The County Ball was held in Trallwm, in the Assembly Rooms, which was a grand term given to a largish public-hall-of-all-work; and the corridors and anterooms surrounding it, in the Town Hall. It was prettily hung with holly and Christmas decorations, and had been furnished for the occasion by a local dealer with some really handsome antiques, and so it was a pleasant setting for an occasion when most of the guests brought a genuine spirit of gaiety with them.
It was a mixed assemblage of county gentry, well-to-do farmers and townspeople, and it was ostensibly in aid of the hospital. The squire could well remember—and never ceased reminding everyone he met of the fact—the days when a velvet rope divided the dancing floor, and the county danced on one side, and the lesser folk on the other. But those days were gone, and everybody said, with varying degrees of sincerity, that they were glad of it. The Neuadd Goch party were disposed to enjoy themselves, except Giles, who hated the music but had not quite enough determination to stay at home.
Balancing the ballroom, at the other end of the main corridor of the Town Hall, was the Court Room, which had been arranged as a sitting-out room; it was splendidly suited to such a purpose, for it was a maze of fenced-in compartments, wells and cubby-holes which allowed sitting-out couples quite enough privacy, if they wanted it. It was here that the kindly Ripon led Monica, and as they could not, in the gloom, find anywhere else that was not taken by a seriously whispering couple, they climbed into the prisoner’s dock, which was high and surrounded by a fence of spikes—presumably to keep felons from leaping into court and menacing the learned counsel. They sat on the little bench inside it.
“Don’t take it so hard,” said Ripon, after a few moments of silence.
“Eh?”
“What Revelstoke said at dinner. You’ve been dragging your wings ever since. He’s a bastard; he likes to take it out of women. Look what he did to Ceinwen at Christmas.”
“But, Johnny, this was different.”
“Yes, I know it was.”
Monica began to weep. Ripon gave her his handkerchief, held her round the shoulders, said soothing and not very coherent things, and after a time restored her to some sort of order.
“It’s not the end of the world. You’ve just got to see it as it was. You’d been boasting, and he slapped you down. It was nasty of him, but that’s all it was.”
“I’d been making a perfect fool of myself. I’ve been doing it ever since I came here. You must all despise me.”
“No, no. I’ll be frank; you’ve been giving us quite a line about Canada and your people and all that, but anybody with half an ear could tell that you were only asking to be patted. It wasn’t even boasting. It was just putting a best foot forward. Nothing to be ashamed of. These people invite it, you know.”
“Welsh people, you mean.”
“All the people in these islands. They’re so self-satisfied. You have to hate them, or you have to try to pull yourself up even with them. I know all about it. When I’m at home I’m not terrifically American, but over here I have to act a part, or disappear. You were just trying not to disappear; and because you’re such a hell of a good singer it would easily have passed as the rather charming egotism of the artist, if dear Gilly hadn’t stuck his knife into you. You were just the tiniest bit silly; but he was intentionally brutal.”
“Do you mean that, Johnny, about having to act a part, and the people here being so strong in themselves, and that?”
“Of course I mean it.”
“It’s not just something you got out of a book?”
“What would be wrong with it if I did get it out of a book? As a matter of fact, it’s in lots of books. Have you read any Henry James?”
“No; did he write about that?”
“Sometimes. We’ve been living in a kind of Henry James climate for the past few days. The American getting the works from Europeans was some of his favourite themes. ‘This arrogant old Europe which so little befriends us’, he called it. But your mistake was that you didn’t act a part; you were trying to make yourself believe it, and that never works. That’s bad art.”
“Well, what should I do?”
“Why don’t you try passing as white? You know about the light-skinned Negroes in the States, who move North and live among whites as one of themselves? The only way to get on in peace with the people over here is to conceal as well as you can that you’re not one of themselves—pass as white. Minimize the differences; don’t call attention to them. This country’s full of Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, yes and Americans, all passing as white, because if they let it be known what they are, the natives will patronize the living bejesus out of them. They don’t really mean to be unkind; they just have this wonderful sense of being God’s noblest work.—Now it’s getting near the New Year. We must go back to the ballroom. Pretty soon all these Welshmen and Englishmen will be singing one of the most pedestrian verses of Robert Burns, and kissing each other. I wouldn’t miss it for worlds, and if you won’t be offended, I’ll hunt up Ceinwen. Happy New Year, Monica darling!”
Seven
1
Phanuel Tuke switched off Monica’s radio-gramophone.
“Well,” said he, “if fate is unkind to my verse, I shall at least be known to posterity as the man who provided Giles Revelstoke with the words for his first work of undoubted genius.”
Revelstoke’s menagerie was assembled in Monica’s living-room because she had the best wireless set among, them. They had been listening to a broadcast on the Third Programme of his cantata da camera, called The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Tuke had not written the words, but had selected them; the libretto was made up of recitative passages chosen from Reginald Scot’s Discoverie, verses from Ben Jonson’s Masque of Queens, and a witch-trial or “process” adapted from Malleus Malleficarum. Monica knew the words well; she had typed them many times, for the singers to study, and for the seemingly endless needs of the broadcasting people.
“I still think Brum Benny should have let Giles conduct,” said Persis Kinwellmarshe. She was not sufficiently musical to venture any opinion on the composition itself, but she had found plenty of matter for vehement partisanship in the politics surrounding the broadcast.
“Now Perse, give that a rest,” said Bun Eccles. “Giles himself admits he’s no hand at conducting. Why risk a good chance like this just to wave the stick? He can’t manage an orchestra and even you know it.”
“He’d be perfectly all right if Benny didn’t hang over him all the time and offer advice and fuss him.”
“Benny’s responsible to the BBC, you know that. He got them to do Discoverie; he has to deliver the goods. Giles said so himself.”
“Giles may have said so to you, Bun dear, but I know damn well what he thinks. It’s the old story: young man of genius under the wing of old man of talent—and the old man will bloody well see that he stays under his wing. Tonight will settle all that, though. It ought to put Giles right on the top of the heap.”
“Does anyone know what he will get for this broadcast?” said Odo Odingsels. He had tucked his lean length into a corner and all through the music had been eating the food which Monica provided.
“There won’t be much left of his fee when all the costs are paid,” said Bridget Tooley. “The expense of copying the scores will eat up most of it. But of course he’ll have them for subsequent performances, and over the years the rentals might amount to a good deal.”
“Can’t count on that,” said Odingsels. “This isn’t going to be a popular work. No use pretending.”
Odingsels was the only one of the group who knew much about music. Giles had friends, but no intimates, among musicians. Odingsels knew what he was talking about, and ordinarily the others deferred to him. But Persis would not do so now.
“Why not?” said she. “You’ve heard it. Isn’t it the most exciting thing in this contemporary music series?”
“I don’t know,” said Odingsels; “I haven’t listened to any of the others. Have
you?”
Miss Kinwellmarsh had not.
“It’s good, mind you,” said Odingsels. “In parts it’s wonderfully good. I didn’t mean that it wasn’t. But it’s hard to perform. The music is difficult; it sounds simple, quite a lot of the time, but just you look at the score. It’s an inconvenient size. It isn’t a song cycle, that any singer and his accompanist can carry round the world in a music-case. And it isn’t a big work that an amateur choral society can chew on for two or three months. It calls for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, a double quartet of better than average choral singers, and an orchestra consisting of string quartet and double-bass, with piano, oboe and French horn. Just the size to be neglected.”
“I suppose a good deal will depend on what the critics say,” said Tuke.
“A little. Not much.” Odingsels seemed determined to be discouraging. “Critics of any importance aren’t likely to commit themselves heavily on a new score that they haven’t examined by a composer they don’t know. Giles won’t find himself made over-night. It’s only in the more trivial arts like literature, and theatre and ballet that critics wield that sort of power.” He grinned irritatingly.
“Giles will be ready for them,” said Persis. “He’s been walloping them in Lantern for three good years. I don’t suppose that will make them like him, but it will let them know that he will have a reply for anything they want to say. I don’t expect for a minute that he’ll get his due from them, but they’ll have to be civil.”
“Why?” said Odingsels.
“I’ve told you. Because of Lantern.”
“How many critics do you think read Lantern? Who do you suppose takes it very seriously except ourselves? How many well-known or influential names are on the subscription list? Sometimes I think we are deceiving ourselves about Lantern. In my really sane moments I know it. How lucky that none of us has to live by it.”
“Odo, why are you being so bloody-minded tonight? Is it because Giles has had a wonderful work performed? I know you hate anybody else’s success, but is it necessary for you to be so completely poisonous?”
“Persis, my pretty darling, I am a realist. Giles has had a very good piece of music performed. Alot of people will have heard it. Some will have liked it, others will have hated it, and some others—perhaps the biggest number—will not have paid any particular attention. Of those who have liked it, perhaps half will remember Giles’ name. It is slow work, becoming known as a composer. What has Giles done? He’s written perhaps fifty songs and a couple of suites for small orchestra; he’s had a few things done publicly, and I believe four years ago he gave a small recital of his own stuff to which not one critic of the first rank turned up. This is his real beginning—tonight. In ten years, if he works hard, he may be quite well known as a rising young composer.”
“Oh, come; sooner than that, surely,” said Tuke.
“Giles is a slow worker. This piece has been on the stocks for a good eighteen months, to my knowledge. He spends so much time on other things.” Odingsels cast a leer at Persis.
“Too true,” said she. “He has far more than his share to do on Lantern and of course he has to waste his energies teaching, and doing musical odd jobs, to keep the pot boiling.”
“He isn’t the only one on Lantern who has personal work to attend to,” said Miss Tooley. “If you are insinuating that Fanny and I don’t pull our weight, I’d like to say that you should be the last person to criticize; you do nothing at all, except provide occasional cups of indifferent tea. And of course keep your eye peeled for cracks in the ceiling.”
“Now girls, stow that,” said Bun Eccles. “We all know what Odo meant; he meant Giles spends a lot of time playing bunny-in-the-hay with you, Perse, but maybe that’s why he writes good music. Why don’t you look at it that way, and be happy?” He raised his glass of beer toward Persis, and drank to her.
“If he doesn’t want to teach, I don’t suppose he has to,” said Monica. “And if I take up his time being taught, I certainly save it getting the Lantern accounts out of tangles.”
“Oh, we know you’re quite the little woman of business,” said Persis. “But unfortunately he can’t give up teaching; he has to have the money. If that tight-fisted old mother of his would give him whatever you pay him for lessons, he wouldn’t need to bother.”
“Doesn’t he have family money?” said Tuke.
“He’s got a tiny income from some money his father left him directly. Otherwise not a bean. His mother’s terribly rich; she could easily let him have a very good allowance. She lives someplace in Wales, in a tremendous house, with every luxury, and now and then she sends him a few quid, for birthdays, or something. It’s a shame people like that can’t die, and let their money do some good. But no, she thinks not having anything will make him get a steady job. I suppose she sees him leading the municipal orchestra at Torquay, or someplace. Mothers! I think the most disgusting and immoral relationship is between mothers and sons—no, on second thoughts, between fathers and daughters. The old ones just want to eat the young ones up.”
Persis knit her dark brows and looked very beautiful, brooding on the psychological horror of Mrs Hopkin-Griffiths and Admiral Sir Percy Kinwellmarshe.
“It is of course utterly unrealistic to suppose that reputations in literature are made overnight,” said Tuke, who had been brooding on Odingsels’ hard words. “One despises egotism, of course, but one instances oneself; one can give Giles a few years, and one is perhaps more engagé,but one has certainly not been overwhelmed with recognition. As for music being, au fond, more serious than letters, well—one feels perhaps that those who are committed to an art are the best judges of its limits.”
“Better judges than technicians, however capable,” said Miss Tooley, bridling. Everybody knew that when Tuke began to refer to himself as “one” Bridget would do battle for him. “Particularly when their own stuff appears so seldom.”
“My best work is for connoisseurs of really imaginative photography,” said Odingsels, grinning. “I don’t have to publish to get recognition.”
The menagerie was working up for one of its periodical ugly fights, but at this point Monica brought in another plate of sandwiches, and Bun Eccles went the rounds with more beer. The greedy could say no more while this lasted, and Tuke, who had a gift for talking and earing without missing a chew or a syllable, gained a great advantage. He proceeded to contrast the powers of music and poetry, being scrupulously fair, but, as he knew very little about music, not especially enlightening, though extremely strong on sensibility.
Monica went back to her bedroom, where she made the sandwiches, to be sure that the supply should not fail; she knew that when Revelstoke was not present, the menagerie could only be controlled by heavy sedation with food and alcohol. They quarrelled astonishingly, and about things which she rarely understood in detail, though she knew by her native good sense that jealousy lay at the root of it. Every time an issue of Lantern appeared there was one of these pow-wows, and the pattern was fixed; Tuke was offended by Odingsels, and Miss Tooley and Odingsels fought bitterly; Eccles, who was thoroughly a painter, and bored by men of words, lost patience with them all, and got drunk; Persis Kinwellmarshe asserted that there would be no Lantern without Revelstoke, and was called whore for her pains by Bridget; Revelstoke laughed and cursed at them all. At last Mrs Klein would appear and complain that her other lodgers were discommoded by the noise, and Odingsels would make her cry. On one occasion Monica could bear it no more, and took Mrs Klein’s part; to her astonishment her display of temper put them all in great good humour, and improved her position in the group. After one of these brawls, which she found tiresome and exhausting, but which they seemed to enjoy, Revelstoke would marshal the Lantern forces again and work would proceed once more in its ill-organized, imperfectly understood fashion.
But Revelstoke was not at hand now, to keep all their bad-tempered egotism in check. And Monica was afraid that Mrs Merry would not take the attitude of Mrs Klei
n, who always managed to say, at some point in her complaints—”I’m full of sympasy for ze artist; I am grateful to have ze artist under my roof”—a protestation invariably greeted by Odingsels with a shout of “Halt die Schnauze!” Mrs Merry was not full of sympathy for anyone, except perhaps herself, and would certainly complain of any noise to Mr Boykin on his monthly visit with the rent. Monica wished heartily that she had not asked them to listen to Giles’ broadcast on her receiving-set.
Yet it had seemed such a chance to get in with them, to strengthen her position. She was not so simple as to think that she had no place in the Lantern group; the finances of the magazine, such as they were, were understood by her alone, and Raikes Brothers had of late shown a tendency to call her when they wanted a decision about anything. She had been in the happy position of having two pounds ten to lend to Tuke on an occasion when he needed that sum very badly, and Revelstoke himself had been her champion a few weeks later, and had compelled the poet to pay back the ten shillings, which was all he could afford. She had a place, but it was the bottom place. And here it was six weeks after that encounter in the bathroom at Neuadd Goch, since when he had not so much as kissed her!
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