MUSIC
‘And storied windows richly dight
Casting a dim religious light:
There let the pealing organ blow
* * * * *
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies.’
――_Milton._
While Grif walked on towards home his impression of the past few
hours seemed to dim as rapidly as the house itself receded behind
him. The colours altered and sank in, like the colour of a dream in
the brightness of morning. The whole adventure lost its wonder and
became just a memory of a pleasant visit paid to people who had been
kind to him and whom he liked. At the time it had been more than that:
it had, indeed, been something quite different, something he could
no longer even understand. The change which had taken place was like
that which came when after looking through the coloured glass of the
landing-window at home on a richer, more enchanted world, he saw it, by
a mere movement of his head, in the cold tints of ordinary daylight.
Captain Narcissus Batt, Miss Nancy and Miss Jane, were now pleasant,
old people who lived in a big red house with a lovely garden: but a
little while ago that house had been a wondrous sleeping palace, which
his presence had almost, though not quite, awakened into a radiant,
dreamlike life. He felt a curious alteration in the atmosphere about
him, as if it had grown colder. The murmuring sounds had ceased; they
could not reach him here.
Yet his thoughts still ran on what he had seen, what he had heard,
though they moved at present along the mere beaten channels of an
ordinary curiosity. He would have liked to have asked about Billy
Tremaine, for instance, though at the time he had felt that he must
not. No further allusions had been made to the captain’s grandson,
nor to the room which Miss Nancy had not taken Grif to see. Perhaps
Billy Tremaine, too, was a sailor, and only came home at rare
intervals:――perhaps he had just gone out for a walk. And yet――――They
had not appeared to expect him to return, they had not said that Grif
might see him another day:――only that he might see his room....
He was still pondering these and similar things when he reached the
church, and the sound of the organ playing inside switched his thoughts
on to quite another line.
He remembered Mr. Bradley. That must be Mr. Bradley practising; and
though Grif would naturally have preferred to hear him at a more
interesting hour, such as midnight or thereabouts, he could not resist
the temptation to take a peep in.
The gate was unlocked, and he walked up a straight steep path, bordered
by two lines of yew-trees. The church door was unlocked also, it was
even slightly ajar. Grif pushed it open and slipped inside. It was not
a large building, and very simple in design; but it was old and cool,
and the late afternoon sun, streaming through the rose window, made it
beautiful.
In spite of the sun there was a light burning near the organ. Grif
could see Mr. Bradley as he sat there playing, his head a little bent;
and on tip-toe he glided up to the choir to listen. He loved listening
to music, though he very seldom had an opportunity to do so. Now, in
a corner of one of the choir-stalls, he was quiet as a mouse, or as
a little ghost who had glided in from the grey and green churchyard
outside. He did not know what it was Mr. Bradley had begun to play, but
it was sad and quiet, and a kind of heavy dream seem to float from
it, like a coil of smoke, so that Grif forgot where he was, forgot
everything about him, and the walls of the church drifted away, while
another picture took form before him, and he knew that he was in an
old, old city, and that it was night.
The streets of this city were narrow, the houses, with sharp gables and
slanting roofs, stood out clearly in a faint light that was neither
moonlight nor twilight. And each of the streets converged towards a
single point, a kind of open square, at one end of which an immense
church rose against the sky. Above the great central door was a
crucifix, and high up on one of the towers a monstrous bird, black,
with curved beak and red, glowing eyes, sat motionless, while from its
folded wings darkness and silence poured down.
At first the square seemed empty, but presently he became conscious of
a procession of grey, cloaked figures moving across it. They passed
beneath the crucifix, and the last figure of all stood still, lifting
his head and throwing back his hood. Grif had a glimpse of a white
face, but before he had time to recognize it it was blotted out. The
streets were once more deserted; the dark bird had disappeared; a
pale silvery light flooded everything. Then the whole scene whirled
away from him as if blown by a sudden wind, and he was back in his
choir-stall.
Had he fallen asleep? He did not feel sleepy. But Mr. Bradley had
stopped playing and Grif got up to go. Just then the organist turned
round and caught sight of him. There was a jarring scream from the
treble notes where his hand crashed down, and Mr. Bradley sprang to his
feet, overturning a pile of music-books and the stool on which they
stood.
“It’s only me,” said Grif lamely, perceiving that for some reason he
had startled the organist.
Mr. Bradley apparently still failed to recognize him, for he gazed at
him as if at an apparition from the grave.
“Who are you?” he asked, paying no heed to his scattered music.
“The boy you met in the lane. Grif Weston.”
Mr. Bradley flushed. He seemed relieved, but with his relief he
suddenly grew angry. “What do you mean by coming in like that? How did
you get in, to begin with? Didn’t I lock the door?”
“The door wasn’t locked,” explained Grif apologetically. “It was even a
little open; and I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
“Wouldn’t mind! As if anybody wouldn’t mind. You ought to have more
sense!... Well, well,” he added, his manner growing gentler, “I
suppose my nerves must be a little out of order.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Grif penitently. “I won’t come again.”
The organist shook his head impatiently. “I don’t object to your
coming: it’s not that. You don’t seem to understand. You can come as
often as you like so long as I know you’re there. Make a noise――rattle
at the door――stamp your feet――don’t creep up behind me like a ghost.”
His voice altered again, became almost confidential. “The fact is,
something very strange occurred in this church――to me――only last night.”
“Were you here last night?” asked Grif, a sudden curiosity overcoming
his natural reserve. “It’s awfully queer, because I wondered if you
were?”
Mr. Bradley regarded him with reawakened suspicion. “Wondered if I was
here! What did you know about it?” he asked sharply.
“Aunt Caroline told me that you sometimes came at night to play, and
just before I got into bed――very late――I began to think that perhaps
you were there.”
“Well I was. And what’s more, I saw a ghost.”
“A real ghost?” Grif whispered, awestruck.
Mr. Bradley was offended. “Yes,” he snapped. “Of course a real ghost.
There aren’t any others――except when _you_ come stealing in. I was
playing an air I had taught him. I don’t know what put it into my mind,
but at any rate I began to play it――an old Italian thing――a Spring
Song. And in the middle of it I heard him. Perhaps I’m wrong in that:
perhaps I didn’t hear him: but in any case something made me look round
and――there he was, standing behind me, just where you are now. He
only stayed while you could count twenty: then he was gone.... That’s
why I lit these candles this afternoon. I thought it might get dark
while I was playing, and I didn’t want to be caught napping. But we
won’t talk about him. Now you _are_ here, tell me if you have a voice?
Have you ever tried to sing? I haven’t heard a voice for months....
Cats, peacocks, corncrakes――that’s what I’ve got to make a choir of――a
farmyard. A man like me――ridiculous――wasted in a God-forsaken hole
like this....” His words sank into a mutter and Grif could no longer
distinguish what he was saying.
There was a silence while Mr. Bradley wagged his head. Then he looked
up. “Well!” he went on querulously. “I’m waiting to try your voice.
Sing the scale as I play it.”
Grif would not have dreamed of disobeying him, and he began at once
to sing, following each note of the organ. When he had finished Mr.
Bradley seemed to be in better humour.
“Good boy! And you mean to tell me they never had you taught!
Extraordinary! I expect they muddle your head with all kinds of
nonsense――teach you everything except what you ought to learn. They
do. You needn’t deny it. They always do――idiots! You must sing for
me. There’s a solo in an old anthem of mine that I will teach you,
and you’ll sing it in church one Sunday.... Mezzo――you mustn’t try
to sing too high. All you need is a little training. I’ve heard more
powerful voices, but none much sweeter.... Do you know this?” He played
the first bars of Spohr’s _Rose Softly Blooming_. “Don’t you know
it? Well, we’ll have our first lesson now. Sing something you _do_
know――anything――I just want to see if you have an ear. We’ll try a
hymn――you must know lots of hymns. _A Few More Years Shall Roll?_ You
must know _that_?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Grif diffidently.
“Well, sing it. It doesn’t matter about the words, if you don’t
remember them. Any words will do――or none at all. I’m glad you’re
not shy. There’s a boy in the village who has quite a fair soprano.
Grocer’s boy. I offered to teach him, but the little idiot was
frightened to open his mouth.”
Thus encouraged, Grif decided not to be a little idiot also, and sang
to the best of his ability.
“That’s a good boy.”
“Did I keep in tune?” he asked softly.
“Perfectly. Now we’ll go back to Spohr.”
It was much later than he had intended it to be when Grif said good-bye
to Mr. Bradley and scudded down the road in the direction of his
grandfather’s. It must be very late indeed, he thought, for the sun had
set, and the sky in the west was ablaze with a soft radiance of yellow
and orange. Against this the landscape, rising in a gentle curve, took
on a sombre hue, in which green was hardly visible, while the rich
brown soil of arable land looked black as black velvet. Some white
gulls, passing with their strange lonely cry overhead, were dark as a
flock of rooks, and the flies, dancing in fantastic reels against the
glowing light, were like little spots of darkness shaken into animation.
For the first time it occurred to Grif that his prolonged absence might
have caused some uneasiness at home.... And he no longer had Palmer’s
butterfly-net. Dear knows where he had left it!