THE SECOND TRANT EPISODE
§ 1
IT was November.
They had been engaged three months. Three months it was since a certain
winedark evening when, in the shadows of the heavy trees on the
Ridgeway, he had suddenly said:
“I suppose we _are_ engaged?”
“Are we?”
“Well, I think it’ll be all right.... I told my father, and he didn’t
object.... Will you come to tea on Sunday?”
She perceived that their relations had entered on a new phase.
“If you like,” she said.
And he had kissed her good-bye that evening.
The Sunday had been nerve-racking. She felt she was on show. Many
years it was since she had entered the Trants’ house. In those early
days she had come in as Helen’s school friend, and nobody had taken
much notice of her. Mr. Trant had chattered amiable trivialities and
chaffed her about her red hair. Now all was immensely different. She
was George’s _fiancée_. She had to be treated with deference. Mr.
Trant discussed the weather and gardening and (to the utmost extent of
his capabilities) music. Mrs. Trant was effusively embarrassed. Helen
was rather frigid. After tea they went into the drawing-room. Catherine
and Mrs. Trant sat for some time together on the couch turning over
the pages of a photograph album with careful enthusiasm. In it were
portrayed the Trant family in various stages of development--the
Trant family when it had anybody distinguished to stay with it for
the week-end; the Trant family at the door of its house, on Llandudno
Pier, at Chamounix, on the promenade deck of a P. and O. liner, and
in other less idyllic positions; the Trant family taking tea on the
lawn, picnicking in Epping Forest, about to set out for a motor spin,
skating on the Connaught Waters at Chingford, playing tennis (_a_)
on its own grass court, (_b_) on its own rubble court; the Trant
family in fancy dress, evening dress, riding dress, Alpine dress,
and every other kind of dress--in short, the Trant family in every
conceivable phase of its existence. Also the Trant family individually,
collectively, and in permutations and combinations. With studious
politeness Catherine enquired from time to time as to the identity of
the various strangers who obtruded themselves upon the Trant arena.
Here were Sir Miles Coppull (the American camphor king, holding
a tennis-racket jauntily); the Rev. R. P. Cole (President of the
Baptist Association); the Rev. St. Eves Bruce, M.A., D.D. (headmaster
of George’s old public school), beaming on Helen, by the way; not
to mention groups of fierce old gentlemen whom Mrs. Trant lumped
collectively as “some of Dad’s directors.” ...
Catherine thought: “Some day I shall be amongst all that lot...”
George suggested she should play a piano solo, and she tried a
Beethoven symphony movement. But she was unaccountably nervous, and a
valuable but rather gimcrack china and ivory model of the Taj Mahal at
Agra which was placed on top of the closed sound-board _would_
rattle whenever she played the chord of E flat or its inversions.
When she stopped playing Mr. Trant said: “Let me see, is that
Beethoven?” (He pronounced the first syllable to rhyme with “see” and
the second with “grove.”)
“Yes.”
“Charming little thing,” he said vaguely....
Catherine was glad when the advent of chapel time brought the business
to a conclusion. For it _was_ business. She could see that. She
was being sized up. When she had gone they would discuss her. They
were reckoning her up. They were not surprised at her nervousness.
They expected it. They were speculating upon her possibilities as a
daughter-in-law....
There was only one thing perhaps which did not occur to them, or which,
if it did, received less attention than it deserved.
Catherine was reckoning _them_ up. She was keenly critical of
everything they said and did. And when Mr. Trant, shaking hands with
her at the door, said: “You must come again for a musical evening some
time, and give us some more Beethoven,” Catherine replied:
“Oh yes, I should be delighted. I’m awfully fond of Beethoven, aren’t
you?”
But she pronounced it “Bait-hoaffen.”
There was just the merest possible suggestion of rebuke, of
self-assurance, of superiority in that....
§ 2
And now all these things were stale by three months.
By this time she had got used to having tea on Sundays at the Trants’
house. She was so much at home there that she could say: “Oh, _do_
you mind if I shift this Taj Mahal thing while I play? It rattles
so.” After a little while they learned her fancies, and had it always
removed when she came.
And she was used to George. Everything of him she now knew. His hopes,
his dreams, his peculiarities, his vices and virtues, the colours of
all his neckties--all had been exhaustively explored during the course
of many a hundred hours together. He kissed her now every time they
met--he expended much ingenuity in arranging times and places suitable
for the ritual. Sometimes, after he had seen her home from the theatre,
his kisses were hurried, stereotyped, perfunctory, as purely a matter
of routine as putting two pennies into the machine and drawing out a
tube ticket. On other occasions, as for instance when they strolled
through country lanes at dusk, she could sense the imminence of his
kisses long before they came. When they turned down Cubitt Lane towards
the Forest at twilight it was tacitly comprehended between them: “We
are going in here to be sentimental....” When they returned the mutual
understanding was: “We have been sentimental. That ought to last us for
some time....”
People deliberately left them alone together. They looked at the two
of them as if they were or ought to be bliss personified. They seemed
to assume that an engaged couple desires every available moment for
love-making. At meal times, for example, it was always contrived that
George should be next to Catherine. Once when Mr. and Mrs. Trant had
made the excuse that they would stroll round the garden, Catherine,
noticing that Helen was about to follow unobtrusively, said sharply:
“Please don’t go, Helen. I want you to try over a few songs.”
Catherine wondered if Helen understood.
The fact was, being engaged was deadly monotonous. It had no
excitement, no novelty. Everything was known, expected, unravelled.
When she met George at a concert she did not think: “I wonder if he has
come here on _my_ account.” She knew beyond all question that he
had. When at some social function she saw him chatting amongst his male
friends she did not think: “Will he come up and speak to me or not?”
She knew that his very presence there was probably on her account,
and that he would leave his male friends at the first available
opportunity. And when they had ices at a tiny table in some retiring
alcove it was not possible to think: “How funny we should both have
met like this! How curious that we should be alone here!” For she knew
that the whole thing had been premeditated, that the alcove itself had
probably been left attractively vacant for their especial benefit.
There was no point, no thrill, no expectancy in asking the question:
“Is it really _me_ he comes to all these places for?”
He had declared his passion in unequivocal terms that left nothing to
be desired. That was just it: there was nothing left to be desired.
She would rather he had been ambiguous about it. And occasionally the
awful thought came to her: “If this is being engaged, what must it be
like to be married? ...”
Life was so placid, so wearyingly similar day after day, evening after
evening. Every night he met her at the stage-door of the theatre
and escorted her home. Every night he raised his hat and said “Good
evening!” Every night he took her music-case off her, and they walked
arm-in-arm down the High Street. Their conversation was always either
woefully sterile or spuriously brilliant. On the rare occasions when
they had anything particular to talk about they lingered at the corner
of Gifford Road. But she could not confide in him. To tell him of her
dreams and ambitions would be like asking for a pomegranate and being
given a gaudily decorated cabbage. Their conversations were therefore
excessively trivial: she retailed theatrical and musical gossip, or,
if the hour were very late and she were tired, as frequently happened,
she replied in weary monosyllables to his enquiries. She found her mind
becoming obsessed with hundreds of insignificant facts which by dint
of constant repetition he had impressed upon her. She knew the names,
histories, characters, and family particulars of all the men who worked
with him in the stuffy little basement of the accountant’s office in
Leadenhall Street. She knew the complicated tangle of rivalries and
jealousies that went on there--how Mr. Smallwood did this and Mr. Teake
did that, and how Mr. Mainwaring (pronounced Mannering) frequently
lost his temper. She knew all the minutiae of George’s daily work and
existence, the restaurant he frequented for lunch, the train he caught
on the way home, the men he met day after day in the restaurant and on
the trains. Nothing of him was there which she did not know....
Yet it was all so terribly, so tragically dull. Even his brilliance
palled. His brilliance was simply an extensive repertoire of smart
sayings culled from the works of Ibsen, Shaw, Chesterton, etc. In three
months she had heard them all. Moreover, he had begun to repeat some of
them.
Out of a forlorn craving for incident she quarrelled with him from time
to time. His genuine sorrow at the estrangement and his passionate
reconciliation afterwards thrilled her once or twice, but after a few
repetitions became stale like the rest. Undoubtedly he was in love with
her.
And she?
§ 3
Doubtless one of the reasons why George’s engagement to Catherine was
not opposed very vigorously by the Trants was Catherine’s startlingly
rapid musical development, which seemed to prophesy a future in
which anything might be expected. Ever since that Conservative Club
concert Catherine had been playing regularly in public and acquiring
a considerable local reputation. Occasional guineas and two guineas
came her way, and at the opening of the winter season she found herself
with as many engagements as she could manage. And at a local musical
festival she had come out on top in the professional pianoforte
entries. A gold medal and a good deal of newspaper prominence were the
visible and immediate results of this. Afterwards came the welcome
discovery that she was in demand. A concert organizer offered her five
pounds for a couple of solos. An enterprising and newly established
photographer photographed her gratis and exhibited a much embellished
side view (with a rather fine hair exhibition) in his window. And she
ceased to play at church socials....
Every Saturday afternoon she went to Verreker for lessons. Though she
disliked him personally, she was compelled to admit the excellence of
his teaching. He spared her no criticism, however severe, and when
he commended her work, which was rare, she knew he meant it. If a
good teacher, he was also an irritating one. He selected her pieces,
insisted on her learning those and no others, expected from her a good
deal more than it seemed possible for her to give, and treated her
generally as a rebellious child. He was always asking her when she was
going to resign her position at the theatre. She would never be even a
moderate pianist as long as she was there, he said.
The time came when it was of financial benefit to her to resign. She
did so, and expected him to be very pleased with her. But he merely
said:
“H’m! I suppose you waited till it paid you to.”
This was so true that she had no reply ready.
He never disguised from her the fact that, however seemingly she might
be advancing on the road to fame and success, she would never become
more than a second-rate virtuoso.
“The front rank of the second-raters is as high as you’ll ever get,” he
said. But that did not hurt her now.
What did hurt her was once when he said: “You have one abominable
habit. You pose with your hair. I should recommend you to have it cut
off, then you won’t have it to think about so much.”
“Oh, _should_ you?” she replied angrily. “I _should_ be
sensible to cut it off, shouldn’t I, seeing it’s the only good-looking
part of me!”
She hadn’t meant to say that. It slipped out.
“Is it?” he said, and for a single fatuous second she had a wild idea
that he was going to pay her a magnificent compliment. But he added: “I
mean--it never struck me as particularly good-looking. But then I’m no
judge of hair--only of music.”
She could discern in every inflection of his voice latent hostility.
There was no doubt he disliked her intensely. Latterly, too, she
had become increasingly conscious of a mysteriously antagonistic
atmosphere when he was with her. It reacted on her playing, causing
her at times to give deplorable exhibitions. It was not nervousness.
It was something in him that was always mutely hostile to something
in her. The sensation, at first interesting, became extraordinarily
irksome after a while. Once, when a poor performance of one of Chopin’s
Ballades had evoked sarcasm and abuse almost beyond endurance, she
suddenly left the music-stool and stood facing him with her back to the
instrument.
“It’s no good,” she cried vehemently. “It’s not _my_ fault. I’ve
never played as bad as that in my life. It’s _you_. I can’t play
when you’re present. Don’t know--can’t explain it, but it is so.”
He looked surprised.
“Very strange,” he said reflectively--“and unfortunate.”
She had expected him to be witheringly sarcastic. But he took it with
urbane philosophy.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose if you feel like that it can’t be helped.
We shall simply have to make the best of it.”
Which was irritatingly logical....
§ 4
In the Trant household the musical evening was an institution. Rarely
a month passed by unhonoured by one of these functions. Commencing
at seven or thereabouts on a Saturday evening, they lasted till past
midnight. They possessed a regular clientele of attenders, as well
as a floating population of outsiders who had never been before and
who (from more reasons, perhaps, than one) might never come again.
The drawing-room at “Highfield” was large, but it never comfortably
held the miscellaneous crowd that assembled in it on the occasion
of these musical evenings. In winter you were either unbearably hot
(near the fire) or unbearably cold (near the window), and in summer,
without exception, you were always unbearably hot. Moreover, you were
so close to your neighbour on the overcrowded settee that you could
see the perspiration draining into her eyebrows. From a dim vista
obscured by cigarette smoke there came the sound of something or other,
indescribably vague and futile, a drawing-room ballad sung by a squeaky
contralto, a violin solo by Dvořák, or a pompous Beethovian hum on the
piano. However beautiful and forceful might be the music, it was always
vague and futile to you, because you were watching your neighbour’s
eyebrows act as a sponge to the down-trickling perspiration.... Always
in these musical evenings there was banality. Always beauty was
obscured by bathos. And could you ever forget the gymnastic evolutions
of a settleful of musical enthusiasts balancing cups of steaming hot
coffee on their knees? ...
The day before Christmas Day was a Saturday. For Christmas Eve a
musical evening had been arranged--a musical evening that, out of
deference to the season, was to surpass all previous undertakings of
the kind. Catherine was invited, and would, of course, be one of the
principal performers. In virtue of her intimate relation to George she
had come early in the afternoon and stayed to tea. Her usual weekly
lesson from Verreker was cancelled for this particular week, probably
owing to Christmas. So she would be able to spend the entire evening at
“Highfield.” She was in buoyant spirits, chiefly owing to her rapidly
advancing fame as a pianist. She had the feeling that her presence at
the Trants’ musical evening was an act almost of condescension on her
part, and it pleased her that the Trants treated her as if this were
so. She would undoubtedly be, in music-hall parlance, the star turn of
the evening. People, unknown aspirants after musical fame, would point
her out as one who had already arrived at the sacred portals. She knew
also that Mrs. Trant had been sending round messages to friends that
ran more or less after this style: “You simply _must_ come to our
musical evening on Christmas Eve! It is going to be an awfully big
affair, and we have got Cathie Weston coming down to play--you know,
the girl who----”
The whole business tickled Catherine’s vanity.
In the interval between tea and seven o’clock she superintended the
arrangement of the piano in the drawing-room, taking care that the
light from an electric hand-lamp close by should shine advantageously
on her hair while she was playing. She decided that she would play one
of the Chopin Etudes....
§ 5
At a quarter past seven the room was full. According to custom visitors
introduced themselves to one another, the crowd being altogether too
large for ceremonious introductions. Late-comers came in quietly and
unostentatiously, sitting down where they could and nodding casually
to people they knew. The lighting was æsthetically dim, being afforded
by a few heavily-shaded electric hand-lamps scattered promiscuously on
tables and book-cases. Every available corner was occupied by extra
chairs brought in from other parts of the house, and the central
arena in front of the fireplace was a dumping-ground for music-cases,
’cellos, violins, etc. Catherine occupied a roomy arm-chair next to
the fire, and was conscious that she was being looked at attentively.
A red-shaded lamp on the end of the mantel-piece threw her hair into
soft radiance, but its effect on her eyes was so dazzling as to throw
all around her into an impenetrable dimness in which she could discern
nothing but the vague suggestion of persons and things. George sat
next to her, and from time to time passed remarks to which she replied
vivaciously, conscious that every movement of her head brought into
prominence the splendour of her hair. (Of late she had been paying
considerable attention to her hair: a visit to a West End coiffurist
had produced startling results.)
The evening crawled monotonously on. Log after log of crackling pine
was placed on the open fire-grate; song followed song, violin, ’cello,
mandoline each had its turn; a girl recited “The Dandy Fifth” in a way
that was neither better nor worse than what Catherine felt she could
have done herself, and Mr. Trant’s deep voice could be heard constantly
above the periodic applause: “Charming little thing that.” “Is that one
of Bach’s?” (pronounced “Back’s”). “Very pretty, isn’t it? Rather nice
words, don’t you think?”
The order of performance was not definite. Catherine did not know when
she might be asked. Of course, she had not a trace of nervousness.
She had lost that completely now after constant appearances on public
concert platforms. And this was only a drawing-room affair: there
were no musical critics frowning in the front row, there was probably
nobody in the room who would know if she played a false note. Besides,
she would _not_ play a false note, She smiled contemptuously as
she heard the applause evoked by a timid rendering of a drawing-room
ballad. She had an unmitigated contempt for these drawing-room ballads.
Her theatrical experience had given her an intense hatred of cheap
sentimental music of the kind sold in music shops at one-and-sixpence
a copy. The particular song that had just been sung was of this class:
its title was monosyllabic, and its music composed with an eye to
vamping the accompaniment....
“That’s a nice little thing,” said Mr. Trant. “I don’t believe I’ve
heard it before, either.... Reminds me of something, though ... I
can’t think what....” Then in the blurred distance she could discern
Mrs. Trant’s white frocked form travelling swiftly across the room and
engaging in conversation with somebody unseen.
“Oh, please,” she heard, “please do! Everybody would be so glad. Helen,
do persuade him. Really----”
The rest was drowned in the tuning of a violin.
Then Mrs. Trant, returning to her seat, whispering to her husband,
getting up, standing with her back to the corner of the piano, and
announcing:
“We are now to have a pianoforte solo”--impressive pause; Catherine
guessed what was coming--“by Mr. Ray Verreker!”
Catherine had guessed wrong....
§ 6
But it was his presence there which startled her. Why was he at such
a gathering? She knew his stormy contempt for the kind of musical
suburbinanity that flourished in Upton Rising: it was his boast that he
never attended a local concert and never would. “Suburbinanity”--that
was his own word for it. She knew his fierce hatred of the kind of
things that had been going on for over an hour--that particular violin
piece by Dvořák, for instance, was anathema to him. She knew also his
passionate intolerance of mediocrity of any kind. She could imagine
his sensations when listening to that girl’s rendering of “The Dandy
Fifth.” The puzzle was, why had he come? He knew the kind of thing it
would be. He must have known the inevitable ingredients of a suburban
musical evening. And yet he had come. He had conquered his detestation
for social gatherings of this kind so far as to come. It was rather
extraordinary, completely uncharacteristic of him.
To Catherine, always the egoist, came the thought: “Has he come here
because he knew I should be here?” Yet even a second thought dismissed
that idea as unwarrantly absurd. That would be rather an additional
reason for his staying away. For every Saturday that she visited him
convinced her more and more that he despised her and her ways.
And she also thought: “Will the effect of his being present make me
play badly?” She did not know in the least whether it would or not, for
the circumstances were so completely different from what they were at
“Claremont.” Here she might possibly be able to forget he was in the
same room with her. Certainly he would not be at her elbow, turning
over the music pages with gestures that conveyed to her perfectly the
sensations of disgust that he was experiencing....
But he was playing. Her surprised speculations were immediately cut
short by the sound of the piano. She could see his fingers travelling
magically over the keys and his strange, grotesque face looking
vacantly over the top of the instrument. He looked different from
usual. It was probably the unaccustomed angle from which she was
watching him, for his features, perfectly unsymmetrical, presented an
astonishing variety of aspects.... She suddenly forgot to look at him.
Something that he played had thrilled her. A swift chord, passing into
a strange, uncouth melody set all her nerves tingling. What was this
piece? ... He went on through swirling cascades of arpeggios in the
right hand, falling octaves, crashing chords, and then, once again,
this strange uncouth melody, the same, but subtly altered. Tremendous,
passionately barbaric, was this thing that he was playing. It seized
hold of her as if it had suddenly given the answer to all her wants
and desires: it stretched out clear and limitless over the furthest
horizon she had ever glimpsed; it held all the magic of the stars.
And far ahead, further than she had ever dared to look before, lay the
long reaches of boundless, illimitable passion ... passion ... passion ...
that was what it was.... Her hands twitched convulsively on the
sides of the chair. She was caught in a great tide; it was sweeping her
further and further outward and onward; she wanted to cry out but could
not. Tears were in her eyes, but they would not fall. And for the first
time that evening she forgot the pose of her head and hair....
Applause was to her the waking from a dream. They were applauding. A
fierce storm of contempt for them overtook her, because she knew they
had not heard and seen and felt what she had heard and seen and felt.
Their applause was banal, atrociously common-place. Even in mere volume
it did not exceed that which had been accorded to the song with the
monosyllabic title or to “The Dandy Fifth.” And Catherine, vaguely
annoyed that there was any applause at all, was also vaguely angry that
it had been so indiscriminating. She did not applaud herself, but she
heard George clapping almost in her left ear, and she shot a curious
glance at him. She was thinking: “How much of it has meant anything at
_all_ to you?”
And then she heard Mr. Trant’s deep, suave voice: “What did you say
that was? Peculiar piece, but awfully pretty.”
Verreker mentioned a title she could not hear. George had apparently
caught something. He whispered to her in spasms:
“Jeux--something or other, I think he said. French, I suppose. Modern
French. Debussy school, you know. Oh, it’s ‘Jeux d’Eaux.’ I heard him
say it again. ‘Jeux d’Eaux,’ that’s what it is.... One of Ravel’s
things, you know.” ...
§ 7
Verreker returned to his seat. There followed a baritone song of the
rollicking variety, a ’cello solo, and then Mrs. Trant called for a
“pianoforte solo by Miss Catherine Weston.”
Catherine rose languidly, and picked her way amongst the violins and
music-stands to the piano. She screwed the stool an inch or so higher
(it being a point of honour with her always to make some alteration,
however slight, in the seating accommodation provided for her), then
she lowered the music-rest and slid it back as far as it would go. Her
first piece was to be the “Butterfly” Study in G flat (Chopin), so she
gently ran her hands arpeggio-wise along the tonic and inversions of G
flat. Having done this she paused, chafed her fingers delicately, and
tossed her head. The lamp at her side shone on her magnificent hair,
throwing her face and bust into severe profile. It was then that she
noticed a slight commotion in the far corner of the room. A man was
disengaging himself from the closely-wedged throng and proceeding to
the doorway. As he passed the fireplace the flames flickered brightly
round a log of wood just placed on the fire. Catherine in a swift
glance saw that it was Verreker.... Carefully he wound his way to the
door and passed out.
Catherine flushed Her hands commenced to play, but her whole being was
tingling with anger. She was conscious that everybody in the room had
noticed his ostentatious withdrawal and was drawing conclusions from
it. Everybody knew she took lessons from him. His going out of the
room at that moment was nothing less than a deliberate insult offered
to her in front of everybody. In the half-shadows round the piano she
could see the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Trant, both rather bewildered....
Her fingers were moving automatically; before she properly realized she
was playing a solo they had stopped. Cloudily she grasped the fact that
the “Butterfly” Study had come to an end. Applause floated in, and she
found herself walking back to her seat. Applause thinned and subsided;
Mrs. Trant said something, and there began the tuning of a couple of
violins with much unnecessary prodding of notes on the piano. George
was saying something to her, but she was not listening. The door opened
and Verreker re-entered. He sat down unostentatiously in a chair close
by and his face was hidden by shadows. The piano tinkled into the
opening of a Haydn Concerto.... And Catherine thought: “That was really
a _horrid_ thing to do. I believe it is the nastiest trick I ever
saw. I expected rudeness, but somehow not _that_--at any rate, not
in public.” She was primarily angry, but in her anger there was more
than a tinge of disappointment....
She hated him. The fact that it was his teaching that had brought her
success was swamped utterly in this petty insult he had seen fit to
offer her in public. Once the idea did strike her: perhaps it was just
coincidence that he went out while I was playing. But instinct told
her that his withdrawal was deliberate, part of a planned scheme to
humiliate her. And she kept piercing the shadows where he sat with a
venomous greenish glint in her eyes, until she reflected that even
if she could not see him, he could very likely see her. At this she
flushed hotly and turned away. The evening crept towards midnight.
Coffee was handed round. There was a momentary respite from music after
the conclusion of the Hadyn Concerto, and conversation swelled into a
murmurous hum all over the room. She lit a cigarette and puffed out
smoke languidly. George went to the music cabinet and brought out some
Ravel music. She scanned it perfunctorily; as a matter of fact she had
but a vague idea of what it was like by looking at it. “Pavane pour un
Enfant Défunt,” it was called; the first few pages looked charmingly
simple. George could not find “Jeux d’Eaux.” Possibly he had not got
a copy. But all this modern music was frightfully interesting. Had
she heard César Franck’s Violin Sonata--the famous one? Or Scriabin’s
Eleven Preludes? Or Debussy’s “L’Après-midi d’une Faune”? Of course,
futurist music was merely the development of what other composers had
led the way to. Some of Chopin’s Ballades and Preludes, for instance,
gave one the impression that if he had lived a century later he might
have been furiously modern. And of course Tchaikovsky. In fact----
Catherine listened patiently, putting in an occasional “Yes” and “Of
course” and “I daresay.” Her one thought was: “I have been publicly
insulted.” And George did not pass even the frontiers of her mind save
when she reflected casually: “Considering what a lot George knows, it’s
rather queer he should be so remarkably uninteresting at times....”
§ 8
It was nearly one on Christmas morning when the party broke up.
Catherine was waiting in the hall for George. He had gone to help
somebody to find his or her music-case. Most of the company had gone;
some were going, with much loud chattering on the doorstep and wishing
of a “Merry Christmas”; a few were still in the drawing-room sorting
out musical property.
Catherine felt a heavy hand on her shoulder. She turned ... Verreker! ...
In the half-light he looked almost demoniacally ugly. A great fur
overcoat hung ponderously to within a few inches of the ground, and
his hands were encased in huge fur gloves. Under his arm he carried a
rather incongruous cloth cap.
“Excuse me,” he began gruffly, “I’ve got a word to say to you.”
She pursed her lips scornfully.
“Be quick, then,” she said. “I haven’t much time to spare.” She was
being deliberately rude.
“I suppose you noticed I went out while you were playing?” he went on.
“Did you?” As much as to say: “How should I know? Do you imagine I keep
careful watch upon all your movements?”
“The fact is, I went out because I remember your saying that you never
played well if I were present....”
“Did I say that?” (She was in a deliberately, irritatingly
obstructionist mood.)
“... So I thought I’d oblige.... Afterwards it occurred to me it would
be misunderstood.... That’s all.... It wasn’t anything else. Of course
you’re not obliged to believe me.”
“Why shouldn’t I believe you?” she said, with no discoverable motive.
“I know of no reason at all,” he replied coldly.
Pause.
“And, as it happened, you did play rather well. Distinctly better than
usual.”
“Did I? ... How do you know?”
“I listened behind the door.”
“Did you?”
She tapped her foot petulantly on the floor.... Pause.... Then ...
“All the same, I really don’t see quite what you mean.” She was merely
trying to annoy him. He had come to her humbly, and he was going to
be spurned. Yet from the look in his eyes she knew that this last
remark had been a mistake. He was not the kind of man who waits to be
spurned....
“Oh, well,” he said brusquely, “I’m glad I don’t need to apologize....
Good-night!”
She called “Good-night!” so faintly that she was sure he never heard it.
He was gone....
§ 9
Along the Bockley High Street she remarked thoughtfully to George: “I
didn’t know Verreker patronized your musical evenings.”
George replied: “Oh, it wasn’t _that_ he came for. It was Helen.
She persuaded him to play.”
Catherine was surprised.
“Helen? Does Helen know him?”
“Oh, rather. She translates his books into French.” Again Catherine was
surprised. “Books? I didn’t know he wrote books! On music, I suppose?”
“No, not on music.”
“On what, then?”
“Economic history.”
Once again Catherine was surprised....
“He’s a curious chap,” George went on. “Economist and musician
combined. Queer compound. Helen likes him. She says his music’s all
the better for having the brains of an economist put into it, also
his economics don’t lose anything from being infused with a dash of
temperament. Can’t say I understand it myself, anyway.”
§ 10
And at the corner of Gifford Road he suddenly said: “I suppose our
engagement needn’t be a particularly long one, need it?”
She said: “Why? Do you want to break it off?”
He laughed, not altogether uproariously.
“No, no.... I mean--you know what I mean. Look here, why shouldn’t we
get married in the New Year?”
“Married?” she echoed vaguely. She looked at him as if the very last
thing an engaged girl thinks of is of getting married.
“Why not?” he said, point blank.
“I know of no reason at all,” she replied coldly, and was conscious
that she was echoing something she had heard before. The stateliness of
the phrase fascinated her.
“Then----” he began, and kissed her passionately. But the passion did
not thrill her. It was weak and watery compared with the stuff in “Jeau
d’Eaux.” Besides, she had grown blasé of his kisses. Every night, week
after week....
He kissed her again. He fondled her hair. He got hold of heaps of it
and crushed it voluptuously in his hand. This was a new experience, and
not devoid of interest to her. But even this became stale in a very
short time. He kissed her once more.
“Please!” she said, after some minutes of this sort of thing. “I
_must_ go.... Really I must.”
So, with a long, lingering, sentimental caress he left her. And as she
climbed the stairs to the attic bedroom that night her one thought was:
“Fancy me marrying George Trant! _Me_!”
The idea at firsy seemed fantastic.
But after a while she accepted it as a more or less logical sequence.
And he was undoubtedly in love with her. And she with him? Oh yes. At
least.... “Why not?” she asked herself, and echo within her answered
solemnly, “I know of no reason at all....”