Yet it had seemed such a chance to get in with them, to strengthen her position. She was not so simple as to think that she had no place in the Lantern group; the finances of the magazine, such as they were, were understood by her alone, and Raikes Brothers had of late shown a tendency to call her when they wanted a decision about anything. She had been in the happy position of having two pounds ten to lend to Tuke on an occasion when he needed that sum very badly, and Revelstoke himself had been her champion a few weeks later, and had compelled the poet to pay back the ten shillings, which was all he could afford. She had a place, but it was the bottom place. And here it was six weeks after that encounter in the bathroom at Neuadd Goch, since when he had not so much as kissed her!
Why? Why could he not see that she loved him? She was not a ninny; she did not sigh and lallygag like Juliet; she put herself heart and soul into the business of Lantern, and although it could not be said that its position was any better than before, it was certainly clearer. She managed to get his attention for fifteen minutes one day and explained the whole financial situation to him. He had been bored, and had told her in a huff that if people hadn’t enough wit to appreciate Lantern, he could do nothing about it. He wrote for the bloody magazine, didn’t he? What more did she expect him to do? Hawk it on street-corners? But Monica would not believe that this expressed his true feeling; if he was really committed to the publication—and he was—he must desire its financial success; it was axiomatic. So she troubled him no more about it, and plunged into even more discouraging talks with Raikes Brothers, who were beginning to want something on account.
Not that she expected to win him by a flashing display of business method; she was not so foolish as that. But what better approach had she, what more effective way of showing that anything she had in the way of skills or talents was at his command? Her heart was full of love, but externally she remained neat, silent, and perhaps a little too quick at producing pencils and pieces of paper; once or twice she sensed that it is convenient, but perhaps not wholly romantic, to be the person to whom everyone turns for a clean bit of india-rubber. She could not hope to be useful to him musically; was she not his pupil? How, then, could she serve except with the typewriter and the account-book, in the use of which she was more expert than anyone else in the group? She wanted desperately to be one of the menagerie. She tried to swear, but it was a failure. She could not use filthy words, as Persis did; a Thirteener upbringing and, she felt, a native fastidiousness, prevented her; she had also a grudging recognition that what suited the opulent sluttishness of Persis did not appear so well in her. However, she sought to liven up her conversation with a few bloodies until one day she caught Odingsels’ ironic eye on her, felt deeply foolish, and tried no more.
They never thought of her as one of themselves. She thought of them as Bohemians, though they would have hooted at so romantic and unfashionable a word, taking it as further evidence that she was an outsider. But under their Bohemianism they were very English. No, ridiculous! Odingsels—nobody knew quite what he was, but he was certainly not English. Bridget Tooley’s father was a lawyer in Cork; she was Irish as—Ma Gall’s expression came pat to memory—as Paddy’s pig. Bun Eccles was an Australian, and abused the English as Pommies. Revelstoke himself was English, of the Eton and Oxford variety, and of course the hateful Persis—
Ah, Persis was the one! There was a creature who managed to have the best of two or three worlds! To be the draggle-tailed gypsy, with all the advantages of great and apparently indestructible beauty, and at the same time to be able to come the well-bred English lady—that was having it with jam and syrup at once. She was the one who created the atmosphere which excluded Monica. She was the one who did not have her speech corrected by Revelstoke. She was the one who did not have to know that “glory” was a trochee, instead of a spondee, which was what both Monica and Eccles made of it. She was the one who did not have to do anything about Lantern, though she was always in the way when the work was most pressing. And why? Because she was Revelstoke’s mistress, his recreation, his hobby, his—
Monica, who was cutting bread, sawed savagely at the loaf. Filthy abuse that was pure Ma Gall rushed up into her throat, her head hurt and her eyes seemed to fill with blood. She had to sit down on the bed to recover herself.
Oh, it was so unfair! Why couldn’t she be to him what Persis was, and at the same time a helper and a constructive influence in his life? She was better than Persis. She was; she was! Why couldn’t he see it? How could he stand that creature, who took baths now and then for fun, but not to get clean, and who kept tufts of long hair in her oxters because she said real men liked it? Monica was clean (though Amy had taught her not to talk about “personal daintiness”) and cleanliness ought to count. She would do anything for Revelstoke, be anything he wanted. And he had turned to her once. He must have some feeling for her. It could not be otherwise.
Meanwhile the noise from the other room was increasing. Two or three guests had made journeys to the watercloset down the stairs, shouting their contributions to the discussion as they went up and down. There had been some rapping on the ceiling by the lodger below, to which Eccles had replied with a few hearty stamps. Persis was developing the theme of parental stinginess in her extremely carrying voice. Monica knew that she would have to go in and shut them up. She held a cool bottle of beer to her forehead for a couple of minutes, and went back to the living-room.
She entered just as Mrs. Merry came in from the hall. The landlady wore a look of aggrieved hauteur, and when she spoke her accent was more refined and wholly diphthongal than usual.
“Miss Gall, I am really compelled to ask your guests to leave,” she began, but got no further, for behind her appeared Revelstoke, and with him Sir Benedict Domdaniel. The menagerie greeted them with a roar.
The appearance of the great conductor created a difficult situation for everyone. Mrs. Merry was in a particularly ticklish spot, for she had to reconcile her landlady’s indignation with her elation at having a celebrity (and a titled one, too) under her roof—and there were the promises she had made to the lodger downstairs to drive the rowdies out into the street. Persis, who had been making very free with Brum Benny’s name, was revealed as one who had never met him personally, and had not quite the brass to be insulting when she was introduced. Monica, who had been thinking passionately of Revelstoke as a lover, had now to greet him timidly as a guest, feeling the very least of his menagerie; she was uneasy, also, about Domdaniel, who had not encountered the menagerie before, to her knowledge and who, at this moment, contrasted strangely with them, like a royal personage photographed among the survivors of some disaster. But Domdaniel managed the whole thing very well.
“We seem to have come at the peak of the party,” said he, smiling affably at Mrs. Merry, and bending so low over her hand that she thought, for one golden but panic-stricken moment, that he was about to kiss it. “A very great occasion, and I’m sure you’ll understand; our friend has been covering himself with glory.” It was this easy, glossily splendid manner, which had won him the name of Brummagem Benny among the envious; unable themselves to rise to such heights, they took revenge by recalling his plebian origin. And a severe critic might have said that his manner was not thoroughly well-bred; it was too accomplished, too much a work of art, for mere “good form.” He presented Revelstoke, who greeted Mrs. Merry with proprietary charm, as though she were his guest. At the same moment Odingsels bowed his piebald poll toward Mrs. Merry’s startled face, and put a glass of beer into her hand.
“The last thing of which I am desirous—” she began, with immense graciousness, but was unable to sustain this fine beginning, and went on—“It would ill become me to—it is certainly not my desire to intrude a note of solemnity into such an occasion as this, but you will understand my position vis-à-vis Mrs. Porteous who occupies the flatette below, and whose advanced years and habit of life—” She floundered.
“Mind your manners,” said Revelstoke
to the menagerie, and they obeyed, to the point of congratulating him in stagey whispers.
“Oh, please, please!” cried Mrs. Merry, laughing throatily, and gesturing with her glass of beer, like some marchioness in an old-fashioned musical comedy, “don’t feel that you must whisper. That I could not bear! Please, Sir Benedict, beg them not to whisper.” She bent upon Sir Benedict a look of arch agony. With him at her side, looking so gallantly into her eyes, Mrs. Merry would have incited the party to dance clog-dances upon the head of Mrs. Porteous.
“I have a proposal which I think will settle everything,” said he. “Suppose we all go to my house, and continue the party there. I’ve lots to drink, but if you’ve any food, Monica, perhaps you’ll bring it along. And as we have inconvenienced you, dear lady, I hope that you will forgive us and make one of the party.”
Smiling his most winning smile, he gazed deep into Mrs. Merry’s eyes, mentally signalling to her—Say no; say no; you can’t leave the lodgers; say no. But Mrs. Merry was not susceptible to telepathy; she was borne aloft on a cloud of social glory; this was as it had been when that worthy solicitor, Maybrick Merry, was alive, and they had invited three couple to dinner every second Thursday, and once an M.P. had come. “Yes, yes,” she carrolled; “I’ll run and get my wrap.”
It was quite ten minutes before Mrs. Merry had changed her clothes, put on all her rings, and run a darkening stick through the grey patches in her hair. Monica had plenty of time to line her rubbish pail with The Times and put the food in it, and Bun Eccles providently carried the beer downstairs, in case Sir Benedict should have overestimated his supplies. Sir Benedict had gone down to wait in his car, and Revelstoke admonished the others to come quietly. And, upon the whole, they did so, except that Odingsels insisted on carrying Persis downstairs pick-a-back, and tickled her legs as he did so, making her squeal. And it was unfortunate that Eccles, who insisted on carrying both the food and the drink, caught his heel in a worn bit of stair carpet, and—determined to save the drink—allowed the rubbish-pail to go crashing down to the landing.
A door opened and somebody—almost certainly Mrs. Porteous—poked a parrot-like head, adorned with an obvious wig, into the hall. “Well,” she gobbled, “this is the first time that anything like this has ever happened here, and if it is what comes of giving shelter to Commonwealth students—”
Odingsels, with Persis on his back, lurched toward her.
“Shh!” said he. “We are taking this lady to a nursing-home for an abortion, and I must ask you please not to make so much noise.” Down the lower flight he went at a gallop, with Persis shrieking and fizzing like a soda-syphon on his back. Bun retrieved the food, and, acting on sudden inspiration, pushed a sandwich into Mrs. Porteous’ hand, then crammed the remainder into the pail, and raced after him. It was Monica who heard the last of Mrs. Porteous’ unflattering comments and prophecies.
On the pavement there was a slight resurgence of ill-feeling, for everyone wanted to crowd into Sir Benedict’s handsome car, which was manifestly impossible. Odingsels would not be parted from Persis, and Mrs. Merry, with the superior cunning of middle age, got the front seat next to the great man for herself; at last Revelstoke and Tuke were crammed into the back seat, and Monica and Bun were left to follow in a taxi with a disgruntled Miss Tooley.
“Fanny can’t resist luxury,” she said, “and as soon as he smelled that real leather upholstery he was done for. Not a terribly nice characteristic, really.”
The house in Dean’s Yard was empty, for the servant did not sleep in, but Domdaniel quickly found glasses, and in five minutes the party had been resumed. Odingsels and Persis had changed from quarrelling to silent, intimate pawing, and they needed a sofa to themselves. Miss Tooley was being distant toward Phanuel Tuke, which involved standing quite close but with her back turned partly toward him. Sir Benedict moved about, making them at home, but he soon found how needless this was; the menagerie was at home wherever it was assembled. But Mrs. Merry had a highly developed, indeed a swollen, social sense; unquestionably she thought of herself as “the senior married woman present” and she set to work to establish a high tone of behaviour. She pursued her host, she complimented him on the taste in which his house was furnished; she confided that she could judge people instantly by the glassware they used; she sincerely hoped that they were to be favoured with a little music later on, as it would be such a treat; she let it be known that when her husband was living they had several times met Madame Gertrude Belcher-Chalke, whose renditions of Scottish songs were such a delight, and who must certainly be known to Sir Benedict; and, well, yes, she would be glad of the teeniest drop of Scotch—no more than a drop, mind—and plain water.
Monica, who had had no opportunity to recover from her nerve-storm, soon found the kitchen, took the hacked loaf—fetish for the hateful Persis—from the rubbish-pail, and began once more to make sandwiches. The capacity of the menagerie for food was boundless and she, true daughter of Ma Gall, had bought in ample viands. It soothed her to make sandwiches, and it kept her away from the others.
But she had not been long alone before Sir Benedict slipped quickly through the door.
“I’ll have a quiet drink out here with you,” said he. “I can’t convince your landlady that I don’t play the piano at parties.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” said Monica; “it was wonderful of you to rescue us, and terribly kind to ask her. She’s having a marvellous time.”
“I told her to persuade Revelstoke to improvise something,” said he. “A dirty trick, but self-preservation, and so forth. Have a drink. You look as if you needed one. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. We heard the broadcast.”
“What did you think?”
“I thought it was wonderful. But you know what my opinion is worth.”
“Don’t hedge. Did you like the work?”
“I don’t know. It’s awfully strange. Not as strange as lots of modern music; not so sort of repellent. It doesn’t fight the listener. But mystifying. I wish you’d tell me about it.”
“I’ve done so; I conducted it. It’s quite a solid piece of work, though I wish he’d study with a really first-rate man on composition for a while. He can’t completely say what he means, yet, in orchestral terms. Most of the instrumental writing is brilliant, but there are a few passages of awful muddle that I couldn’t persuade him to change. What he does best, of course, is write for the voice, and that lifts him above all but a few today. This isn’t an age when many composers seem to care about the voice; they want to use it in all sorts of queer ways, and often they do marvellous things, but it’s not really singing, you know. It’s abuse of the voice. But his stuff is wonderfully grateful to sing and that, combined with a modern musical idiom, gives it great individuality.”
“I suppose a lot depends on what the critics say?”
“A bit. Not too much, really. Far more depends on what chaps like me say.”
“Anyhow, he’ll be able to deal with the critics in Lantern.”
“That’s precisely what I’m afraid of. He wastes too much time on that nonsense.”
“Nonsense?”
“Yes. What’s the good of fighting critics? Mind you, some of them are very able, particularly when judging performances. But only a few can form any opinion of a new work. Most of them are simply on the lookout for novelty. They hear too much, and they hear it the wrong way. They get like children who are peevish from having too many toys; they are always tugging at the skirts of music, whining ‘Amuse me; give me something new.’ Giles hasn’t shown them anything particularly new. He’s not an innovator. But he has an extraordinary melodic gift. Now you just watch the critics and see how many of them are able to spot that.”
“You don’t think much of Lantern?”
“My dear girl, these little reviews and magazines of protest and coterie criticism come and go, and they don’t amount to a damn. They’re all right for what’s-his-name—Tuke and that formidable female b
odyguard of his—but Revelstoke is a serious man; he ought to be at work on music. You’ve rather involved yourself with this Lantern thing, haven’t you?”
“I help a bit with the accounts.”
“Good enough. You’re what—twenty-two? It’s all right for you. Gives you a taste of that sort of thing, and we’re all the better for a taste. But Revelstoke is thirty-three. Time he was over all that, and down to serious work.”
“Do you think teaching is a waste of his time?”
“Not if it brings in money he needs. But this Lantern is just an expense of spirit in a waste of shame.”
“Shakespeare. Sonnet something-or-other.”
“Bright child. He’s making you do some reading.”
“Yes.—And Lantern’s not the only waste.”
“You mean that gang in there? They’re no more a waste than any other pack of friends, I should say. Many fine things are written about friendship, and there’s a general superstition that everybody is capable of friendship, and gets it, like love. But lots of people never know love, except quite mildly; and most of them never know friendship, except in quite a superficial way. Terribly demanding thing, friendship. Most of us have to put up with acquaintanceship.”
It was flattering to Monica to be enjoying, for the first time, a conversation with Sir Benedict which was not about music, and which was not crowded by the press of his engagements. She fell into a trap; she tried to be impressive; she tried to be his age.
“But don’t you think people like that, who live such irregular lives, are terribly exhausting? I mean, they must drain away a lot of his vitality, which should be saved for music. I don’t want to gossip, but it’s common knowledge that he’s terribly taken up with that girl in there—the dark one—and I don’t know when he finds time to do any work. Do you think he ought to get off into the country, somewhere, and really slave at his music?”