The Constant Nymph. Margaret Kennedy Kennedy
clear,’ Trigorin assured him. ‘Often I must read such scores.’
And, sitting down, he began to play the little overture with great smoothness and spirit, interpreting the scrawls which stood for chords without much difficulty. Lewis listened impatiently and then said:
‘Yes, that’ll do. But don’t play it as if it was Chopin!’
Trigorin began to play much louder, as the only amendment he could think of. Teresa, who had been admiring the excited agility of his fat hands, put an arm round Lewis’s neck and drew his head close down to hers.
‘Lewis,’ she whispered, derisively confidential, ‘sometimes, you know, you talk … poppycock!’
He pulled her ears and called her something unrepeatable, but he went over to Trigorin and told him how much obliged they all were for his timely skill in playing for them. Trigorin beamed and played louder than ever.
‘Now,’ said Lewis. ‘I’ll be Scaramello. So we needn’t rehearse the opening song. Where’s Roberto?’
‘Please?’ said Roberto, who had been waiting politely by the door until called for.
He was a small, thin Italian, clad invariably in blue linen overalls. He had a brown, good-natured face, with a little beard and moustache. He was devoted to all the Sangers. He did the whole work of the house and undertook any odd job that turned up, darned Sanger’s socks, prepared Linda’s bath, and interviewed the Press. Sanger asserted that he had once acted as accoucheur when Sebastian arrived rather unexpectedly into the world, but this was so long ago as to be almost legend.
‘Listen, Roberto,’ said Lewis. ‘Can you act?’
‘Scusa!’
‘Which of you girls can talk Italian? Tony! You explain to him what he’s got to do. You, Trigorin, play him his tune. Get him along to Lucrezia’s entrance. It’s marked on the score, there. Where’s Kate? I want her. She must be Lucrezia.’
‘Oh, Lewis! Let me be!’ cried Antonia. ‘Kate can’t act.’
‘She can sing. I won’t have my music spoilt. No, Tony.’
He went to the door and shouted for Kate.
‘But she’ll ruin the part, Lewis.’
‘Not a bit of it.’
‘She can’t interpret. She’s got no temperament.’
‘All the better,’ said Lewis drily. ‘Temperament is like vinegar in a salad; a little goes a long way. I’d sooner have none than too much. Kate! Where are you?’
‘Oh, Lewis, do let me be. I can sing! I can really! Everybody says I’ve come on a lot.’
‘They may, Tony. I don’t say you sing badly. But Kate sings better.’
‘Oh, well then! I hope she’ll spoil your silly old play. Standing stuck in the middle of the stage looking like a sofa cushion like she always does. I never heard anything funnier in all my life than Kate trying to act Lucrezia Borgia.’
‘Birnbaum as Pope will be much funnier. No! Kate must be our diva. You must be her victim; a beautiful creature who is poisoned and dies writhing. You’ll like that won’t you? You can work off a temperamental contrast to Kate’s stolid villainy.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Antonia, somewhat mollified. ‘But what will Tessa and Lina be?’
‘Tessa must be the confidential waiting maid and Lina and Sebastian are to be pages. They’ve a duet.’
‘And what about Suzanne? Had you forgotten her? Oh, that doesn’t matter. We don’t want her.’
Lewis clapped a hand to his head in dismay and exclaimed:
‘If I hadn’t forgotten Soo-zanne. Will your father …’
‘Sanger won’t mind her being left out,’ Paulina assured him. ‘He nearly is sick when she sings and so are we.’
‘Very well. There isn’t time to alter it, anyhow. Kate!’
‘She cook supper,’ volunteered Roberto. ‘She say she come after or you get nothing to eat.’
‘What a plague! Well, I’ll take her later, and Caryl too. He is our heavy bass. We must do what we can now without them. Come, Tessa! You and I have a love scene together. If you’ll come down to the end of the room with me I’ll hum you the tune and we’ll concoct the words, while Trigorin coaches Roberto.’
They went and sat in a distant window, composing their libretto with a good deal of hilarity. She supplied the rhymes, while he attended to the metre, and they soon became very ribald indeed. Presently Roberto, who was getting hold of his part, struck a tremendous attitude and burst into his first air. As he sang he stalked about the stage with fiery Italian gestures.
‘There,’ said Lewis. ‘That is exactly what I want. You will all of you observe that this is a very Latin piece. This fellow does it to perfection. Copy him and you’ll please me. That’ll do, Roberto. Up with you, Tessa, and we’ll sing our duet.’
They mounted the dais. Trigorin’s hands softened on the keys as Teresa’s little treble and Lewis’s inconspicuous baritone rose through the room. Neither had much voice but they sang with spirit, and it was obvious that Teresa was straining to do her very best In that house she could do no less. Music there was a sacred thing; perhaps the only sacred thing. Even in an absurd charade like this it might not be cheapened by carelessness or economy of effort. The Sanger children were ignorant of obedience, application, self-command or reverence save in this one cause. And of Lewis the same thing might have been said.
He was looking wild and weary. His red hair, damp with sweat, was pushed up into a crest on the top of his head. He had flung aside all his waistcoats and the muffler and was directing the rehearsal in his shirt sleeves. Having Teresa in his arms, he was making love to her with a business-like competence which showed that he had quite forgotten for the moment who she really was. He was busy listening to the effect of the duet and considering the sequence of this song with the next; in his preoccupation he hardly remembered that she was not the Roman waiting wench for whom he had written the part. His eyes were grave and intent, and saw nothing at all, but in voice and gesture he was using the absent-minded mastery of a practised lover. Teresa did not like such handling; she was no actress and could not throw herself into her part sufficiently for its demands. A certain stolidity in her, an absence of the invariable response, brought him to himself with a start; he remembered that he had got poor little Tessa and not the full-blooded contadina he had framed. He laughed at her reassuringly, and finished the scene with a kind of bantering gaiety which put her at her ease.
They worked away until Susan, sidling round the door, told them that supper was ready. Very hungry and happy they all trooped into the hall, where Kate, flushed and dishevelled, was helping soup from an enormous tureen. Linda, already seated at the table, had begun her meal. She raised her eyes contemptuously to look at the musicians, but at the sight of Antonia she remained fixed in a stare.
‘Oh!’ she said slowly. ‘So you’ve come back?’
‘Yes. I’ve come back. What soup is it, Kate?’
‘We mayn’t ask where you’ve been, I suppose,’ asked Linda.
‘I’ve been on a visit.’
‘Oh, indeed! I hope you enjoyed yourself.’
‘Very much, thank you.’
‘You never know,’ murmured Linda thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes girls don’t enjoy visits as much as they think they will. Sometimes they come back … quite changed.’
‘Will Sanger be down to supper, Kate?’ interrupted Lewis hastily.
‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Jacob Birnbaum is with him. I went up to tell them and they are just coming down.’
‘Jacob,’