THE PIPES OF PAN
Circular Quay, shaped like a bite in a slice of bread, caught the eye
like a moving picture. The narrow strip of roadway, hemmed in between
the Customs House and the huge wool stores, was alive with the
multitudinous activity of an ant-hill. A string of electric cars slid
past the jetties in parallel lines or climbed the sharp curve to
Phillip Street; and every minute cars, loaded with passengers from the
dusty suburbs, swung round the corners of the main streets and stopped
in front of the ferries. And as the cars stopped, the human cargo
emptied itself into the roadway and hurried to the turnstiles, harassed
by the thought of missing the next boat.
From the waterside, where the great mail steamers lay moored along the
Quay, came the sudden rattle of winches, the cries of men unloading
cargo, and the shrill hoot of small steamers crossing the bay. Where
the green waters licked the piles and gurgled under the jetties,
waterside loafers sat on the edge of the wharves intently watching a
fishing-line thrown out. Men in greasy clothes and flannel shirts, with
the look of the sea in their eyes, smoked and spat as they watched the
ships in brooding silence. For of all structures contrived by the
hands of man, a ship is the most fascinating. It is so complete, so
perfect in its devices and ingenuity, a house and a habitation for men
set adrift on the waste of waters, plunging headlong into danger and
romance with its long spars and coiled ropes, its tarry sailors roaring
a sea-chanty, and the common habits of eating and sleeping accomplished
in a spirit of adventure.
Two streams, mainly women, met at the turnstiles--mothers and children
from the crowded, dusty suburbs, drawn by the sudden heat of an autumn
sun in a cloudless sky to the harbour for a day in the open air, and
the leisured ladies of the North Shore, calm and collected, dressed in
expensive materials, crossing from the fashionable waterside suburbs to
the Quay to saunter idly round the Block, look in the shops, and drink
a cup of tea.
Jonah, who had been standing outside the Mosman ferry for the last
half-hour, looked at the clock in the Customs House opposite, and swore
to himself. It was on the stroke of three, and she would miss the
boat, as usual. It was always the same--she was always late; and when
he had worked himself into a fury, deciding to wait another minute, and
then to go home, she would suddenly appear breathless, with a smile and
an apology that took the words out of his mouth.
He watched each tram as it stopped, looking for one face and figure
among the moving crowd, for he had learned to know her walk in the
distance while her features were a blur. For months past he had
endured that supreme tyranny--the domination of the woman--till his
whole life seemed to be spent between thinking about her and waiting
for her at appointed corners. The hours they spent together fled with
incredible speed, and she always shortened the flying minutes by coming
late, with one of half a dozen excuses that he knew by heart.
Their first meeting had been at the Quay the day after he had brought
Ada home drunk from the "Angel", and since then a silent understanding
had grown between them that they should always meet there and cross the
water, as Jonah's conspicuous figure made recognition very likely in
the streets and parks of the city.
The first passion of his life--love of his child--had for ever stamped
on his brain the scenes and atmosphere of Cardigan Street, the struggle
for life on the Road, and the march of triumph to the "Silver Shoe".
And this, the second passion of his life--love of a woman--was set like
a stage-play among the wide spaces of sea and sky, the flight of gulls,
the encircling hills, and the rough, salt breath of the harbour.
Suddenly he saw her crossing the road, threading her way between the
electric cars, and noted with intense satisfaction the distinction of
her figure, clothed in light tweed, with an air of scrupulous neatness
in which she could hold her own with the rich idlers from the Shore.
She smiled at him with her peculiar, intense look, and then frowned
slightly. Jonah knew that something was wrong, and remembered that he
had forgotten to raise his hat, an accomplishment that she had taught
him with much difficulty.
"So sorry to be late, but I couldn't really help it. I'll tell you
presently," she said, as they passed the turnstiles.
Jonah knew by her voice that she was in a bad temper, and his heart
sank. The afternoon that he had waited for and counted on for nearly a
week would be spoiled. Never before in his life had his pleasures
depended on the humour or caprice of anyone, but he had learned with
dismal surprise that a word or a look from this woman could make or mar
the day for him. He gave her a sidelong look, and saw she was angry by
a certain hardness in her profile, and, as he stared moodily at the
water, he wondered if all women were as mutable and capricious. In his
dealings with women--shop-hands who moved at his bidding like
machines--he had never suspected these gusts of emotion that ended as
suddenly as they began. Ada had the nerves of a cow.
Over the way the Manly boat was filling slowly with mothers and
children and stray couples. A lamentable band on the upper deck mixed
popular airs with the rattle of winches. The Quay was alive with
ferry-boats, blunt-nosed and squat like a flat-iron, churning the water
with invisible screws. A string of lascars from the P. & O. boat caught
his eye with a patch of colour, the white calico trousers, the gay
embroidered vests, and the red or white turbans bringing a touch of the
East to Sydney. Suddenly the piles of the jetty slipped to the rear,
and the boat moved out past the huge mail-steamers from London,
Marseilles, Bremen, Hongkong, and Yokohama lying at the wharves.
As they rounded the point the warships swung into view, grim and
forbidding, with the ugly strength of bulldogs. A light breeze flicked
the waters of the harbour into white flakes like the lash of a whip,
and Jonah felt the salt breath of the sea on his cheeks. His eye
travelled over the broad sheet of water from the South Head, where the
long rollers of the Pacific entered and broke with a muscular curve, to
the shores broken by innumerable curves into bays where the moving
waters, already tamed, lost their beauty like a caged animal, and spent
themselves in fretful ripples on the sand. Overhead the sky, arched in
a cloudless dome of blue, was reflected in the turquoise depths of the
water.
Then Mosman came in sight with its shaggy slopes and terra-cotta roofs,
the houses, on the pattern of a Swiss chalet, standing with spaces
between, fashionable and reserved. Jonah thought of Cardigan Street,
and smiled. They walked in silence along the path to Cremorne Point,
the noise of birds and the rustling of leaves bringing a touch of the
country to Jonah.
"Had you been waiting long?" asked Clara, suddenly.
"Since twenty past two," replied Jonah.
"The impudence of some people is incredible," she said. "I've just
lost a pupil and a guinea a quarter--it's the same thing. The mother
thought I should buy the music for the child out of the guinea. That
means a hat and a pair of gloves or a pair of boots less through no
fault of my own. You don't seem very sympathetic," she cried, looking
sharply at Jonah.
"I ain't," said Jonah, calmly.
"Well, I must say you don't pick your words. A guinea may be nothing
to you, but it means a great deal to me."
"It ain't that," said Jonah, "but I hate the thought of yer bein' at
the beck an' call of people who ain't fit to clean yer boots. Ye're
like a kid 'oldin' its finger in the fire an' yellin' with pain.
There's no need fer yer to do it. I've offered ter make yer cashier in
the shop at two pounds a week, if yer'd put yer pride in yer pocket."
"And throw a poor girl out of work to step into her shoes."
"Nuthin' of the sort, as I told yer. She's been threatenin' fer months
to git married, but it 'urts 'er to give up a good billet an' live on
three pounds a week. Yer'd do the bloke a kindness, if yer made me
give 'er the sack."
"It's no use. My mother wouldn't listen to it. For years she's half
starved herself to keep me out of a shop. She can never forget that
her people in England are gentry."
"I don't know much about gentry, but I could teach them an' yer mother
some common sense," said Jonah.
"We won't discuss my mother, if you please," said Clara, and they both
fell silent.
They had reached the end of Cremorne Point, a spur of rock running into
the harbour. Clara ran forward with a cry of pleasure, her troubles
forgotten as she saw the harbour lying like a map at her feet. The
opposite shore curved into miniature bays, with the spires and towers
of the city etched on a filmy blue sky. The mass of bricks and mortar
in front was Paddington and Woollahra, leafless and dusty where they
had trampled the trees and green grass beneath their feet; the streets
cut like furrows in a field of brick. As the eye travelled eastward
from Double Bay to South Head the red roofs became scarcer, alternating
with clumps of sombre foliage. Clara looked at the scene with parted
lips as she listened to music. This frank delight in scenery had
amused Jonah at first. It was part of a woman's delight in the pretty
and useless. But, as his eyes had become accustomed to the view, he
had begun to understand. There was no scenery in Cardigan Street, and
he had been too busy in later years to give more than a hasty glance at
the harbour. There was no money in it.
From where they sat they could see a fleet of tramps and cargo-boats
lying at anchor on their right. Jonah examined them attentively, and
then his eyes turned to the city, piled massively in the sunlight,
studded with spires and towers and tall chimneys belching smoke into
the upper air. It was this city that had given him life on bitter
terms, a misshapen and neglected street-arab, scouring the streets for
food, of less account than a stray dog.
His eye softened as he looked again at the water. As the safest place
for their excursions they had picked by chance on the harbour with its
fleet of steamers that threaded every bay and cove, and little by
little, in the exaltation of the senses following his love for this
woman, the swish of the water slipping past the bows, the panorama of
rock and sandy beach, and the salt smell of the sea were for ever part
of this strange, emotional condition where reality and dream blended
without visible jar or shock.
He turned and looked at the woman beside him. She was silent, looking
seaward. He stared at her profile, cut like a cameo, with intense
satisfaction. The low, straight forehead, the straight nose, the full
curving chin, satisfied his eye like a carved statue. About her ear,
exquisitely small and delicate, the wind had blown a fluff of loose
hair, and on this insignificant detail his eye dwelt with rapture.
This woman's face pleased him like music. And as he looked, all his
desires were melted and confounded in a wave of tenderness, caressing
and devotional, the complete surrender of strength to weakness. He
wanted to take her in his arms, and dared not even touch her hand.
There had been no talk of love between them, and she had kept him at a
distance with her air of distinction and superficial refinements. She
seemed to spread a silken barrier between them that exasperated and
entranced him. Some identity in his sensations puzzled him, and as he
looked, with a flash he was in Cardigan Street again, stooping over his
child with a strange sensation in his heart, learning his first lesson
in pity and infinite tenderness. Another moment and he would have taken
her in his arms. Instead of that, he said "I'm putting that line of
patent leather pumps in the catalogue at seven and elevenpence, post
free."
Instantly Clara became attentive.
"You mean those with the buckles and straps? They'll go like hot
cakes!"
"They ought to," said Jonah, dryly. "Post free brings them a shade
below cost price."
"A shade below cost?" said Clara in surprise. "I thought you bought
them at seven and six?"
"So I do," replied Jonah, "but add twelve per cent for working
expenses, an' where's the profit? Packard's manager puts them in the
window at eight an' six, an' wonders why they don't sell. His girls
come straight from the factory and buy them off me. They're the sort I
want--waitresses, dressmakers, shop-hands, bits of girls that go
without their meals to doll themselves up. They want the cheapest they
can get, an' they're always buying."
And at once they plunged into a discussion on the business of the
Silver Shoe. Clara always listened with fascination to the details of
buying and selling. Novelettes left her cold, but the devices to
attract customers, the lines that were sold at a loss for
advertisement, the history of the famous Silver Shoe that Jonah sold in
thousands at a halfpenny a pair profit, astonished her like a
fairy-tale that happened to be real.
One day, while shopping at Jordan's mammoth cash store, her ear had
caught the repeated clink of metal, and turning her head, she stood on
the stairs, thunderstruck. She saw a square room lit with electric
bulbs in broad daylight. It was the terminus of a multitude of shining
brass tubes leading from counters the length of a street away, and,
with an incessant popping, the tubes dropped a cascade of gold and
silver before the cashiers, silent and absorbed in this river of coin.
She felt that she was looking at the heart of this huge machine for
drawing money from the pockets of the multitude. The "Silver Shoe",
that poured a stream of golden coins into the pockets of the
hunchback, fascinated her in a like manner.
They had talked for half an hour, intent on figures which Jonah dotted
on the back of an envelope, when they were surprised by a sudden change
in the light. The sun was low in the sky, dipping to the horizon,
where its motion seemed more rapid, as if it had gathered speed in the
descent. The sudden heat had thrown a haze over the sky, and the city
with its spires and towers was transformed. The buildings floated in a
liquid veil with the unreality of things seen in a dream. The rays of
the sun, filtered through bars of crystal cloud, fell not crimson nor
amber nor gold, but with the mystic radiance of liquid pearls, touching
the familiar scene with Eastern magic. In the silvery light a dome
reared its head that might have belonged to an Eastern mosque with a
muezzin calling the faithful to prayers. Minarets glistered, remote
and ethereal, and tall spires lifted themselves like arrows in flight.
On the left lay low hills softly outlined against the pearly sky; hills
of fairyland that might dissolve and disappear with the falling night;
hills on the borderland of fantasy and old romance.
And as they watched, surprised out of themselves by this magic play of
light, the sun's rim dipped below the skyline, a level lake of blood,
and the fantastic city melted like a dream. The pearly haze was
withdrawn like a net of gossamer, and the magic city had vanished at a
touch. The familiar towers and spires of Sydney reappeared, silhouetted
against the amber rim of night; the hills, robbed of their pearly
glamour, huddled beneath a belt of leaden cloud; the harbour waters lay
fiat and grey like a sheet of polished metal; light clouds were pacing
in from the sea.
They stared across the water, silent and thoughtful, touched for a
moment with the glamour of a dream. The sound of a cornet, prolonged
into a wail, reached them from the deck of a Manly steamer. At
intervals the full strength of the band, cheerful and vulgar, was
carried by a gust of wind to their ears.
"Oh, I would like to hear some music!" cried Clara. "Something slow
and solemn, a dirge for the dying day."
Jonah turned and looked at her curiously, surprised by the gush of
emotion in her voice. He started to speak, and hesitated. Then the
words came with a rush.
"I could give yer a tune meself, but I suppose yer'd poke borak."
"Give me a tune? I never knew you could sing," said Clara, in surprise.
"Sing!" said Jonah, in scorn. "I can beat any singin' w'en I'm in good
nick."
"Whatever do you mean?" said Clara. She was surprised to see that the
habitual shrewd look had gone out of his eyes. He looked half ashamed
and defiant.
"Yer remember w'en I first met yer in the shop I mentioned that I could
do a bit with the mouth-organ?"
"The mouth-organ?" said Clara, smiling. "I thought only boys amused
themselves with that."
"No fear!" cried Jonah. "I 'eard a bloke at the 'Tiv.' play a fair
treat. That's 'ow I come to git this instrument," and he tapped
something in his breast pocket. "Kramer's 'ad to send 'ome for it, an'
I only got it this afternoon. I've bin dyin' to 'ave a go at it, but I
always wait till I git the place to meself. It wouldn't do for the
'ands to see the boss playin' the mouth-organ."
He took the instrument out of his pocket, and handed it to Clara with
the pride of a fiddler showing his Strad. Clara looked carelessly at
the flat row of tubes cased in nickel-silver.
"Exhibition concert organ with forty reeds," said Jonah. Again Clara
looked at the instrument with a slightly disdainful air, as an organist
would look at a penny whistle.
"Well, play something," she said with a smile.
Jonah breathed slowly into the reeds, up and down the scale, testing
the compass of the instrument. It was full and rich, unlike any that
she had heard in the streets. Presently he struck into a popular
ballad from the music-hall, holding the organ to his mouth with the
left hand. With his right he covered the pipes to control the volume
of sound as a pianist uses the pedals. When he had finished, Clara
smiled in encouragement, with a secret feeling that he was making
himself ridiculous. She looked across the water, wishing he would put
the thing away and stop this absurd exhibition. But Jonah had warmed
up to his work. He was back in Cardigan Street again, when the Push
marched through the streets with him in the lead, playing tunes that he
had learned at the music-halls.
In five minutes Clara's uneasiness had vanished, and she was listening
to the music with a dreamy languor quite foreign to her usual
composure. Her mind was filled with the fantastic splendour of the
sunset; the fresh salt air had acted like a drug; and the sounds
breathed into the reeds made her nerves vibrate like strings. Strange,
lawless thoughts floated in her mind. The world was meant for love,
and passionate sadness, and breaking hearts that healed at the glance
of an eye. And as her ear followed the tune, her eyes were drawn with
an irresistible movement to the musician. She found him staring at her
with a magnetic look in his eyes.
He was no longer ridiculous. The large head, wedged beneath the
shoulders, the projecting hump, monstrous and inhuman, and the music
breathed into the reeds set him apart as a sinister, uncanny being.
She frowned in an effort to think what the strange figure reminded her
of, and suddenly she remembered. It was the god Pan, the goat-footed
lord of rivers and woods, sitting beside her, who blew into his pipes
and stirred the blood of men and women to frenzies of joy and fear.
There was fear and exultation in her heart. A pagan voluptuousness
spread through her limbs. Jonah paused for a moment, and then broke
into the pick of his repertory. And Clara listened, hypnotized by the
sounds, her brain mechanically fitting the words to the tune:
Come to me, sweet Marie, sweet Marie, come to me!
Not because your face is fair, love, to see;
But your soul, so pure and sweet,
Makes my happiness complete,
Makes me falter at your feet, sweet Marie.
The vulgar, insipid words rang as plainly in her ears as if a voice
were singing them. Jonah stopped playing, and stared at her with a
curious glitter in his eyes. She felt, in a dazed, dreamy fashion,
that this was the hunchback's declaration of love. The hurdy-gurdy
tune and the unsung words had acted like a spell. For a space of
seconds she gazed with a fixed look at Jonah, waiting for him to move
or speak. She seemed to be slipping down a precipice without the power
or desire to resist. Then, like a fit of giddiness, the sensation
passed. She stumbled to her feet and ran wildly down the rocky path to
the wharf where the ferry-boat, glittering with electric lights, like a
gigantic firefly, was waiting at the jetty.