The Constant Nymph. Margaret Kennedy Kennedy
He relapsed into gloom for a little while, and then said:
‘Kate, my dear! Don’t be shy. We’re an indulgent audience and won’t expect a second Susan of you. Couldn’t you oblige us a little? We’ve not heard as much of you tonight as I’d like.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lewis. ‘I’d no idea Kate was turning into such a prima donna, or she should have had more songs of her very own. Do sing, Kate!’
Kate sang and they were all delighted with her. She sang one song after another to meet every taste, and ended with a somewhat ambitious composition of Caryl’s, a setting to the lines:
Du bist wie eine Blume!
which was received by the family with varying appreciation since its sentiment was practically incomprehensible to most of them. At the end of it Lewis began to congratulate Caryl with such fulsomeness, so palpably in imitation of Trigorin, that all the children began to giggle. He was enlarging upon his privileges in being allowed to listen to a first performance of this detestable little work when Sanger, who felt that things were really going too far, went across to Trigorin and began to be civil to him. He praised his reading of the pencil score and explained how much obliged they all were. Trigorin beamed. It was the first conversational opening given to him by Sanger during this whole visit.
‘It was easy,’ he said. ‘Often I must read music that is so badly written. It is very nice, this piece? Yes?’
‘Humph!’ said Sanger. ‘Very pretty fooling. It suited the cast, which was all that was required.’
Trigorin, who had had a cross letter from his wife that morning, thought he saw an opportunity and rushed upon his fate.
‘It is a diversion to write for an artist, sometimes. It is amusing. My wife, she hopes that you will one day write a ballet for her … a little thing …’
Sanger stiffened and shot up his eyebrows.
‘I’m honoured,’ he said. ‘But I don’t suppose I could write a ballet that would suit Madame to save my life. Why not get Birnbaum here to write one? It’s much more in his line.’
‘I did not know …’ began Trigorin doubtfully, looking at the young Jew.
‘You didn’t know that he wrote music? Well, he hasn’t written any yet. But he should. He should! And he owns several theatres. Look here, Birnbaum! Here’s Trigorin wants one of us to write a ballet for Madame. I tell him you’d better do it and produce it at one of your places.’
‘I think that Madame Zhigalova would not be pleased with my work,’ said Jacob. ‘Why does he not do it himself?’
‘I cannot write music,’ said Trigorin sadly.
‘Perhaps you could, if you tried. It is quite easy, is it not, my friend?’
‘Quite,’ said Sanger, returning his grin. ‘Yes; it would be an excellent speculation to write all her ballets yourself, Trigorin.’
‘Don’t listen to them, Mr Trigorin,’ whispered Linda, behind him, ‘they’re just laughing at you.’
The baited man turned round and looked at her and remembered how much kinder she had been than anyone else at the Karindehütte. She dropped her large white eyelids and made a place for him beside her on the window seat For a second he wavered, looking towards the piano where Sanger, Lewis and Birnbaum were talking together; but he knew that they did not want him, so he sat down and surrendered himself to her. She could at least help him to forget his mortification, to his sorrowing spirit she brought an easy forgetfulness, she stirred his pulses and provoked no ideas either of good or of evil.
They embarked upon a whispered conversation full of long significant pauses, as a pair of chess players will hesitate and ponder over the moves of a game. Their common goal was oblivion, escape from their several sorrows. For Linda, despite her placidity, had a sorrow – a sort of composite dread of poverty, insecurity and increasing flesh; a fear of the future which was creeping over her life like a chilly fog; a vision of herself as an enormous old woman, starving to death.
The company meanwhile was breaking up. The schoolmaster took his leave and Lewis, attracted by the moonlight outside, strolled a little way down the hill with him. Sanger and Caryl went upstairs to begin on their night’s work. Birnbaum, straying unhappily through the house, was looking for Antonia, though he did not in the least know what he wanted to say if he found her. He stumbled over the two little girls sitting on the top step of the stairs and asked if they had seen her.
‘She’s in our room, Ike,’ said Paulina. ‘Crying like anything. She’s been crying all the evening.’
‘Crying,’ he repeated, startled, yet a little hopeful. ‘That’s a pity.’
‘She often cries,’ said Teresa without much concern.
‘She’s a regular cry-baby,’ added Paulina.
‘So are you!’ Teresa was moved to retort ‘You both of you roar and yell at the least little thing.’
‘What is she crying for?’ asked Jacob anxiously.
‘Because Lewis wouldn’t let her be Lucrezia Borgia,’ they told him. ‘She was dreadfully hurt because he despised her singing.’
‘So!’ he exclaimed in some disappointment, and took himself off to bed.
‘It’s no use us going up till Tony’s quiet,’ said Paulina.
Teresa said nothing but crouched at the top of the stairs, brooding disconsolately, her thin arms round her knees. Suddenly she had become intensely miserable. She stared down into the darkness of the hall, cut in two by the moonlight which streamed in through the open door. She could not bear it. She jumped up with a little cry of exasperation.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘How I hate it all!’
‘Hate what?’ asked Paulina mildly.
‘Everybody! Everything! I hate the whole world!’
‘Everything does seem horrid this year,’ agreed Paulina sadly. ‘We don’t seem to have the fun we used to.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Teresa, setting off down the stairs.
‘Where are you off to? Are you going out?’
‘Yes! I must get out of this …’
She ran out to hide herself in the mountains, frightened and furious, pursued by a desolate foreboding which seemed to fill the quiet house. As she stumbled up towards the pass she kept murmuring to herelf:
‘I wish I could die! I wish I was dead!’
She knew that she did not mean this; she was not in the least anxious to die. But the violence of such a statement seemed to satisfy her, just as it was a relief to run up hill.
5
The top of the pass was such a quiet place that Teresa very soon recovered her peace of mind. She could see nothing of the trees or the world of men, since the valley leading down to Weissau was full of clouds. Above and around her was the sky, empty save for the moon. Mountain peaks stood up in that space, bare to the light. She was at a point where the track balanced itself for a moment on the ridge and then dived into an inky valley on the far side. From that blackness rose the echoing murmur of many waterfalls, so that the pit of night was full of sound. She stood, looking down, already calmer.
By the path was a small wooden Calvary marking a spring, and near it a grotto of stones built the year before by Paulina and Sebastian. They had said it was for prayer and meditation, which was strange, for neither of them was much given to this employment; but the building had kept them happy for three weeks. Winter storms had blown it down, and it lay now a tumbled heap of stones beside the crucifix with its penthouse roof. Teresa thought how nice it would be to build, not a grotto, but a little house where she could live always, watching