The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett Arnold
and with a delicious inconsequence that choked her husband in the midst of a draught of beer.
'You can laugh,' she said sturdily.
At that moment there was heard a series of loud explosive sounds in the street. They continued for a few seconds apparently just outside the dining-room window. Then they stopped, and the noise of the bumping electric cars resumed its sway over the ear.
'That's Oliver!' said Mr Brindley, looking at his watch. 'He must have come from Manchester in an hour and a half. He's a terror.'
'Glass! Quick!' Mrs Brindley exclaimed. She sprang to the sideboard, and seized a tumbler, which Mr Brindley filled from a second bottle of Bass. When the door of the room opened she was standing close to it, laughing, with the full, frothing glass in her hand.
A tall, thin man, rather younger than Mr Brindley and his wife, entered. He wore a long dust-coat and leggings, and he carried a motorist's cap in a great hand. No one spoke; but little puffs of laughter escaped all Mrs Brindley's efforts to imprison her mirth. Then the visitor took the glass with a magnificent broad smile, and said, in a rich and heavy Midland voice—
'Here's to moy wife's husband!'
And drained the nectar.
'Feel better now, don't you?' Mrs Brindley inquired.
'Aye, Mrs Bob, I do!' was the reply. 'How do, Bob?'
'How do?' responded my host laconically. And then with gravity: 'Mr Loring—Mr Oliver Colclough—thinks he knows something about music.'
'Glad to meet you, sir,' said Mr Colclough, shaking hands with me. He had a most attractively candid smile, but he was so long and lanky that he seemed to pervade the room like an omnipresence.
'Sit down and have a bit of cheese, Oliver,' said Mrs Brindley, as she herself sat down.
'No, thanks, Mrs Bob. I must be getting towards home.'
He leaned on her chair.
'Trifle, then?'
'No, thanks.'
'Machine going all right?'
'Like oil. Never stopped th' engine once.'
'Did you get the Sinfonia Domestica, Ol?' Mr Brindley inquired.
'Didn't I say as I should get it, Bob?'
'You SAID you would.'
'Well, I've got it.'
'In Manchester?'
'Of course.'
Mr Brindley's face shone with desire and Mr Oliver Colclough's face shone with triumph.
'Where is it?'
'In the hall.'
'My hall?'
'Aye!'
'We'll play it, Ol.'
'No, really, Bob! I can't stop now. I promised the wife—'
'We'll PLAY it, Ol! You'd no business to make promises. Besides, suppose you'd had a puncture!'
'I expect you've heard Strauss's Sinfonia Domestica, Mr Loring, up in the village?' Mr Colclough addressed me. He had surrendered to the stronger will.
'In London?' I said. 'No. But I've heard of it.'
'Bob and I heard it in Manchester last week, and we thought it 'ud be a bit of a lark to buy the arrangement for pianoforte duet.'
'Come and listen to it,' said Mr Brindley. 'That is, if nobody wants any more beer.'
IV
The drawing-room was about twice as large as the dining-room, and it contained about four times as much furniture. Once again there were books all round the walls. A grand piano, covered with music, stood in a corner, and behind was a cabinet full of bound music.
Mr Brindley, seated on one corner of the bench in front of the piano, cut the leaves of the Sinfonia Domestica.
'It's the devil!' he observed.
'Aye, lad!' agreed Mr Colclough, standing over him. 'It's difficult.'
'Come on,' said Mr. Brindley, when he had finished cutting.
'Better take your dust-coat off, hadn't you?' Mrs Brindley suggested to the friend. She and I were side by side on a sofa at the other end of the room.
'I may as well,' Mr Colclough admitted, and threw the long garment on to a chair. 'Look here, Bob, my hands are stiff with steering.'
'Don't find fault with your tools,' said Mr Brindley; 'and sit down. No, my boy, I'm going to play the top part. Shove along.'
'I want to play the top part because it's easiest,' Mr Colclough grumbled.
'How often have I told you the top part is never easiest? Who do you suppose is going to keep this symphony together—you or me?'
'Sorry I spoke.'
They arranged themselves on the bench, and Mr Brindley turned up the lower corners of every alternate leaf of the music.
'Now,' said he. 'Ready?'
'Let her zip,' said Mr Colclough.
They began to play. And then the door opened, and a servant, whose white apron was starched as stiff as cardboard, came in carrying a tray of coffee and unholy liqueurs, which she deposited with a rattle on a small table near the hostess.
'Curse!' muttered Mr Brindley, and stopped.
'Life's very complex, ain't it, Bob?' Mr Colclough murmured.
'Aye, lad.' The host glanced round to make sure that the rattling servant had entirely gone. 'Now start again.'
'Wait a minute, wait a minute!' cried Mrs Brindley excitedly. 'I'm just pouring out Mr Loring's coffee. There!' As she handed me the cup she whispered, 'We daren't talk. It's more than our place is worth.'
The performance of the symphony proceeded. To me, who am not a performer, it sounded excessively brilliant and incomprehensible. Mr Colclough stretched his right hand to turn over the page, and fumbled it. Another stoppage.
'Damn you, Ol!' Mr Brindley exploded. 'I wish you wouldn't make yourself so confoundedly busy. Leave the turning to me. It takes a great artist to turn over, and you're only a blooming chauffeur. We'll begin again.'
'Sackcloth!' Mr Colclough whispered.
I could not estimate the length of the symphony; but my impression was one of extreme length. Halfway through it the players both took their coats off. There was no other surcease.
'What dost think of it, Bob?' asked Mr Colclough in the weird silence that reigned after they had finished. They were standing up and putting on their coats and wiping their faces.
'I think what I thought before,' said Mr Brindley. 'It's childish.'
'It isn't childish,' the other protested. 'It's ugly, but it isn't childish.'
'It's childishly clever,' Mr Brindley modified his description. He did not ask my opinion.
'Coffee's cold,' said Mrs Brindley.
'I don't want any coffee. Give me some Chartreuse, please. Have a drop o' green, Ol?'
'A split soda 'ud be more in my line. Besides, I'm just going to have my supper. Never mind, I'll have a drop, missis, and chance it. I've never tried Chartreuse as an appetizer.'
At this point commenced a sanguinary conflict of wills to settle whether or not I also should indulge in green Chartreuse. I was defeated. Besides the Chartreuse, I accepted a cigar. Never before or since have I been such a buck.
'I must hook it,' said Mr Colclough, picking up his dust-coat.
'Not