II

It was a long time before Mary Ann came so prominently into the centre

of Lancelot's consciousness again. She remained somewhere in the outer

periphery of his thought--nowhere near the bull's-eye, so to speak--as

a vague automaton that worked when he pulled a bell-rope. Infinitely

more important things were troubling him; the visit of Peter had

somehow put a keener edge on his blunted self-confidence; he had

started a grand opera, and worked at it furiously in all the intervals

left him by his engrossing pursuit after a publisher. Sometimes he

would look up from his hieroglyphics and see Mary Ann at his side

surveying him curiously, and then he would start, and remember he had

rung her up, and try to remember what for. And Mary Ann would turn

red, as if the fault was hers.

But the publisher was the one thing that was never out of Lancelot's

mind, though he drove Lancelot himself nearly out of it. He was like

an arrow stuck in the aforesaid bull's-eye, and, the target being

conscious, he rankled sorely. Lancelot discovered that the publisher

kept a "musical adviser," whose advice appeared to consist of the

famous monosyllable, "Don't." The publisher generally published all

the musical adviser's own works, his advice having apparently been

neglected when it was most worth taking; at least so Lancelot thought,

when he had skimmed through a set of Lancers by one of these worthies.

"I shall give up being a musician," he said to himself grimly. "I

shall become a musical adviser."

Once, half by accident, he actually saw a publisher. "My dear sir,"

said the great man, "what is the use of bringing quartets and full

scores to me? You should have taken them to Brahmson; he's the man you

want. You know his address, of course--just down the street."

Lancelot did not like to say that it was Brahmson's clerks that had

recommended him here; so he replied, "But you publish operas,

oratorios, cantatas!"

"Ah yes!--h'm--things that have been played at the big

Festivals--composers of prestige--quite a different thing, sir, quite a

different thing. There's no sale for these things--none at all,

sir--public never heard of you. Now, if you were to write some

songs--nice catchy tunes--high class, you know, with pretty words----"

Now Lancelot by this time was aware of the publisher's wily ways; he

could almost have constructed an Ollendorffian dialogue, entitled

"Between a Music-Publisher and a Composer." So he opened his portfolio

again and said, "I have brought some."

"Well, send--send them in," stammered the publisher, almost

disconcerted. "They shall have our best consideration."

"Oh, but you might just as well look over them at once," said Lancelot

firmly, uncoiling them. "It won't take you five minutes--just let me

play one to you. The tunes are rather more original than the average,

I can promise you; and yet I think they have a lilt that----"

"I really can't spare the time now. If you leave them, we will do our

best."

"Listen to this bit!" said Lancelot desperately. And dashing at a

piano that stood handy, he played a couple of bars. "That's quite a

new modulation."

"That's all very well," said the publisher; "but how do you suppose I'm

going to sell a thing with an accompaniment like that? Look here, and

here! Why it's all accidentals."

"That's the best part of the song," explained Lancelot; "a sort of

undercurrent of emotion that brings out the full pathos of the words.

Note the elegant and novel harmonies." He played another bar or two,

singing the words softly.

"Yes; but if you think you'll get young ladies to play that, you've got

a good deal to learn," said the publisher gruffly. "This is the sort

of accompaniment that goes down," and seating himself at the piano for

a moment (somewhat to Lancelot's astonishment, for he had gradually

formed a theory that music-publishers did not really know the staff

from a five-barred gate), he rattled off the melody with his right

hand, pounding away monotonously with his left at a few elementary

chords.

Lancelot looked dismayed.

"That's the kind of thing you'll have to produce, young man," said the

publisher, feeling that he had at last resumed his natural supremacy,

"if you want to get your songs published. Elegant harmonies are all

very well, but who's to play them?"

"And do you mean to say that a musician in this God-forsaken country

must have no chords but tonics and dominants?" ejaculated Lancelot

hotly.

"The less he has of any other the better," said the great man drily.

"I haven't said a word about the melody itself, which is quite out of

the ordinary compass, and makes demands upon the singer's vocalisation

which are not likely to make a demand for the song. What you have to

remember, my dear sir, if you wish to achieve success, is that music,

if it is to sell, must appeal to the average amateur young person. The

average amateur young person is the main prop of music in this country."

Lancelot snatched up his song and tied the strings of his portfolio

very tightly, as if he were clenching his lips.

"If I stay here any longer I shall swear," he said: "Good afternoon."

He went out with a fire at his heart that made him insensitive to the

frost without. He walked a mile out of his way mechanically, then,

perceiving his stupidity, avenged it by jumping into a hansom. He

dared not think how low his funds were running. When he got home he

forgot to have his tea, crouching in dumb misery in his easy-chair,

while the coals in the grate faded like the sunset from red to grey,

and the dusk of twilight deepened into the gloom of night, relieved

only by a gleam from the street-lamp.

The noise of the door opening made him look up.

"Beg pardon, sir, I didn't yer ye come in."

It was Mary Ann's timid accents. Lancelot's head drooped again on his

breast. He did not answer.

"You've bin and let your fire go out, sir."

"Don't bother!" he grumbled. He felt a morbid satisfaction in this

aggravation of discomfort, almost symbolic as it was of his sunk

fortunes.

"Oh, but it'll freeze 'ard to-night, sir. Let me make it up." Taking

his sullen silence for consent, she ran downstairs and reappeared with

some sticks. Soon there were signs of life, which Mary Ann assiduously

encouraged by blowing at the embers with her mouth. Lancelot looked on

in dull apathy, but as the fire rekindled and the little flames leapt

up and made Mary Ann's flushed face the one spot of colour and warmth

in the cold, dark room, Lancelot's torpidity vanished suddenly. The

sensuous fascination seized him afresh, and ere he was aware of it he

was lifting the pretty face by the chin.

"I'm so sorry to be so troublesome, Mary Ann. There, you shall give me

a kiss to show you bear no malice."

The warm lips obediently met his, and for a moment Lancelot forgot his

worries while he held her soft cheek against his.

This time the shock of returning recollection was not so violent as

before. He sat up in his chair, but his right arm still twined

negligently round her neck, the fingers patting the warm face. "A

fellow must have something to divert his mind," he thought, "or he'd go

mad. And there's no harm done--the poor thing takes it as a kindness,

I'm sure. I suppose _her_ life's dull enough. We're a pair." He felt

her shoulders heaving a little, as if she were gulping down something.

At last she said, "You ain't troublesome. I ought to ha' yerd ye come

in."

He released her suddenly. Her words broke the spell. The vulgar

accent gave him a shudder.

"Don't you _hear_ a bell ringing?" he said, with dual significance.

"Nosir," said Mary Ann ingenuously. "I'd yer it in a moment if there

was. I yer it in my dreams, I'm so used to it. One night I dreamt the

missus was boxin' my yers and askin' me if I was deaf and I said to

'er----"

"Can't you say 'her'?" cried Lancelot, cutting her short impatiently.

"Her," said Mary Ann.

"Then why do you say ''er'?"

"Missus told me to. She said my own way was all wrong."

"Oh, indeed!" said Lancelot. "It's missus that has corrupted you, is

it? And pray what used you to say?"

"She," said Mary Ann.

Lancelot was taken aback. "She!" he repeated.

"Yessir," said Mary Ann, with a dawning suspicion that her own

vocabulary was going to be vindicated; "whenever I said 'she' she made

me say ''er,' and whenever I said 'her' she made me say 'she.' When I

said 'her and me' she made me say 'me and she,' and when I said 'I got

it from she,' she made me say 'I got it from 'er.'"

"Bravo! A very lucid exposition," said Lancelot, laughing. "Did she

set you right in any other particulars?"

"Eessir--I mean yessir," replied Mary Ann, the forbidden words flying

to her lips like prisoned skylarks suddenly set free. "I used to say,

'Gie I thek there broom, oo't?' 'Arten thee goin' to?' 'Her did say

to I.' 'I be goin' on to bed.' 'Look at----'"

"Enough! Enough! What a memory you've got! Now I understand. You're

a country girl."

"Eessir," said Mary Ann, her face lighting up. "I mean yessir."

"Well, that redeems you a little," thought Lancelot, with his whimsical

look. "So it's missus, is it, who's taught you Cockneyese? My

instinct was not so unsound, after all. I dare say you'll turn out

something nobler than a Cockney drudge." He finished aloud, "I hope

you went a-milking."

"Eessir, sometimes; and I drove back the milk-trunk in the cart, and I

rode down on a pony to the second pasture to count the sheep and the

heifers."

"Then you are a farmer's daughter?"

"Eessir. But my feyther--I mean my father--had only two little fields

when he was alive, but we had a nice garden, with plum trees, and rose

bushes and gillyflowers----"

"Better and better," murmured Lancelot, smiling. And, indeed, the

image of Mary Ann skimming the meads on a pony in the sunshine was more

pleasant to contemplate than that of Mary Ann whitening the wintry

steps. "What a complexion you must have had to start with!" he cried

aloud, surveying the not unenviable remains of it. "Well, and what

else did you do?"

Mary Ann opened her lips. It was delightful to see how the dull veil,

as of London fog, had been lifted from her face; her eyes sparkled.

Then, "Oh, there's the ground-floor bell," she cried, moving

instinctively towards the door.

"Nonsense: I hear no bell," said Lancelot.

"I told you I always _hear_ it," said Mary Ann, hesitating and blushing

delicately before the critical word.

"Oh well, run along then. Stop a moment--I must give you another kiss

for talking so nicely. There! And--stop a moment--bring me up some

coffee, please, when the ground floor is satisfied."

"Eessir--I mean yessir. What must I say?" she added, pausing troubled

on the threshold.

"Say, 'Yes, Lancelot,'" he answered recklessly.

"Yessir," and Mary Ann disappeared.

It was ten endless minutes before she reappeared with the coffee. The

whole of the second five minutes Lancelot paced his room feverishly,

cursing the ground floor, and stamping as if to bring down its ceiling.

He was curious to know more of Mary Ann's history.

But it proved meagre enough. Her mother died when Mary Ann was a

child; her father when she was still a mere girl. His affairs were

found in hopeless confusion, and Mary Ann was considered lucky to be

taken into the house of the well-to-do Mrs. Leadbatter, of London, the

eldest sister of a young woman who had nursed the vicar's wife. Mrs.

Leadbatter had promised the vicar to train up the girl in the way a

domestic should go.

"And when I am old enough she is going to pay me wages as well,"

concluded Mary Ann, with an air of importance.

"Indeed--how old were you when you left the village?"

"Fourteen."

"And how old are you now?"

Mary Ann looked confused. "I don't quite know," she murmured.

"O come," said Lancelot laughingly; "is this your country simplicity?

You're quite young enough to tell how old you are."

The tears came into Mary Ann's eyes.

"I can't, Mr. Lancelot," she protested earnestly; "I forgot to

count--I'll ask missus."

"And whatever she tells you, you'll be," he said, amused at her

unshakable loyalty.

"Yessir," said Mary Ann.

"And so you are quite alone in the world?"

"Yessir--but I've got my canary. They sold everything when my father

died, but the vicar's wife she bought my canary back for me because I

cried so. And I brought it to London and it hangs in my bedroom. And

the vicar, he was so kind to me, he did give me a lot of advice, and

Mrs. Amersham, who kept the chandler's shop, she did give me ninepence,

all in three-penny bits."

"And you never had any brothers or sisters?"

"There was our Sally, but she died before mother."

"Nobody else?"

"There's my big brother Tom--but I mustn't tell you about him."

"Mustn't tell me about him? Why not?"

"He's so wicked."

The answer was so unexpected that Lancelot, could not help laughing,

and Mary Ann flushed to the roots of her hair.

"Why, what has he done?" said Lancelot, composing his mouth to gravity.

"I don't know; I was only six. Father told me it was something very

dreadful, and Tom had to run away to America, and I mustn't mention him

any more. And mother was crying, and I cried because Tom used to give

me tickey-backs and go blackberrying with me and our little Sally; and

everybody else in the village they seemed glad, because they had said

so all along, because Tom would never go to church, even when a little

boy."

"I suppose then _you_ went to church regularly?"

"Yessir. When I was at home, I mean."

"Every Sunday?"

Mary Ann hung her head. "Once I went meechin'," she said in low tones.

"Some boys and girls they wanted me to go nutting, and I wanted to go

too, but I didn't know how to get away, and they told me to cough very

loud when the sermon began, so I did, and coughed on and on till at

last the vicar glowed at father, and father had to send me out of

church."