A Note in Music

by Rosamond Lehmann

  Now the cocoanuts shy. What silly things cocoanuts looked, sitting in their holders with their beards hanging down. Click, click went the balls. Down tumbled two.

  “Oh, lord,” he cried, “a couple of ’em!” He waved them in his hands, juggled with them. “What am I to do with them? … Here, catch, you!” He threw them into the midst of an audience of urchins, laughed, went on his way.

  Follow him, follow him. It was like something on the pictures, all the bustle of the fair, and him the hero going about so heedless, and you the heroine, creeping like a shadow after him. …

  All sorts of funny games he stopped at—games with coins, and dice, and race-horse games; and a try-your-strength machine that gave him his money back.

  Up came a gypsy woman with great gold rings in her ears, whining softly, gazing into his face, so soupy, out of her black eyes, wanting to tell his fortune. “Come on, Brown,” said he. “Here’s your chance. Have your fortune told on your birthday.” But it was him the gypsy wanted. You could hear her: “Gentleman, dear,” she called him, the cheek of her; “you’ve got a lucky face, dear,” she said.

  “A handsome wife and ten thousand a year, eh?” he teased her. He put a coin in her hand, shook his head laughing, passed on to the sweet stall. Ever so bright it was with its striped sugar-sticks under the dazzling jet, fruit-drops pink, green, yellow, butterscotch in silver paper. Would he buy any? Sweets were lovely, specially walnut toffee. Why not buy some, go and stand beside him. … The group had separated. Now was the moment: he was alone.

  “Quarter of walnut toffee, please.”

  Why, he was buying some of the same. He saw her.

  “Hello!—what’s your name?—Pansy-faces. … All on your little lone?”

  Excited his voice was, and she noticed his eyes, bright, the blacks of them dilated. He’d had some drinks.

  She stared up at him; and once more the small face moved him: the hungry eyes, blue-shadowed, the flawless china mask.

  “Where’ve you been hiding yourself?”

  What he always said. …

  “Well, I’ve been rather poorly.”

  “Sorry to hear that. … Buying toffee? Here, let me get you some.”

  He bought a bulging bagful, gave it to her. Somebody was calling him: “Hugh! Hugh!”

  “See you later,” he said. “Tried the merry-go-rounds? We’ll have a ride.”

  He hesitated a little, repeated “See you later,” made a little gesture with his hand, ran off to join his friends.

  Never, he thought, had he known any one take her pleasures so seriously, have so little sense of humour.

  She saw them close around him, laughing, teasing him very likely: “Who’s your friend?” Oh, what would he say?… What would he call her? … Oh! he’d never say a thing to take away a girl’s character, surely not, so kind he was, and courteous. …

  She saw him jump on to a horse, heard loud whoops and hunting cries, as the roundabout gathered pace. Round he went … round he went … wheeling away from her … towards her … away, away. Oh, God, that sick whirl, and him there, leaving her behind, forgetting her. She leaned on the barrier, gripped it till her fingers hurt. Look at him, turning round to shout and laugh. Always the way: dashing on to the next thing, some one to meet, somewhere to go: no time for her. No good waiting, really. They were all going out in a crowd towards another roundabout with little cars hung on to it, room for two, flying right out over people’s heads as they went round: awful.

  Lost, lost. What should she do? Too much trouble, it seemed, to go on living, let alone walk about, or go home. Heartsick—that was the very word; and dizzy with the shouting, the glare, the smell. Such a sudden joy, and now the disappointment. … Well, go on hanging about on the chance, she supposed. … She looked at her bag of sweets. The very sight of them made her want to retch.

  She stood outside a tent, heard a man shouting over and over again: “This way, ladies and gentlemen, for the Ugliest Woman in the World.” The crowd streamed in unceasingly. They went in eager, sheepish, came out solemn, not amused. Some made pitying remarks, some looked quite disgusted. What did they want to see such sights for?—some awful deformity, most likely. And weren’t people’s faces horrid, really—their expressions? She’d noticed it often lately: like a lot of animals, goodness knows what kind, nothing so harmless as sheep. Difficult to believe we are all God’s Children. … But all the same, what did the woman look like? Might as well have a peep: something to think about; anything was better than just standing waiting, being stared at, nudged by drunken brutes—waiting, knowing it was no good waiting. …

  And as she slipped into the crowd, she felt that this, this queueing up, this paying your penny to see a freak penned up in the dirt and squalor of a tent, like a beast in a show, for all to make a mock and a byword of—this was, of all the things she had ever done, the most against her nature, the most shocking letting of herself down. How could she be so common? … It was all his fault.

  She was pushed forward into the tent on the surge of the crowd, shut her eyes for fear of what she would see, had to open them.

  It seemed strange in the tent, thought Tom, after the last he had been in, where a sort of nigger woman rolled her eyes and writhed in a dismal way: quiet, dark, one lamp burning, and there she sat, in a decent black stuff blouse and skirt, a little shawl on her shoulders, an elderly woman, grey-haired, knitting. A hush in the tent … a child burst into a wailing cry. People spoke in low voices, fell silent, went away soon, sorry that they’d intruded on her, this poor old knitting granny in monster’s guise: especially the men: it was not funny, not what they’d expected. The men were ashamed for Woman.

  Why, it was a disease, thought Tom: elephantiasis, that was what it was; how could they let her? … How could she? … those hands, twice the normal size, that hump, those purple growths for lips, the monstrous length of upper lip and chin; and, surmounting all, that infinitesimal pair of eyes, mildly twinkling, mildly self-conscious, as she surveyed the pilgrims to her shrine. It made him feel hot and guilty—ungentlemanly, he felt, to see her. He left the tent, strolled away, tried to forget her; but his melancholy persisted, the face haunted him. He stopped, assailed by the most painful sense of responsibility. He must go back.

  He gripped the barrier hard, leaned forward, cleared his throat. She laid down her knitting and came towards him. (Oh, that face, looming nearer and nearer!)

  “Good evening, sir,” she said. She had the voice of a motherly old housekeeper, dignified and respectful. She waited.

  What to say or do now? He grew red. His voice burst out of him.

  “I say, why do you do this?”

  Her story was not long, was very simple. It was an illness, came on when she was thirty; before that she’d been—well—a nice-looking girl. She pulled a little locket from her bosom, opened and displayed it: a nice-looking girl. She was a married woman (and she held her hand up, showed the broad gold band upon the finger)—had a son, a sailor now, a daughter too, an invalid. Well, then, this illness; and her husband died; not a penny coming in, her daughter worse and worse, on her back with spinal trouble, year after year. Nothing but the workhouse or the Home for Incurables. Well, that made the poor girl frantic, very nearly killed her. So then she said to herself, well then, she said, Sir, I’ll make my face my fortune—remembering the fairs and the freaks, as a child. She didn’t mind the life at all, and sent home money regular: plenty and to spare there was to keep her daughter comfortable, her son’s wife for company and all her son’s children.

  There was no way, thought Tom, in which he could possibly express to her such feelings as he had—disturbing feelings of pity, horror, admiration. God, he thought, what an eye-opener! Life gave some people a dirty deal. That son now, the sailor, far away in foreign waters, thinking of his mother, not sitting waiting for him by her own fireside, but touring the country, year in year out,
as a freak with a fair. Good God, a man’s own mother! … and she herself, that good old woman, wandering from place to place with the appalling burden of her own body, forced, since the world would pay, to show the world that which, surely, she would have hidden if she could more secretly than a modest woman her nakedness. It was all wrong. … He realized suddenly that an audience had gathered round him, to gape and listen, hoping for another sideshow.

  “Good night,” said Tom.

  “Good night to you, sir,” said she.

  He fumbled in his pocket, held out half a crown.

  “Thank you very much, sir.”

  “Good luck,” he muttered gruffly. He blundered out of the tent, dark red in the face and furtive.

  What had come over him to-night, making him feel and act in such an extraordinary way? It must be the wine at dinner … or being so lonely. What would they think of him in the office, if they knew? He’d be thankful when he got back to work. It had been a most wretched, a most unsettling holiday.

  He stood at the entrance of the tent, staring upwards at a sky full of stars. Funny thing: he had not noticed stars for years; had forgotten what a lot there were, and how they shone.

  Pansy came out of the tent and stood beside him. He looked down presently and saw her.

  “Were you in there?” he said.

  “Yes. I heard what she said to you.”

  “Hmm. Pretty awful, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t mind, you know. I don’t believe she minds.”

  “I hope to God not,” he said.

  They stood side by side in the humming and populous solitude, not drawn to each other—not exactly—but inevitably together: the last two people left in the world. No need to look before or after. They had nothing to tell one another, and nothing to conceal. With their quiet exchange of words was no exchange of glances, no challenge or invitation.

  “Anyway,” said Pansy, vehemently, “she’s not what I call ugly—not after the first shock. It came over me all of a sudden when she smiled, and I said to myself: ‘You’re not ugly—not as bad, by a long chalk, as some I’ve seen to-night.’ I wish I’d told her that.”

  “Mm,” said Tom, wondering rather dubiously if he agreed with her.

  They were both silent, thinking kindred thoughts: that beauty is only skin-deep (how true it was),—that handsome is as handsome does (how they came home, these sayings, when one stopped to think … ).

  “Well, I’ve had enough of the fun of the fair for one night,” said Tom. “This sort of thing’s wasted on me, I suppose.”

  “A little goes a long way, to my mind,” said Pansy.

  “Some people have a funny idea of enjoying themselves.” (That young Miller now, and all those others with him, rampaging around, playing the giddy goat; he had been watching them. They looked as though they’d keep it up till midnight. Luckily they seemed to have disappeared. It would not do to be seen like this.) “It’s all right if you’re young, I suppose.”

  “You’re not old,” said Pansy. “It’s just that one’s different.”

  Different, they felt: wise, knowing life for what it was.

  They were silent again.

  He eyed her narrowly, thinking that he failed now to detect what, at first sight, had seemed to be written all over her: the rapacity, the proclamation of lips and eyes, the lascivious promise of her whole person. Now, in spite of himself, desire was lacking. This business of picking up a girl was turning out quite differently from what Potter had led him to imagine. It was not brisk, or bantering or business-like. It felt important; it disturbed him with emotions unconnected with physical appetite; it made him melancholy. He did not know how to proceed, or whether he wanted to proceed. It seemed to him likely that he had mistaken her calling, and that she would reject any advances with contempt and indignation. She was taking no notice of him now at all, but looking about everywhere, as if searching for some one: her mother, perhaps, or her young man. The minutes passed.

  She stared in every direction: not a sign. It was getting late. He must have gone away.

  Sick at heart she was … and it was plain now: it was all pretence, his friendliness. He loathed the very sight of her.

  Well, then … this man … she looked up and met his mute, shame-faced inquiry and appeal. He was looking at her now with the look she knew, but pitiful really, more than greedy.

  “Lonely?” she asked, in a different, a faintly professional voice.

  He nodded.

  “I’ll bet you are. I thought to myself in there: What’s he want to go talking to her for? He must be hard up.” She capped her sally with a brittle and unconvincing peal of laughter, shot him a glance and added: “I’m only teasing. It was a very kind act, I thought. I saw you give her something, too. I said to myself: He’s generous.” (Looked as if he had something to spare, anyway.)

  He heard the sharp undertone in her last words. She was giving him a lead. Generous, yes, of course he was—within reasonable limits. Well, he was in for it now. He cleared his throat.

  “You’re welcome,” he muttered, feeling choked, “to what I’ve got on me.” (The last of the damned holiday money.)

  “That’s all right.” She smiled, encouraged him. “Cheer up. What about a bite of supper?” She held up her bag of toffee. “That’s all I’ve had since lunch,” she said. “Ugh, nasty, sickly stuff.” With a violent gesture she threw it from her. “I know of a very nice hotel where we could get something—very exclusive.”

  “Right-o!” said Tom.

  Supposing some one saw him. … He pulled his hat over his eyes, longed for a false moustache, any disguise.

  “Come along, then,” she said gently, taking his arm.

  When Grace had read Tom’s wire, announcing his arrival, she knew it for the first warning, the first threat to illusion. Immediately she telegraphed; and silence followed. He did not come, or write. But in the days succeeding, the web wore ever thinner. It was going to let her out, after all. She calculated the period of her absence: five weeks, nearly six. Her money was all gone,—all save the amount of her fare back North—hour after hour she had been moving on towards the town again, and the autumn rains and gales in the cold streets. It had all been a deception. How the Parish Ladies of old days would have gloated: husband and home abandoned, duty neglected, the vicar’s daughter, always unreliable, given over to guilty love and gone away. Odd, how the thought of them, their falcon eyes, their bloodhound noses, their parrot tongues, affected her still with childish feelings of hatred, awe, and superstition. They were so powerful, these guardians of morality, these dictators of her duty: from Parish Ladies they grew to Giants, and ruled the world. They were sending her back from the recaptured state of original sin, from flower gardens and idle solitude, from ecstatic egoisms and unrealities as of another childhood, from pangs of love that brought forth love unchecked, and fed on love alone—back to a numbered dwelling in a town, to a steady husband, and the domestic responsibilities of a married woman.

  Yes, it was true, her husband had sent a letter weekly, giving such news as should engage her whole attention: for he told her what her life was. His message was authentic, the accent unmistakable. Useless to say, like a child in a game, “I’m deaf now,” and turn away. Useless to run back, panic-stricken, rebellious, for a last glimpse, foolishly crying: “I’ve been cheated. All that has happened is not true, has been against my will. I am a poet, almost—a suppressed creator—” (surely it was to be a poet, almost, to see hollyhocks as music?) “I should have been beautiful, had love fulfilled me—” (surely it had been about to be beautiful, her mysterious seventeen-year-old face in the glass, one day long ago; about to take on the symmetry, the harmonious stillness of a madonna, dreaming on things to come. She had seen her own beauty coming to meet her just that once: never again. And now again this summer she had seen it, passing her in the distance and biddi
ng her farewell.) Useless to say: “I’ll go back now, and take what is my due: take love, take loveliness, take perfect emotional fulfilment: grasp all I had a mind for, use every talent, waste no opportunity.” That was the nonsense common to any dissatisfied woman, treading the dangerous, neutral, and shadowy territory between youth and middle age. “It’s her age,” would whisper the Parish Ladies, excited, furtively amused. “Give her no sympathy. Keep the young men away. She’ll settle down again.” … Was that it?

  Let her remember why she had come here. She had come here, not to prepare for change, for further flight, for life and love, but for the resumption, after a little rest and change of air, of her duties as a house-wife. Let her remember there was no escape.

  How could a woman forget, as she had forgotten—permit herself entirely to forget ten years of married life? Such a woman, irresponsibly revelling in sham freedom, was a disgrace to womanhood. A good sell for her to wake up and find Tom waiting to let her into his home again, quite unaltered, his bowler hat on, and the latch-key fastened to his watch-chain. He would say, “What did you do all day by yourself?”—and she would have to say, annoyingly, “Nothing at all.” He would scarcely ask, “What did you think about?”—so she would not have to answer unconvincingly, “Flowers, trees, birds, cornfields, and water.” Still less would he inquire, “Whom did you think of?”—still less would she be required to reply, insanely, “Entirely of young Miller.”

  She lingered a few days longer, then packed her suitcase and consulted a time-table at the village inn. She left at the fullness of the year, the pregnant pause before the treasure is spilt. The corn was heavy in the ear, the moulded copper and tawny fields pressed up against the sky-line, bursting with their yield. The small green apples swelled upon the bough. The roses were ready to drop. The fat, pink clover crop loaded the air with sweetness.