MORE GIRLS' CHATTER. SWEEPS AND DUSTMEN. HOW SALLY DISILLUSIONED MR.
BRADSHAW. OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN
It is impossible to make Gluck's music anything but a foretaste of
heaven, as long as there is any show of accuracy in the way it is
rendered. But, then, you must go straight on, and not go over a
difficult phrase until you know it. You must play fair. Orpheus would
probably only have provoked Cerberus--certainly wouldn't have put him
to sleep--if he had practised, and counted, and gone back six bars
and done it again.
But Cerberus wasn't at 260, Ladbroke Grove Road, on the Tuesday
following Mrs. Erskine Peel's musical party, which was the next time
Sally went to Lætitia Wilson. And it was as well that he wasn't, for
Sally stuck in a passage at the end of one page and the beginning of
the next, so that you had to turn over in the middle; and it was bad
enough, goodness knew, without that! It might really have been the
north-west passage, so insuperable did it seem.
"I shall never get it right, I know, Tishy," said the viola.
And the violin replied: "Because you never pay any attention to the
arpeggio, dear. It doesn't begin on the chord. It begins on the G
flat. Look here, now. One--two--three. One--two--three."
"Yes, that's all very well. Who's going to turn over the leaf, I
should like to know? I know I shall never do it. Not because the
nerves of my head are giving way, but because I'm a duffer."
"I suppose you know what that young man is, dear?" Sally accepts this
quite contentedly, and immediately skips a great deal of unnecessary
conversation.
"I'm not in love with him, Tishy dear."
"Didn't say you were, dear. But I suppose you don't know what he is,
all the same." Which certainly seems inconsecutive, but we really
cannot be responsible for the way girls talk.
"Don't know, and don't want to know. What is he?"
"He's from Cattley's." This throws a light on the conversation. It
shows that Sally had told Lætitia who she was going to meet at her
mother's next evening. Sally is not surprised.
"As if I didn't know all about this! As if he didn't tell me his
story!"
"Like the mock-turtle in Alice?"
"Now, Tishy dear, is that an insinuation, or isn't it? Do be candid!"
"The mock-turtle told his story. Once, he was a real turtle."
"Very well, Tishy dear. That's as much as to say Julius Bradshaw is
mock. I can't see where the mockness comes in myself. He told _me_
all about it, plain enough."
"Yes--and you know what a rage Mrs. Erskine Peel is in, and says it
was an _éclaircissement_."
"Why can't she be satisfied with English?... What! Of course, there
are _hundreds_ of English equivalents for _éclaircissement_. There's
bust-up."
"That's only one."
"Tishy dear, don't be aggravating! Keep to the point. Why mustn't
I have Julius Bradshaw to play with if I like because he's at
Cattley's?"
"You may, if you _like_, dear! As long as you're satisfied, it's
all right."
"What fault have you to find with him?"
"I! None at all. It's all perfectly right."
"You are _the_ most irritating girl."
"Suppose we take the _adagio_ now--if you're rested."
But Sally's back was up. "Not until you tell me what you really mean
about Julius Bradshaw."
So Lætitia had her choice between an explicit statement of her
meaning, and an unsupported incursion into the _adagio_.
"I suppose you'll admit there _are_ such things as social
distinctions?"
Sally wouldn't admit anything whatever. If sociometry was to be a
science, it must be worked out without axioms or postulates. Lætitia
immediately pointed out that if there were no such things as social
distinctions of course there was no reason why Mr. Julius Bradshaw
shouldn't take his violin to Krakatoa Villa. "Or here, or anywhere,"
concluded Lætitia, with a touch of pride in the status of Ladbroke
Grove Road. Whereupon Sally surrendered as much of her case as she
had left.
"You talk as if he was a sweep or a dustman," said she.
"I don't see why you should mind if I do, dear. Because, if there are
to be no social distinctions, there's no reason why all the sweeps and
dustmen in Christendom shouldn't come and play the violin at Krakatoa
Villa.... Now, not _too_ slow, you know. One--two--three--four--that'll
do." Perhaps Sally felt it would be a feeble line of defence to dwell
on the scarcity of good violinists among sweeps and dustmen, and that
was why she fell into rank without comment.
This short conversation, some weeks on in the story, lets in one or
two gleams of side-light. It shows that Sally's permission to the
young man Bradshaw to call at her mother's had been promptly taken
advantage of--jumped at is the right expression. Also that Miss Wilson
had stuck-up ideas. Also that Sally was a disciple of what used to be
called Socialism; only really nowadays such a lot of things get called
Socialism that the word has lost all the discriminative force one
values so much in nouns substantive. Also (only we knew it already)
that Sally was no lawyer. We do not love her the less, for our part.
But nothing in this interchange of shots between Sally and her friend,
nor in anything she said to her mother about Mr. Bradshaw, gives its
due prominence to the fact that, though that young gentleman was a
devout worshipper at the shrine of St. Satisfax, he had only become so
on the Sunday after Miss Sally had casually mentioned the latter as a
saint she frequented. Perhaps she "dismissed it from her mind," and it
was obliging enough to go. Perhaps she considered she had done her
duty by it when she put on record, in soliloquy, her opinion that if
people chose to be gaping idiots they might, and she couldn't help
it. She had a happy faculty for doing what she called putting young
whippersnappers in their proper places. This only meant that
she managed to convey to them that the lines they might elect to
whippersnap on were not to be those of sentimental nonsense. And
perhaps she really dealt in the wisest way with Mr. Bradshaw's
romantic adoration of her at a distance when he fished for leave to
call upon her. The line he made his application on was that he should
so like to play her a rapid movement by an unpronounceable Slav. She
said directly, why not come and bring his violin on Wednesday evening
at nine? That was her mother's address on the card on the fiddle-case.
He must recollect it--which he did unequivocally.
Now, if this young lady had had a fan, she might have tittered with
it, or blushed slightly, and said, "Oh, Mr. Bradshaw!" or, "Oh, sir!"
like in an old novel--one by Fanny Burney, or the like. But she did
nothing of the sort, and the consequence was that he had, as it were,
to change the _venue_ of his adoration--to make it a little less
romantic, in fact. Her frank and breezy treatment of the subject had
let in a gust of fresh air, and blown away all imagination. For there
naturally was a good deal of that in a passion based on a single
interview and nourished by weekly stimulants at morning services.
In fact, when he presented himself at Krakatoa Villa on Wednesday
evening as invited--the day after Lætitia's remarks about his social
position--he was quite prepared to be introduced to the young woman's
_fiancé_, if.... Only, when he got as far as the _if_, he dropped the
subject. As soon as he found there was no such person he came to
believe he would not have been much disconcerted if there had been.
How far this was true, who can say?
He was personally one of those young men about whom you may easily
produce a false impression if you describe them at all. This is
because your reader will take the bit in his teeth, and run away with
an idea. If you say a nose has a bridge to it, this directly produces
in some minds an image like Blackfriars Bridge; that it is straight,
the Æginetan marbles; that it is _retroussé_, the dog in that Hogarth
portrait. Suggest a cheerful countenance, and you stamp your subject
for ever as a Shakespearian clown. So you must be content to know that
Mr. Bradshaw was a good-looking young man, of dark complexion, and of
rather over medium height and good manners. If he had not been, he
would never, as an article of universal provision for parties, have
passed muster at Cattley's. He was like many other young men such as
one sees in shops; but then, what very nice-looking young men one
sometimes sees there! Sally had classed him as a young whippersnapper,
but this was unjust, if it impugned his stature. She repeated the
disparaging epithet when, in further justification to Miss Wilson of
her asking him to her mother's house, she sketched a policy of conduct
to guide inexperienced girls in their demeanour towards new male
friends. "You let 'em come close to, and have a good look," said the
vulgar child. "Half of 'em will be disgusted, and go away in a huff."
Mrs. Nightingale had known Mr. Bradshaw for a long time as a customer
at a shop knows the staff in the background, mere office secretions,
who only ooze out at intervals. For Bradshaw was not strictly a
counter-jumper, although Miss Wilson more than once spoke of him so,
adding, when it was pointed out to her that theoretically he never
went behind counters, by jumping or otherwise, that that didn't make
the slightest difference: the principle was the same.
Sally's mother did not share her friend's fancies. But she had not
confidence enough in the stability of the earth's crust to give way
freely to her liberalism, drive a coach-and-six through the Classes,
and talk to him freely about the shop. She did not know what a Social
Seismologist would say on the point. So she contented herself with
treating him as a matter of course, as a slight acquaintance whom she
saw often, merely asking him if that was he. To which the reply was
in the affirmative, like question-time in the Commons.
"Is this the Strad? Let's have it out," says Sally. For Mr. Bradshaw
possessed a Strad. He brought it out of its coffin with something of
the solicitude Petrarch might have shown to the remains of Laura, and
when he had rough-sketched its condition of discord and corrected
the drawing, danced a Hungarian dance on it, and apologized for his
presumption in doing so. He played so very well that it certainly did
seem rather a cruel trick of fate that gave him nerves in his head.
Sally then said, might she look at it? and played chords and runs,
just to feel what it was like. Her comment was that she wished her
viola was a Strad.
We record all this to show what, perhaps, is hardly worth the
showing--a wavering in a man's mind, and that man a young one. Are
they not at it all day long, all of them? Do they do anything but
waver?
When Sally said she wished her viola was a Strad, Mr. Bradshaw's mind
shortly became conscious that some passing spook, of a low nature, had
murmured almost inaudibly that it was a good job _his_ Strad wasn't
a viola. "Because, you see," added the spook, "that quashes all
speculation whether you, Mr. Bradshaw, are glad or sorry you needn't
lay your instrument at this young lady's feet. Now, if immediately
after you first had that overwhelming impression of her--got
metaphorically torpedoed, don't you know?--such a wish as hers had
been expressed, you probably would have laid both your Strad and your
heart at her feet, and said take my all!" But now that he had been so
far disillusioned by Sally's robust and breezy treatment of the
position, he was not quite sure the spook had not something to say for
himself. Mr. Bradshaw was content to come down off his high horse, and
to plod along the dull path of a mere musical evening visitor at
a very nice house. Pleasant, certainly, but not the aim of his
aspirations from afar at St. Satisfax's. His _amour propre_ was a
little wounded by that spook, too. Nothing keeps it up to the mark
better than a belief in one's stability--in love-matters, especially.
He was not quite sure of the exact moment the spook intruded his
opinion, so _we_ can't be expected to know. Perhaps about the time
Miss Wilson came in (just as he was showing how carefully he had
listened to Joachim) and said could _he_ play those? She wished _she_
could. She was thrown off her guard by the finished execution, and for
the moment quite forgot Cattley's and the classitudes. Sally instantly
perceived her opening. She would enjoy catching Tishy out in any sort
of way. So she said: "Mr. Bradshaw will show you how, Tishy dear; of
course he will. Only, not now, because if we don't begin, we shan't
have time for the long quartet." If you say this sort of thing about
strangers in Society, you really ought to give them a chance. So
thought Lætitia to herself, and resolved to blow Sally up at the first
opportunity.
As for that culprit, she completed her work, from her own position of
perfect security, with complacency at least. And she felt at the end
of her evening (which we needn't dwell on, as it was all crotchets,
minims, and F sharps and G flats) that her entrenchments had become
spontaneously stronger without exertion on her part. For there were
Tishy and Mr. Bradshaw, between whom Sally had certainly understood
there was a great gulf fixed, sitting on the very same sofa and talking
about a Stradivarius. She concluded that, broadly speaking, Debrett's
bark is worse than his bite, and that he is, at heart, a very
accommodating character.
"I hope you saw Tishy, mamma dear." So spoke Sally to her mother,
after the musicians first, and then Fenwick, had dispersed their
several ways. Mrs. Nightingale seemed very _distraite_ and
preoccupied.
"Saw Tishy what, kitten?"
"Tishy and Mr. Bradshaw on that sofa."
"No, darling. Oh yes, I did. What about them?"
"After all that rumpus about shop-boys!" But her mother's attention
is not easy to engage this evening, somehow. Her mind seems somewhere
else altogether. But from where it is, it sees the vulgar child very
plainly indeed, as she puts up her face to be kissed with all its
animation on it. She kisses it, animation and all, caressing the rich
black hair with a hand that seems thoughtful. A hand can. Then she
makes a little effort to shake off something that draws her away, and
comes back rather perfunctorily to her daughter's sphere of interest
and the life of town.
"Did Lætitia call Mr. Bradshaw a shop-boy, chick?"
"Very nearly--at least, I don't know what you call not calling anybody
shop-boy if she didn't." Her mother makes a further effort--comes back
a little more.
"What did she say, child?"
"Said you could always tell, and it was no use my talking, and the
negro couldn't change his spots."
"She has some old-fashioned ideas. But how about calling him a
shop-boy?"
"Not in words, but worse. Tishy always goes round and round. I wish
she'd _say_! However, Dr. Vereker quite agrees with me. _We_ think it
_dishonest_!"
"What did Dr. Vereker think of Mr. Bradshaw?" We have failed to note
that the doctor was the 'cello in the quartet.
"Now, mamma darling, fancy asking Dr. Prosy what he thinks! I wasn't
going to. Besides, as if it mattered what they think of each other!...
Who? Why, men, of course!"
"Mr. Fenwick's a man, and you asked him."
"Mr. Fenwick's a man on other lines--absolutely other. He doesn't come
in really." Her mother repeats the last four words, not exactly
derisively--rather, if anything, her accent and her smile may be said
to caress her daughter's words as she says them. She is such a silly,
but such a dear little goose--that seems the implication.
"We-e-ll," says Sally, as she has said before, and we have tried to
spell her. "I don't see anything in that, because, look how reasonable!
Mr. Fenwick's ... Mr. Fenwick's ... why, of course, entirely different.
I say, mother dearest...."
"What, kitten?"
"What were you and Mr. Fenwick talking about so seriously in the back
drawing-room?" The two are upstairs in the front bedroom at this
minute, by-the-bye.
"Did you hear us, darling?"
"No, because of the row. But one could tell, for all that." Then Sally
sees in an instant that it is something her mother is not going to
tell her about, and makes immediate concession. "Where was the Major
going that he couldn't come?" she asks. "He generally makes a point
of coming when it's music."
"I fancy he's dining at the Hurkaru," says her mother. But she has
gone back into her preoccupation, and from within it externalises an
opinion that we should be better in bed, or we shall never be up in
the morning.