If there was one thing that he hated more than another it was the way
she had of waking him in the morning. She did it on purpose, of course.
It was her way of establishing her grievance for the day, and he was
not going to let her know how successful it was. But really, really, to
wake a sensitive person like that was positively dangerous! It took him
hours to get over it—simply hours. She came into the room buttoned up
in an overall, with a handkerchief over her head—thereby proving that
she had been up herself and slaving since dawn—and called in a low,
warning voice: “Reginald!”
“Eh! What! What’s that? What’s the matter?”
“It’s time to get up; it’s half-past eight.” And out she went, shutting
the door quietly after her, to gloat over her triumph, he supposed.
He rolled over in the big bed, his heart still beating in quick, dull
throbs, and with every throb he felt his energy escaping him, his—his
inspiration for the day stifling under those thudding blows. It seemed
that she took a malicious delight in making life more difficult for him
than—Heaven knows—it was, by denying him his rights as an artist, by
trying to drag him down to her level. What was the matter with her?
What the hell did she want? Hadn’t he three times as many pupils now as
when they were first married, earned three times as much, paid for
every stick and stone that they possessed, and now had begun to shell
out for Adrian’s kindergarten? . . . And had he ever reproached her for
not having a penny to her name? Never a word—never a sign! The truth
was that once you married a woman she became insatiable, and the truth
was that nothing was more fatal for an artist than marriage, at any
rate until he was well over forty. . . . Why had he married her? He
asked himself this question on an average about three times a day, but
he never could answer it satisfactorily. She had caught him at a weak
moment, when the first plunge into reality had bewildered and
overwhelmed him for a time. Looking back, he saw a pathetic, youthful
creature, half child, half wild untamed bird, totally incompetent to
cope with bills and creditors and all the sordid details of existence.
Well—she had done her best to clip his wings, if that was any
satisfaction for her, and she could congratulate herself on the success
of this early morning trick. One ought to wake exquisitely,
reluctantly, he thought, slipping down in the warm bed. He began to
imagine a series of enchanting scenes which ended with his latest, most
charming pupil putting her bare, scented arms round his neck, and
covering him with her long, perfumed hair. “Awake, my love!” . . .
As was his daily habit, while the bath water ran, Reginald Peacock
tried his voice.
When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror,
Looping up her laces, tying up her hair,
he sang, softly at first, listening to the quality, nursing his voice
until he came to the third line:
Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded . . .
and upon the word “wedded” he burst into such a shout of triumph that
the tooth-glass on the bathroom shelf trembled and even the bath tap
seemed to gush stormy applause. . . .
Well, there was nothing wrong with his voice, he thought, leaping into
the bath and soaping his soft, pink body all over with a loofah shaped
like a fish. He could fill Covent Garden with it! “_Wedded_,” he
shouted again, seizing the towel with a magnificent operatic gesture,
and went on singing while he rubbed as though he had been Lohengrin
tipped out by an unwary Swan and drying himself in the greatest haste
before that tiresome Elsa came along along. . . .
Back in his bedroom, he pulled the blind up with a jerk, and standing
upon the pale square of sunlight that lay upon the carpet like a sheet
of cream blotting-paper, he began to do his exercises—deep breathing,
bending forward and back, squatting like a frog and shooting out his
legs—for if there was one thing he had a horror of it was of getting
fat, and men in his profession had a dreadful tendency that way.
However, there was no sign of it at present. He was, he decided, just
right, just in good proportion. In fact, he could not help a thrill of
satisfaction when he saw himself in the glass, dressed in a morning
coat, dark grey trousers, grey socks and a black tie with a silver
thread in it. Not that he was vain—he couldn’t stand vain men—no; the
sight of himself gave him a thrill of purely artistic satisfaction.
“_Voilà tout!”_ said he, passing his hand over his sleek hair.
That little, easy French phrase blown so lightly from his lips, like a
whiff of smoke, reminded him that someone had asked him again, the
evening before, if he was English. People seemed to find it impossible
to believe that he hadn’t some Southern blood. True, there was an
emotional quality in his singing that had nothing of the John Bull in
it. . . . The door-handle rattled and turned round and round. Adrian’s
head popped through.
“Please, father, mother says breakfast is quite ready, please.”
“Very well,” said Reginald. Then, just as Adrian disappeared: “Adrian!”
“Yes, father.”
“You haven’t said ‘good morning.’”
A few months ago Reginald had spent a week-end in a very aristocratic
family, where the father received his little sons in the morning and
shook hands with them. Reginald thought the practice charming, and
introduced it immediately, but Adrian felt dreadfully silly at having
to shake hands with his own father every morning. And why did his
father always sort of sing to him instead of talk? . . .
In excellent temper, Reginald walked into the dining-room and sat down
before a pile of letters, a copy of the _Times_, and a little covered
dish. He glanced at the letters and then at his breakfast. There were
two thin slices of bacon and one egg.
“Don’t you want any bacon?” he asked.
“No, I prefer a cold baked apple. I don’t feel the need of bacon every
morning.”
Now, did she mean that there was no need for him to have bacon every
morning, either, and that she grudged having to cook it for him?
“If you don’t want to cook the breakfast,” said he, “why don’t you keep
a servant? You know we can afford one, and you know how I loathe to see
my wife doing the work. Simply because all the women we have had in the
past have been failures and utterly upset my regime, and made it almost
impossible for me to have any pupils here, you’ve given up trying to
find a decent woman. It’s not impossible to train a servant—is it? I
mean, it doesn’t require genius?”
“But I prefer to do the work myself; it makes life so much more
peaceful. . . . Run along, Adrian darling, and get ready for school.”
“Oh no, that’s not it!” Reginald pretended to smile. “You do the work
yourself, because, for some extraordinary reason, you love to humiliate
me. Objectively, you may not know that, but, subjectively, it’s the
case.” This last remark so delighted him that he cut open an envelope
as gracefully as if he had been on the stage. . . .
“DEAR MR. PEACOCK,
I feel I cannot go to sleep until I have thanked you again for the
wonderful joy your singing gave me this evening. Quite
unforgettable. You make me wonder, as I have not wondered since I
was a girl, if this is _all._ I mean, if this ordinary world is
_all._ If there is not, perhaps, for those of us who understand,
divine beauty and richness awaiting us if we only have the
_courage_ to see it. And to make it ours. . . . The house is so
quiet. I wish you were here now that I might thank you in person.
You are doing a great thing. You are teaching the world to escape
from life!
Yours, most sincerely,
ÆNONE FELL.
P.S.—I am in every afternoon this week. . . .”
The letter was scrawled in violet ink on thick, handmade paper. Vanity,
that bright bird, lifted its wings again, lifted them until he felt his
breast would break.
“Oh well, don’t let us quarrel,” said he, and actually flung out a hand
to his wife.
But she was not great enough to respond.
“I must hurry and take Adrian to school,” said she. “Your room is quite
ready for you.”
Very well—very well—let there be open war between them! But he was
hanged if he’d be the first to make it up again!
He walked up and down his room, and was not calm again until he heard
the outer door close upon Adrian and his wife. Of course, if this went
on, he would have to make some other arrangement. That was obvious.
Tied and bound like this, how could he help the world to escape from
life? He opened the piano and looked up his pupils for the morning.
Miss Betty Brittle, the Countess Wilkowska and Miss Marian Morrow. They
were charming, all three.
Punctually at half-past ten the door-bell rang. He went to the door.
Miss Betty Brittle was there, dressed in white, with her music in a
blue silk case.
“I’m afraid I’m early,” she said, blushing and shy, and she opened her
big blue eyes very wide. “Am I?”
“Not at all, dear lady. I am only too charmed,” said Reginald. “Won’t
you come in?”
“It’s such a heavenly morning,” said Miss Brittle. “I walked across the
Park. The flowers were too marvellous.”
“Well, think about them while you sing your exercises,” said Reginald,
sitting down at the piano. “It will give your voice colour and warmth.”
Oh, what an enchanting idea! What a _genius_ Mr. Peacock was. She
parted her pretty lips, and began to sing like a pansy.
“Very good, very good, indeed,” said Reginald, playing chords that
would waft a hardened criminal to heaven. “Make the notes round. Don’t
be afraid. Linger over them, breathe them like a perfume.”
How pretty she looked, standing there in her white frock, her little
blonde head tilted, showing her milky throat.
“Do you ever practise before a glass?” asked Reginald. “You ought to,
you know; it makes the lips more flexible. Come over here.”
They went over to the mirror and stood side by side.
“Now sing—moo-e-koo-e-oo-e-a!”
But she broke down, and blushed more brightly than ever.
“Oh,” she cried, “I can’t. It makes me feel so silly. It makes me want
to laugh. I do look so absurd!”
“No, you don’t. Don’t be afraid,” said Reginald, but laughed, too, very
kindly. “Now, try again!”
The lesson simply flew, and Betty Brittle quite got over her shyness.
“When can I come again?” she asked, tying the music up again in the
blue silk case. “I want to take as many lessons as I can just now. Oh,
Mr. Peacock, I _do_ enjoy them so much. May I come the day after
to-morrow?”
“Dear lady, I shall be only too charmed,” said Reginald, bowing her
out.
Glorious girl! And when they had stood in front of the mirror, her
white sleeve had just touched his black one. He could feel—yes, he
could actually feel a warm glowing spot, and he stroked it. She loved
her lessons. His wife came in.
“Reginald, can you let me have some money? I must pay the dairy. And
will you be in for dinner to-night?”
“Yes, you know I’m singing at Lord Timbuck’s at half-past nine. Can you
make me some clear soup, with an egg in it?”
“Yes. And the money, Reginald. It’s eight and sixpence.”
“Surely that’s very heavy—isn’t it?”
“No, it’s just what it ought to be. And Adrian must have milk.”
There she was—off again. Now she was standing up for Adrian against
him.
“I have not the slightest desire to deny my child a proper amount of
milk,” said he. “Here is ten shillings.”
The door-bell rang. He went to the door.
“Oh,” said the Countess Wilkowska, “the stairs. I have not a breath.”
And she put her hand over her heart as she followed him into the
music-room. She was all in black, with a little black hat with a
floating veil—violets in her bosom.
“Do not make me sing exercises, to-day,” she cried, throwing out her
hands in her delightful foreign way. “No, to-day, I want only to sing
songs. . . . And may I take off my violets? They fade so soon.”
“They fade so soon—they fade so soon,” played Reginald on the piano.
“May I put them here?” asked the Countess, dropping them in a little
vase that stood in front of one of Reginald’s photographs.
“Dear lady, I should be only too charmed!”
She began to sing, and all was well until she came to the phrase: “You
love me. Yes, I _know_ you love me!” Down dropped his hands from the
keyboard, he wheeled round, facing her.
“No, no; that’s not good enough. You can do better than that,” cried
Reginald ardently. “You must sing as if you were in love. Listen; let
me try and show you.” And he sang.
“Oh, yes, yes. I see what you mean,” stammered the little Countess.
“May I try it again?”
“Certainly. Do not be afraid. Let yourself go. Confess yourself. Make
proud surrender!” he called above the music. And she sang.
“Yes; better that time. But I still feel you are capable of more. Try
it with me. There must be a kind of exultant defiance as well—don’t you
feel?” And they sang together. Ah! now she was sure she understood.
“May I try once again?”
“You love me. Yes, I _know_ you love me.”
The lesson was over before that phrase was quite perfect. The little
foreign hands trembled as they put the music together.
“And you are forgetting your violets,” said Reginald softly.
“Yes, I think I will forget them,” said the Countess, biting her
underlip. What fascinating ways these foreign women have!
“And you will come to my house on Sunday and make music?” she asked.
“Dear lady, I shall be only too charmed!” said Reginald.
Weep ye no more, sad fountains
Why need ye flow so fast?
sang Miss Marian Morrow, but her eyes filled with tears and her chin
trembled.
“Don’t sing just now,” said Reginald. “Let me play it for you.” He
played so softly.
“Is there anything the matter?” asked Reginald. “You’re not quite happy
this morning.”
No, she wasn’t; she was awfully miserable.
“You don’t care to tell me what it is?”
It really was nothing particular. She had those moods sometimes when
life seemed almost unbearable.
“Ah, I know,” he said; “if I could only help!”
“But you do; you do! Oh, if it were not for my lessons I don’t feel I
could go on.”
“Sit down in the arm-chair and smell the violets and let me sing to
you. It will do you just as much good as a lesson.”
Why weren’t all men like Mr. Peacock?
“I wrote a poem after the concert last night—just about what I felt. Of
course, it wasn’t _personal._ May I send it to you?”
“Dear lady, I should be only too charmed!”
By the end of the afternoon he was quite tired and lay down on a sofa
to rest his voice before dressing. The door of his room was open. He
could hear Adrian and his wife talking in the dining-room.
“Do you know what that teapot reminds me of, Mummy? It reminds me of a
little sitting-down kitten.”
“Does it, Mr. Absurdity?”
Reginald dozed. The telephone bell woke him.
“Ænone Fell is speaking. Mr. Peacock, I have just heard that you are
singing at Lord Timbuck’s to-night. Will you dine with me, and we can
go on together afterwards?” And the words of his reply dropped like
flowers down the telephone.
“Dear lady, I should be only too charmed.”
What a triumphant evening! The little dinner _tête-à-tête_ with Ænone
Fell, the drive to Lord Timbuck’s in her white motor-car, when she
thanked him again for the unforgettable joy. Triumph upon triumph! And
Lord Timbuck’s champagne simply flowed.
“Have some more champagne, Peacock,” said Lord Timbuck. Peacock, you
notice—not Mr. Peacock—but Peacock, as if he were one of them. And
wasn’t he? He was an artist. He could sway them all. And wasn’t he
teaching them all to escape from life? How he sang! And as he sang, as
in a dream he saw their feathers and their flowers and their fans,
offered to him, laid before him, like a huge bouquet.
“Have another glass of wine, Peacock.”
“I could have any one I liked by lifting a finger,” thought Peacock,
positively staggering home.
But as he let himself into the dark flat his marvellous sense of
elation began to ebb away. He turned up the light in the bedroom. His
wife lay asleep, squeezed over to her side of the bed. He remembered
suddenly how she had said when he had told her he was going out to
dinner: “You might have let me know before!” And how he had answered:
“Can’t you possibly speak to me without offending against even good
manners?” It was incredible, he thought, that she cared so little for
him—incredible that she wasn’t interested in the slightest in his
triumphs and his artistic career. When so many women in her place would
have given their eyes. . . . Yes, he knew it. . . . Why not acknowledge
it? . . . And there she lay, an enemy, even in her sleep. . . . Must it
ever be thus? he thought, the champagne still working. Ah, if we only
were friends, how much I could tell her now! About this evening; even
about Timbuck’s manner to me, and all that they said to me and so on
and so on. If only I felt that she was here to come back to—that I
could confide in her—and so on and so on.
In his emotion he pulled off his evening boot and simply hurled it in
the corner. The noise woke his wife with a terrible start. She sat up,
pushing back her hair. And he suddenly decided to have one more try to
treat her as a friend, to tell her everything, to win her. Down he sat
on the side of the bed, and seized one of her hands. But of all those
splendid things he had to say, not one could he utter. For some
fiendish reason, the only words he could get out were: “Dear lady, I
should be so charmed—so charmed!”