The Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield. Katherine Mansfield
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