Albert Langly found himself compelled to search for a cheaper room. The
thin young man bitterly regretted that good money had to be wasted on
food, clothes and rent. A person cannot live without food; Langly
had tried it, not as an economical experiment, but largely through
forgetfulness, and he found, to his astonishment, that hunger actually
forced itself upon his attention, after a sufficient lapse of time. The
changeable English climate, not to mention the regulations of that moral
body the police force, compelled him to cover himself; and a room
he needed mainly to keep his stacks of music dry. The church of St.
Martyrs-in-the-East afforded a very good living to its rector and a very
poor one for its organist, although if people were paid according to
professional efficiency in this world, the salaries of clergyman and
musician might have been reversed. Those who entered the church door
came, not to hear the sermon, but to listen to the music.
Langly never applied for more remuneration, because deep down in his
musical soul he knew he was already taking advantage of the generosity
of the church authorities, and he lived in constant fear that some day
they would discover this and righteously dismiss him. To be allowed to
play on that splendid instrument, erected at the cost of an unbelievable
amount of money, was a privilege which he felt he ought to pay for, if
he were the honest man the deacons thought him. He tried to soothe his
troubled conscience, by telling it that he would refuse to take money
were it not that sheet music was so dear, even when bought from the man
who gave the largest discount in London, to whose shop Langly tramped
miles once a week; but thus the guilty have ever endeavoured to lull the
inward monitor, well knowing, while they did so, the sophistry of their
excuses. The consciousness of deceit told on Langly’s manner; he cringed
before the rector and those in authority. Never did one of the kindly
but deluded men accost their organist without causing a timorous fear to
spring up in his heart that the hour of his dismissal had arrived. Yet,
let moralists say what they will, the wicked do prosper sometimes
on this earth when they shouldn’t, while the innocent suffer for the
misdeeds done by others. There was the case of Belcher, for example, and
although it must in justice be admitted that Belcher’s hard luck caused
the organist many twinges of conscience, still of what avail are twinges
of conscience when the harm is wrought? If, in our selfishness, we
bring disaster on a fellow-creature, after-regret can scarcely be called
reparation.
Belcher was the hard-working industrious man who pumped the organ in St.
Martyrs, and, besides labouring during the regular service, it was also
his duty to attend when the organist wished to practice the selections
which afterwards delighted the congregation. This was Belcher’s
grievance. Langly had no “mussy,” as the overworked pumper told his
sympathizing comrades at the “Rose and Crown.” He would rather follow
the vestry-cart all day with a shovel, would Belcher, than suffer the
slavery he was called upon to endure by the unthinking organist, who
never considered that bending the back to a lever was harder work than
crooking the fingers to the keys. Besides, Langly could sit down to his
labour, such as it was, while Belcher couldn’t. Naturally the put-upon
man complained, and Langly at once admitted the justice of the
complaint, at the same time exhibiting a craven fear that a rumour
of his unjustifiable conduct might reach the ears of the church
authorities. The honest Belcher now regretted that he had borne his
burden so long, for the reprehensible organist immediately offered to
compound with the blower by paying him something extra each week, if
he would say nothing about the additional labour. It was Belcher’s
misfortune rather than his fault that mathematical computation was not
one of his acquirements, and he failed to appreciate the fact that there
was a limit to the musician’s income; a limit very speedily reached. He
was an ill-used man and he knew it, so he struck often for higher pay
and got it, up to the point where Langly insisted that there was not
enough left to keep body and soul together, not to speak of the
purchase of music. Belcher yearned for the tail of the vestry-cart,
and threatened to complain to the rector; which at last he did, not
mentioning, however, that he had received extra remuneration, because
he did not wish to exhibit the organist’s culpability in all its
repulsiveness. He told the rector that he would rather accompany the
vestry-cart in its rounds than accompany an organist who had no “mussy”
on a “pore” man. He was always ready to pump a reasonable quantity
of air, but if an organist knew his trade so badly that he needed to
practice so much, it was hard that the man at the lever should bear the
brunt of his incompetence. The rector thanked Belcher for his musical
criticism, and said he would see about it.
While the virtuous Belcher took his walks abroad with his chin in the
air, as befits one who has done his duty, the transgressor crept along
by-ways and scarcely dared to enter the silent church. He dodged the
rector as long as he could, but was at length run to earth. The kindly
old man put his hand on the culprit’s shoulder, and said:
“You have been overworking Belcher, I hear.”
“I shall be more thoughtful in future, sir,” murmured the nervous
organist in excuse. “I’m afraid I’ve been playing too much, but it is a
difficult art----”
“Of course it is,” interrupted the clergyman. “I have made arrangements
to satisfy the ambition of Belcher, which appears to tend in the
direction of a vestry-cart, and we are putting in a hydraulic blower
which we should have put in years ago. You will find it a great
convenience in your practice, Mr. Langly, for it is always ready and
never complains.”
The organist tried to thank the rector, but his throat seemed not at his
command for other effort than a gulp or two. The good man smiled at
the grotesque twistings of Langly’s mouth and the rapid winking of his
eyelids; then the organist turned abruptly and walked away, tortured
afterwards with the fear that the rector might have thought him rude
and ungrateful; but the old man knew the musician much better than the
musician knew himself.
After that, when Langly chanced upon the indignant and gravely wronged
Belcher, at the tail of his oft-mentioned but entirely unexpected cart,
the young man shrank from the encounter, and felt that inward uneasiness
which is termed a troubled conscience.
“Call that Christianity!” Belcher would say to his mate when their
rounds took them near St. Martyrs,--“a-puttin’ a squirtin’ water-pump in
there, to tyke th’ bread out o’ a pore man’s mouth, an’ a-cuttin’ down
o’ ’is livin’ wyge! Yus, an’ the lawr a-forcin’ us to support the
Church too.”
But Belcher was really of a forgiving spirit, and should not be judged
by his harsh language towards the Establishment which, he was under the
impression, rigourous legal enactment compelled him to subsidize; for he
so far overlooked Langly’s conduct as to call upon him occasionally, and
accept a few pence as conscience-money.
“I don’t blime ’im,” said Belcher magnanimously, over his pot of beer,
“as much as I do the mean old duffer wot preaches there. ’E put me on
the cart.”
Langly, as has been said, found it necessary to secure cheaper lodgings,
and this was his own fault as much as it was the fault of his limited
income. A London landlady in the more impoverished districts carries on
a constant fight against circumstances. Her tenants pay her as seldom
and as little as they can; sometimes they disappear, and she loses her
money; while if they stay, there are no chances of extracting extras,
those elastic exactions which often waft a West End boarding-house
keeper to affluence. Terms are close and invariably inclusive. The
organist’s conduct towards his numerous and successive landladies admits
of no defence. These good women, when he had taken his departure, spoke
bitterly of his sneaky and deceptive ways, as indeed they had just
cause to do. On first arriving at a new place, he was so apologetic
and anxious not to give any trouble; so evidently a person who did not
really live in bustling, elbowing London, but in some dreamy mental
world of his own, that his good hostess, merely as an experiment and
entirely without prejudice, as the legal man puts it, tentatively placed
on his bill for the week some trifling item, that, strictly speaking,
was merely placed there to be taken off again, if complaint were made,
or allowed to stand if overlooked. Of course, under these circumstances,
the landlady was in expectation of a row, during which epithets
reflecting upon her financial probity might be hurled at her, when she,
with voluble excuses for her unfortunate mistake, would correct the
error and assure the lodger that such a thing would not occur again.
After a few essays of this kind, all perfectly just and proper in a
commercial country, and in fact the only means of discovering to what
extent the lodger could be depended upon as an asset, life would flow on
with that calm serenity which adds so much to the comfort and enjoyment
of a furnished apartment in the Borough or a palace overlooking the
Park.
But Langly never took a straightforward course with his landladies.
Instead of finding fault at the proper time, he meekly said nothing and
paid the bills as long as he was able--bills which mounted higher and
higher each week. Thus the deluded woman had no chance, as she could not
be expected to know when she had reached the limit of his weekly income.
At last the organist would take his bundle of music under his arm, and
would sneak away like a thief in the night, to search for a cheaper
abode, after leaving a week’s money in lieu of notice, wrapped in
a piece of paper, in a conspicuous place, for he had never had the
courage to face a landlady and baldly tell her he was going.
In Rose Garden Court there was more than one family that might be
likened to an accordion, because of the facility with which it could be
compressed or extended. The Scimmins household could occupy the three
rooms it rented in the court, or it could get along with two, or
even one if need be. The spare space was sub-let whenever opportunity
offered, and here Langly found lodging that had at least the merit
of cheapness. The policeman at the entrance of the court looked
suspiciously after the new-comer, and resolved to keep an eye on him.
The organist had a habit of muttering truculently to himself as he
walked the streets, and his nervous hands were never a moment at rest,
the long slim fingers playing imaginary keys or chords, inaudible
outside of his own musical imagination.
When the already suspicious policeman at the entrance of the court saw
the musician come out, clawing the empty air with the two forefingers
of either hand crooked like talons, a fearful frown on his brow, and an
ominous muttering in his throat, the officer said to himself:
“There goes a hanarchist, if ever there was one,” not knowing that
the poor little man was merely pulling the stops of a mythical organ,
immense in size and heavenly in tone. The police always looked askance
at Langly when he moved into a new locality, until they learned that he
was the organist at St. Martyrs-in-the-East.
One night, shortly after he took the back room two flights up at No. 3,
Langly came down the common stairway, and paused in amaze at the landing
opposite Braunt’s door. He heard some one within, slowly and fearfully
murdering Chopin’s _Funeral March_, part first. The sound made him
writhe, and he crouched by the door, his fingers mechanically drumming
against the panel, repressing with difficulty a desire to cry out
against the profanation of a harmony that seemed sacred to him. The
drone stopped suddenly, and next instant the door was jerked open,
causing the amazed listener to stumble into the room, where, as it
seemed to him, a giant pounced down, clutched his shoulders, and flung
him in a heap on the floor by the opposite wall. Then, kicking the
door shut, the giant, with fists clenched and face distorted with rage,
towered over the prostrate man.
“You miserable sneaking scoundrel!” cried Braunt. “So that’s why you
took a room with the Scimminses--to ferret and spy on me. I’ve seen you
crawling up these stairs, afraid to look any honest man in the face.
Because I took no strike pay Gibbons wants to know how I live, does he?
I’m up to his tricks. You’re Gibbons’s spy, and he has sent you to live
with that other sneak, Scimmins. Scimmins himself was afraid, for he
knows already the weight of my hand. Now,” continued Braunt, rolling up
his sleeves, “I’ll serve you as I did Scimmins. I’ll throw you over
the banisters, and you can report that to Gibbons, and tell him to come
himself next time, and I’ll break every bone in his body.”
Jessie clung to her father, begging him in tears not to hurt the poor
man. Braunt shook her off, but not unkindly.
“Sit thee down, Jessie, lass, and don’t worrit me. I’ll but drop the bag
o’ bones on the stairs, and serve him right for a sneak.”
Langly, encouraged by his antagonist’s change of tone in speaking to the
girl, ventured to falter forth:
“I assure you, sir----”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, you hound,” cried Braunt, turning fiercely upon him,
“and don’t dare to deny you are one of Gibbons’s spies. I caught you at
it, remember.”
“I’ll deny nothing, if it displeases you; but I never heard of Gibbons
in my life, and I’m only a poor organist. I stopped at the door on
hearing the harmonium. For no other reason, I assure you. I know I
oughtn’t to have done it, and I suppose I am a sneak. I’ll never do it
again, never, if you will excuse me this time.”
There was something so abject in the musician’s manner that Braunt’s
resentment was increased rather than diminished by the appeal. He had a
big man’s contempt for anything small and cringing.
“Oh, you’re an organist, are you? Likely story! Organists don’t live in
Garden Court. But we’ll see, we’ll see. Get up.”
Langly gathered himself together, and rose unsteadily to his feet. Every
movement he made augmented the other’s suspicion.
“Now,” said Braunt, with the definite air of a man who has his opponent
in a corner, “sit down at the harmonium and play. You’re an organist,
remember.”
“Yes,” protested Langly, “but I don’t know that I can play on that
instrument at all. I play a church organ.”
“An organ’s an organ, whether it is in church or out. If you can play
the one, you can play the other.”
The young man hesitated, and was nearly lost. Braunt’s fingers itched to
get at him, and probably only the presence of the girl restrained him so
far.
“Have you any music?” asked Langly.
“No, we haven’t. She plays by ear.”
“Will you allow me to go up-stairs and bring some sheet music?”
This was a little too transparent.
“Now, by God!” cried Braunt, bringing his fist down on the table. “Stand
there chattering another minute, and I’ll break thy neck down the stair.
Sit thee down, Jessie, an’ don’t interfere. The man plays or he doesn’t.
I knew he was a liar, an’ he quakes there because it’s to be proven.
Now, coward, the organ or the stairs--make thy choice quickly.”
The driven musician reluctantly took the chair before the instrument. He
had played on the harmonium in his early days, and knew it was harsh
and reedy at the best. But under his gentle touch the spirit of all
the harmonies seemed to rise from it, and fill the squalid room. Braunt
stood for a moment with fallen jaw, his hands hanging limply by his
sides; then he sank into his arm-chair. Jessie gazed steadfastly, with
large pathetic eyes, at their guest, who seemed himself transformed,
all the lines of dismay and apprehension smoothed away from his face,
replaced by an absorbed ecstacy, oblivious to every surrounding. He
played harmony after harmony, one apparently suggesting and melting into
another, until at last a minor chord carried the music into the solemn
rhythm of Chopin’s march; then the organ, like a sentient creature,
began to sob and wail for the dead. The girl’s eyes, never moving from
the wizard of the keys, filled with unshed tears, and her father buried
his face in his hands.
When at last the organist’s magic fingers slipped from the keys, and
the exultant light faded from his face as the dying music merged into
silence, Braunt sprang to his feet.
“Curse me for a brutish clown!” he cried. “To think that I mishandled
thee, lad, an’ thou playest like an angel. I never heard music before.”
He laid his huge hand on the other’s shoulder gently and kindly,
although the youth, hardly yet awake from his dream, timidly shrank from
the touch. “Forgive me, lad? I misdoubt I hurt thee.”
“No, no; it is all nothing. So you like the music?”
“The music! I shall never forget it; never. That march rings in my head
all day. The whole world seems tramping to it.”
The young man for the first time looked up at him, the light of
brotherhood in his eyes.
“I feel it, too,” he said, “that there is nothing around us but good
music. It smooths away the ruder sounds of earth, or uses them as
undertones--as--as a background. I sometimes fancy that the gates of
heaven are left ajar, and we--a few of us--are allowed to listen, to
compensate us for any trouble we have, or to show us the triviality of
everything else.”
The young man’s thin face flushed in confused shame at finding himself
talking thus to another man, although what he said was merely the
substance of many a former soliloquy. With a hasty apologetic glance
at the girl, who regarded him like one in a trance, with wide unwinking
eyes, Langly continued hurriedly:
“The march is a difficult one and should not be attempted except after
many lessons. I shall be pleased to teach your daughter, if you will let
me. She has a correct ear.”
Braunt shook his head.
“We have no money for music lessons,” he said.
“I have very little myself. I am poor, and therefore need none,” said
the organist, as if that were a logical reason. “The poor should help
the poor. If they don’t, who else will? The poor have always been kind
to me.” He thought of his many landladies, and how they had robbed
themselves to sustain him, as they had often admitted, little thinking
he would desert them one by one. “Aye, and the rich too,” he added,
remembering the hydraulic motor in the church, and of the continued
endurance of the authorities with their organist.
“Well, lad,” said Braunt, with a sigh, “come in when you can, and if
nowt else, you’ll be sure of a hearty northern welcome.”