shrubbery. Norah’s heart sank at glimpse of Cousin Christopher in flight from his guests. Perhaps now he would not appear again till after they had left. If Cousin Mary also were to remain perdue, as was likely, what was she to do with all these people?—How answer to all of them for her rash and ridiculous action?

  They were all climbing out of the car now. Hugh stretched himself, smiling; his yellow h
air stood on end, his face was flushed with wind and sun; his dog pranced round him with triumphant shouts.

  That dog, thought Norah, would be the last straw for Cousin Christopher; and would Cousin Mary look with indulgence upon Clare’s cigarette, and the lips that held it, whose brilliant colour and shape required and received constant public renewal?

  Gerald was striking a match for her. He looked happy. Something both dreamy and eager was in his face—something of youth—and his hair, too, was ruffled, boyish-looking­. He had his own charm, thought Norah; perhaps, if Clare was nice to him, he would continue to forget that he had been brought to visit his wife’s county relations.

  The air had whipped no colour into Grace’s cheeks. She was standing apart from the others, in her special way, solidly planted, still, lonely-looking, a faint smile in lips and eyes as she gazed out over the garden. She had taken off her hat; and above her drab frock her face was arresting in its waxen pallor. By what happy accident had she lit on that queer greyish dress with its long full skirt, its defined waistline, its white puritan collar and cuffs? For once her obstinate indifference to fashion had led her to achieve a personal design. If one were seeing her to-day for the first time, one might think the funny old thing almost … what might one think her? … interesting certainly … almost a plain beauty.

  “Let’s wander down the garden,” said Norah; adding without conviction: “They’re sure to be pottering about somewhere.”

  Their footsteps echoing on gravel and stone seemed, thought Grace, to break into a timeless peace. Below the white, gleaming house, the blossoming garden lay spread out within its green hollow, enfolded in girdles of old trees, with the harmonious unreality of a garden of the imagination.

  They went through the paved garden, down another flight of steps to a stretch of lawn and a tennis-court. Alone beside the net stood a tall, dark youth. He wore a peach-coloured crêpe-de-chine shirt, open at the throat, and a broad crimson silk handkerchief carelessly knotted in place of a collar; and a pair of flannel trousers of softest grey.

  “Who is this vision?” murmured Clare. “Son of the house?”

  “No, there isn’t one,” said Norah. “I can’t think who it is.”

  He came forward and said in a rich and musical voice, articulating in a clipped, emphatic way:

  “How do you do. Which of you is called Norah?” He looked at none of them.

  “I am.”

  He glanced at her for a second out of a pair of thick-fringed, deep-set, dark eyes, and said, looking away again:

  “I’ve just been marking out the tennis-court for you.” He waved his hand towards the marker. “They thought you might want to play.” He dissociated himself from the suggestion with a shrug.

  “We did bring racquets,” murmured Norah.

  “You’ll find it very soft. Also uneven. However”—he smiled with sudden charm—“I’ve made you some beautiful straight lines.”

  He did not let one help him, thought Norah, out of his shyness, if shyness it were. Standing with his head down like that, in utter repudiation of their presence, he made one feel clumsy and tongue-tied.

  “I don’t know what you want to do,” he said. “Will you amuse yourselves? You were to fish, if you wanted to, the old gentleman said. He was somewhere about, but he’s disappeared. I don’t think he wants to see you at present.”

  “Are you staying here, then?” asked Norah.

  “Yes,” he said. “I often do. I’m their grandson.”

  “Their what?” Her mind made rapid incredulous darts and remained blank.

  “My name is Ralph Seddon.”

  “I am—I was Norah Seddon—I’m a cousin.”

  “Really?” He looked at her without interest.

  She had a sudden flash of memory.

  She exclaimed “Oh!” remembering some rumour of an only son, vanished or dead—some old grief or disgrace, never referred to—a story long finished before the time of her youthful visits.

  “I’m quite genuine, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said briefly, surveying them all beneath his lids.

  “I didn’t know,” murmured Norah. “I—”

  “Why should you?” he said lightly, turning the corners of his mouth down in a pseudo-smile. “Is it important? I assume you’re somebody’s grandchild yourself, though I don’t know whose. …”

  There was general, rather uncomfortable laughter, in which she joined, feeling herself snubbed.

  “Well—” she said, hoping to appease him with a friendly smile, “we’re relations, then.”

  He bowed abruptly from the waist.

  What an awkward situation, what a difficult young man! … She turned to the others for assistance, and was confronted by a variety of unhelpful facial expressions. Only Hugh had remained apparently unimpressed: he seemed not even to be listening. He had picked up the tennis balls and was juggling with a skill that might have roused envy in a professional breast.

  “Take anybody on,” he cried.

  They all looked; and the tension thus eased, he added, after a moment, still juggling: “Did anybody say fishing?”

  “Yes,” said Norah eagerly. “The lake is full of trout.”

  “I shall go and stir ’em up.”

  He sent all the balls up one after another to a last record height, let them drop, and said, turning rather shyly to Grace:

  “Shall we try for a trout or two?”

  A flush of pleasure swept up into her cheeks, and she replied swiftly:

  “I’d like to watch you.”

  “What about you, Clare?” said he.

  “I’ll fish,” she said, “if there’s a boat, and somebody to row me.”

  Perhaps her eyes slid for a second towards the romantic youth. But he said with an air of deep relief:

  “That’s all right, then. The rods are down in the boat-house. I expect you know the way.”

  And he went away, without another look, up the garden, walking with bent head and stumbling, uncertain stride: the gait of one accustomed in his walks to look within himself, rather than at the path he follows.

  “I’ll row you,” said the voice of Gerald, a voice so new and strange in quality that “Well,”—said his wife, emphatically, to herself, and got no further, caught in a general tangle of surprises.

  She conducted them to the lake-side, provided tackle, helped Clare and Gerald to embark, pushed off the boat, watched Hugh for a moment while he whipped out his line and started to cast from the bank with nonchalant skill, waved to Grace—then sat down on the grass in the sun, took book and half-knitted stocking from her bag; laid down first one, then the other; stretched herself out and sank into a peaceful doze.

  Little by little and in silence they had reached the farther end of the lake. Grace sat down in a little clearing where a few bluebells mingled with the fresh young grass, and a fringe of larches made a shade. Happiness stole upon her.

  Some essence of the spirit of the spring day seemed to hover, brooding and shining, upon the long, sunny stretch of water. The lake was girdled with trees and bushes, and wild song welled out as if from the throats of hundreds and hundreds of choral branches. The unfolding leaves covered the boughs with a manifold variety of little shapes. Knots, hearts, points, clusters of rosettes, dots and tapers of budding foliage, made up embroideries of infinite complexity in jade, in greenish-silver, in honey-yellow; but some were tinged with a russet flame, haunting the eye with an autumnal prophecy.

  He stood in front of her at the water’s edge casting this way and that with easy, graceful movements of wrist and forearm. He fished with the unemphatic assurance, the careless rightness, which were the special qualities of his whole physical being. How satisfactory, she thought, to be made thus, clear and unambiguous, and not as most people were, in a muddle of conflicting features and indeterminate results: with the eye
s of a poet and the hands of a butcher, the frame of a prizefighter and the lined brow, the spectacled eyes of a scholar.

  The thought of Tom came to her; how he would have enjoyed this day’s fishing. Tom was a fussy and ungainly angler and a malign fate ordered his expeditions disastrously. But again she thought, almost guiltily, how he would have enjoyed it and talked about it afterwards.

  Gentle birth, property, family, the stately homes of England—she told herself that Hugh’s appearance suggested such terms. He was above her station: he knew it, and with the democratic tact of the true aristocrat, was taking special pains to make her feel at ease. …

  At this moment he turned round, smiling with the greatest friendliness; and an exclamation of poignant pleasure and surprise arose within her as she received in a flash, through all her being, the impress of his essential self. She saw him with overpowering clarity, alone in unparalleled individuality, apart from everybody else she had ever known or would ever know.

  “Poof,” he said, “hot!”—and he threw off his coat. “Not even a nibble yet,” he said. “Aren’t you bored?”

  “No. I do like to watch you fish.”

  He laughed, and said with a quick, amused glance: “Funny thing to like.” He added: “Cigarettes in my coat pocket. Help yourself.”

  “I don’t really smoke.”

  But she took up the coat and felt in the pockets with a warm sense of the intimacy of the action. It gave her pleasure to touch his possessions.

  Soon he glanced round again and said, smiling:

  “Remember that coat of mine you mended?”

  “Yes. Did it split again?”

  “Rather not. It was splendid.”

  Her happiness rose and entrenched her more firmly. She took out a flat, gold cigarette-case engraved with a monogram.

  “What a lovely case!”

  “Yes, it was a twenty-firster.”

  She opened it and read the inscription: Hugh George Miller, Esq., Presented by the Tenants of the Willowfields Estate on the occasion of his Twenty-first Birthday; and she felt the certainty of her happiness waver and thin out. The imposing words were as a window into a world where came no Grace Fairfaxes.