Herr Slavska
Mabel had discovered that a woman with a mission hasn't such a bad time
of it. She set out on her journey to Jean without one of her usual
misgivings. It was jolly to think that she might be able to be of some
use in the world. The tediousness of a long journey of changes till she
reached the main-line and thundered direct to London did not pall on her
as it had done before. Throughout she thought, "I'm getting nearer to
Jean, and I shall put her on her feet."
She prepared to hate the girls' club, but to be quite uninfluenced by
it. She would take Jean out, till neither of them cared what the club
was like at all. She forgot Robin and Isobel and everything except one
thing which she would never forget, and Jean.
She drove up to the door of the club in the most energetic and
independent mood she had ever experienced. She didn't care whether the
secretary looked her up and down or not. She merely went straight to
Jean's room. Jean didn't at all pretend that it was a downcome. She
simply wept with delight at the sight of Mabel.
"And I never shed a tear, not one, till you came," said she. "I'm so
glad you came just when I began to get better."
Mabel did not dare to tell her that she had only been home-sick.
"If I tell her that, she will lie in bed to convince me that she is
really ill," she thought.
Girls' voices were heard screaming volubly.
"What's that?" asked Mabel, thinking that some accident had occurred.
"Oh nothing. They call out for each other from their different rooms.
I thought it was a parrot house when I came, but I'm getting accustomed
to it. They've been so decent, you can't think, Mabel. I never knew
girls could be so comforting."
"Poor Jean," said Mabel.
"You'll stay, won't you," said Jean.
"Of course I shall. Just imagine, papa wanted to come and take you
home. It would have been so stale for you after you got there, with
those little presents people gave you and all that kind of thing, if you
had gone right back home again, wouldn't it?"
"Imagine Aunt Katharine alone," said Jean solemnly.
"So, if you possibly can, Jean, get up as soon as you feel able to
crawl. So that I can say you are all right. Papa says I may stay for a
week or two if you are."
"Oh, Mabs, I wish you would stay right on!"
"Where's my room?" asked Mabel. "What rickety furniture!"
"The room is next door, isn't it nice? And the furniture's bought for
girls. They think we like rickets."
"Wickets," corrected Mabel. "You could use that chair at a match."
"Oh, Mabs, how jolly it is to have you here to laugh at it. Mabs, I do
feel better."
Mabel saw her up in three-quarters of an hour.
Jean had still to be treated seriously however.
"You know, Mabs, I had the most dreadful feeling. I could quite
understand how poor girls without friends go and drown themselves."
"That's more like depression than appendicitis," Mabel ventured.
"I hadn't been sleeping," explained Jean with dignity.
Mabel thought of some sleepless nights.
"The best cure is always to believe that it can't last," said she. "Do
you remember papa's telling us how Carlyle comforted Mrs. Carlyle when
she had toothache? He said it wouldn't be permanent."
"What a brute," said Jean.
"Well, it sent me to sleep once or twice when I remembered that," said
Mabel. "But you never were ill like this before. You couldn't believe
in getting well, could you?"
"I was sure I was going to die," said Jean in a hushed voice.
Mabel's heart had ached. Could she tell Jean of that ache and how she
had been obliged to cover it up by making herself believe that it could
not possibly be permanent.
"Jean, do you know, I think it's so jolly being here, getting to know
the best way of doing things, and all that sort of thing, I think I
shall ask papa to let me stay longer. Do you think they would let me?"
"Well, they let me--and then I didn't want to," said Jean.
"And I didn't want to and now I do," said Mabel. "Let's try it for a
week or two anyhow."
A great depression had been lifted from her shoulders. She found herself
in the midst of girls who had all something to do in the world. They
got up in the morning and came tearing down to breakfast and made off to
various definite occupations, as though they had nineteen parties in one
day to attend. Some were studying, others "arrived" and working, only a
few playing. Yet even the last had some excuse in the way of a
problematical career in front of them. Here one saw where the desire to
be something has quite as hygienic an effect on one, as the faculty of
attainment. Mabel had not been three days in the house till she was as
feverish as any to be getting on. Going with Jean for her first lesson
finished her. Jean was still of the opinion that she was an invalid,
and she certainly was overwrought and nervous. She would have backed
out of her lesson, except that Mabel accompanied her.
They found a magnificent man, well groomed and of fierce but courtly
manners. He shook hands with the air of an arch-duke.
"And which is the fortunate mademoiselle?" he asked. "Not that I prefer
'fortunate' because that she happens to be about to be taught by myself,
but she has a voice? Hn?" It was a sound that had only the effect of
asking a question, but how efficiently!
He glared at Mabel, who produced Jean, as it were, by a motion of the
hand.
"It is my sister who wants lessons," she said. This sounded like
something out of a grammar book, and both girls saw the humour of it.
But timidly, because Herr Slavska then invited them to sit, while he
turned to the piano. He threw some music aside from the desk and
cleared a place at the side for his elbow, as he sat down for a moment.
"They do not all have voices! No. But som, they have the soll. You
have the soll? Hn?"
It did not seem necessary to inform Herr Slavska. He was walking up and
down now, flinging out more sentences before they had time to answer the
last.
"For myself. I had the voice and I had the soll. That is why I ask 'and
who is the mademoiselle who is so fortunate?' I am a voice, and look at
me! I am a drudge to the great public. I gif lessons to stupids who do
not love music. For what! For money to keep the stomach alive! Yes,
that is it. And yet I say--which is the mademoiselle which is
fortunate? For vit a voice and vit the soll, and vit the art which I
shall gif her, what does it matter about the stupid public? or the
stomach?"
Herr Slavska waited for no answers.
"For years I was wrong. I had no art. None. I sang to the stupids and
they applauded. At last I make great discovery, I find the art. Now I
sing to the few."
Herr Slavska paused for a moment.
"My sister has had no training at all, except as a pianist," said Mabel.
"Hn? Then I haf her, a flower, a bud unplucked!"
Herr Slavska grew excited.
"No nasty finger mark, no petal fallen. Ah! it is luck, it is luck for
mademoiselle. Come, mademoiselle."
He struck a note.
"Will you sing ze!"
Jean sang "ze." She sang "zo." Then he ran her voice into the top and
bottom registers.
"You have the comprehension. It is the great matter," said Herr
Slavska.
Then he blazed at her.
His "the," quite English when he remained polished and firm, degenerated
into a "ze" at times such as these.
"You haf not ze breath, none," said he, as though Jean had committed an
outrage.
Jean, however, had begun to glow with the ardour of future
accomplishment.
"That's what I came to learn," she said promptly.
"Aha, she has charac*tere*."
Herr Slavska was delighted, but Jean found this constant dissection of
herself trying.
Then the real work began. Herr Slavska breathed, made Jean breathe,
hammered at her, expostulated, showed his own ribs rising and falling
while his voice remained even, tender, beautiful.
Mabel sat clasping her hands over one another.
"Oh, Herr Slavska, what a beautiful voice you have," she burst out at
last.
He looked at her with the greatest surprise.
"Ah! You are her sister? Hn? And you sit there listening to us?"
He had forgotten her existence.
"And you are not of the stupids, no! You say I haf a beautiful voice?
Hn? It is ze art, mademoiselle, zat you hear now. Sixty-five, I am zat
age! And I still fight for ze stomach wit my beautiful voice. But you
are of ze few, is it not? I vil sing to you, mademoiselle, just once.
Your sister goes. Ten minutes, mademoiselle--only ten minutes. Zen a
rest. And every day to me for two weeks! Hn? Is it not so?"
Then he cast up his arms in despair.
"Helas! It is my accompaniste. He _is_ not!"
Jean the direct stepped in.
"Oh, Mabel will play," she said.
Herr Slavska took one of his deepest breaths.
"I say I shall sing to you--I Herr Slavska. Ant you say 'Mabel will
play.' Hn? Mabel? Who is dis grand Mademoiselle Mabel?"
The humour of it suddenly appeared to come upper-most, and Herr Slavska
became wickedly, cunningly suave.
"Ah yes, then if mademoiselle will," he said blandly.
He produced music.
Mabel was rooted with fear to the couch. Never in her life before had
she been nervous.
"Jean, how could you," whispered she.
Oh, fortune and the best of luck! He turned to a song of Brahms'. How
often had Mabel tried to drum that song into the willing but uncultured
Robin! That Robin in his lame way should help her now seemed the
funniest freak of fate. She played the first bars hopefully, joyfully.
She _knew_ she couldn't do anything silly there.
"But what!"
Herr Slavska had caught her by the shoulders, and looked in her eyes.
"Mademoiselle Mabel! From ze country! Mademoiselle plays like zat!
Hn?"
He bowed grandly.
"My apologies, Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. We vill haf a rehearsal."
He sang through part of his programme for a concert. Mabel energetically
remarked afterwards to Jean that she had never really felt heavenly in
her life before.
"Oh, Jean," she said, "_Jean._"
"What would you," said Herr Slavska. "You must also study a little Mees
Mademoiselle Mabel. You have great talent. Ah, if you could study in
ze Bohemian school, Mees Mademoiselle. Hav I not said for years to
these stupids stupids public, there is no school like to that of Prague?
Now all ze violinists tumble tumble over ze one another to Sevcik to go.
See, it is ze fate. If you could go to Prague, mademoiselle. Prague
would make a great artiste of you."
Here was living, wonderful life for Mabel! If Herr Slavska thought so
much of her, why should she not have lessons in London?
Mr. Leighton never received such a letter as he had from her next day.
If was full of thanks for his having made her play so much and go to
concerts when she was young. "Now I really know the literature of
music. It's the little slippy bits of technique that I'm not up in. I
saw every one of them come out and hit me in the eye when I played for
Herr Slavska. Do you think I could really stay and take lessons, dear
papa? It would prime me for such a lot. I've often thought about
Cuthbert for instance, that it must be so jolly for him to feel primed.
And after knowing life here, I'd only be more contented at home. It
isn't that one can't be bored in London. I think you can far far more
than anywhere. If you saw that girl with the pink bow! She only
dresses and dresses, one costume for the morning, another for the
afternoon and so on. I suppose she has been taught to be a perfect
lady. The girls in our house aren't the crowd that believe in being
like men or anything of that sort. They want to get married if they
meet a nice enough husband. But nobody wants to get left, and it's so
nice to be primed for that. I've sometimes felt I might one day be
'left,' and it's awful. I shouldn't mind so much if I had a profession.
Jean is like a new girl. She's full of breathings and 'my method' and
all that kind of thing. And she has to have an egg flip every morning
at eleven if you please. I'm longing to have a master who orders me egg
flip, but they don't do that for piano, do they?
"Oh, please, papa, say you don't care for us for six months, and let us
do you some credit at last. We were just little _potty_ players at
Ridgetown...."
Mr. Leighton took a mild attack of influenza on the strength of this,
but he was infinitely pleased at the enthusiasm of Mabel. Mrs. Leighton
got into the Aunt Katharine mood, where such "goings on" seemed
iniquitous.
"I don't see why you should pay so much money to keep them out of their
own home," said she.
By next post, she sent a hamper of cakes to the girls.
Then came a letter from Mr. Leighton, which Mabel locked in a little
morocco case along with some other treasures, "to keep for ever."
"I am to stay, and I'm to have lessons from any Vollendollenvallejowski
I like to name," she cried to Jean. The two rocked on a bamboo chair in
happy abandonment till some explosive crackling sounds warned them that
joy had its limits.
Every girl in the house was invited into the tea "with cakes from home."
"What a love of a father and a duck of a mother we've got," said the
convalescent homesick Jean.