Merely Mary Ann

Suddenly Beethoven ran towards the door, howling.

Lancelot ceased playing and looked approvingly at the animal.

'By Jove! He wants to go out. What an ear for music that animal's got!'

Peter smiled grimly. 'It's long enough. I suppose that's why you call him Beethoven.'

'Not at all. Beethoven had no ear-at least not in his latest period-he was deaf. Lucky devil! That is, if this sort of thing was brought round on barrel-organs.'

'Never mind, old man! Finish the thing.'

'But consider Beethoven's feelings!'

'Hang Beethoven!'

'Poor Beethoven. Come here, my poor maligned musical critic! Would they give you a bad name and hang you? Now you must be very quiet. Put your paws into those lovely long ears of yours if it gets too horrible. You have been used to high-class music, I know, but this is the sort of thing that England expects every man to do, so the sooner you get used to it the better.' He ran his fingers along the keys. 'There, Peter, he's growling already. I'm sure he'll start again, the moment I strike the theme.'

'Let him! We'll take it as a spaniel obligato.'

'Oh, but his accompaniments are too staccato. He has no sense of time.'

'Why don't you teach him, then, to wag his tail like the pendulum of a metronome? He'd be more use to you that way than setting up to be a musician, which Nature never meant him for-his hair's not long enough. But go ahead, old man, Beethoven's behaving himself now.'

Indeed, as if he were satisfied with his protest, the little beast remained quiet, while his lord and master went through the piece. He did not even interrupt at the refrain.

'Kiss me, good-night, dear love,

Dream of the old delight;

My spirit is summoned above,

Kiss me, dear love, good-night.'

'I must say it's not so awful as I expected,' said Lancelot candidly; 'it's not at all bad-for a waltz.'

'There, you see!' said Peter eagerly; 'the public are not such fools after all.'

'Still, the words are the most maudlin twaddle!' said Lancelot, as if he found some consolation in the fact.

'Yes, but I didn't write them!' replied Peter quickly. Then he grew red and laughed an embarrassed laugh. 'I didn't mean to tell you, old man. But there-the cat's out. That's what took me to Brahmson's that afternoon we met! And I harmonised it myself, mind you, every crotchet. I picked up enough at the Conservatoire for that. You know lots of fellows only do the tune-they give out all the other work.'

'So you are the great Keeley Lesterre, eh?' said Lancelot in amused astonishment.

'Yes; I have to do it under another name. I don't want to grieve the old man. You see, I promised him to reform, when he took me back to his heart and business.'

'Is that strictly honourable, Peter?' said Lancelot, shaking his head.

'Oh well! I couldn't give it up altogether, but I do practically stick to the contract-it's all overtime, you know. It doesn't interfere a bit with business. Besides, as you'd say, it isn't music,' he said slyly. 'And just because I don't want it I make a heap of coin out of it-that's why I'm so vexed at your keeping me still in your debt.'

Lancelot frowned. 'Then you had no difficulty in getting published?' he asked.

'I don't say that. It was bribery and corruption so far as my first song was concerned. I tipped a professional to go down and tell Brahmson he was going to take it up. You know, of course, well-known singers get half a guinea from the publisher every time they sing a song.'

'No; do they?' said Lancelot. 'How mean of them.'

'Business, my boy. It pays the publisher to give it them. Look at the advertisement!'

'But suppose a really fine song was published and the publisher refused to pay this blood-money?'

'Then I suppose they'd sing some other song, and let that moulder on the foolish publisher's shelves.'

'Great heavens!' said Lancelot, jumping up from the piano in wild excitement. 'Then a musician's reputation is really at the mercy of a mercenary crew of singers, who respect neither art nor themselves. Oh yes, we are indeed a musical people!'

'Easy there! Several of 'em are pals of mine, and I'll get them to take up those ballads of yours as soon as you write 'em.'

'Let them go to the devil with their ballads!' roared Lancelot, and with a sweep of his arm whirled Good-night and good-bye into the air. Peter picked it up and wrote something on it with a stylographic pen which he produced from his waistcoat pocket.

'There!' he said, 'that'll make you remember it's your own property-and mine-that you are treating so disrespectfully.'

'I beg your pardon, old chap,' said Lancelot, rebuked and remorseful.

'Don't mention it,' replied Peter. 'And whenever you decide to become rich and famous-there's your model.'

'Never! never! never!' cried Lancelot, when Peter went at ten. 'My poor Beethoven! What you must have suffered! Never mind, I'll play you your Moonlight sonata.'

He touched the keys gently, and his sorrows and his temptations faded from him. He glided into Bach, and then into Chopin and Mendelssohn, and at last drifted into dreamy improvisation, his fingers moving almost of themselves, his eyes, half closed, seeing only inward visions.

And then, all at once, he awoke with a start, for Beethoven was barking towards the door, with pricked-up ears and rigid tail.

'Sh! You little beggar,' he murmured, becoming conscious that the hour was late, and that he himself had been noisy at unbeseeming hours. 'What's the matter with you?' And, with a sudden thought, he threw open the door.

It was merely Mary Ann.

Her face-flashed so unexpectedly upon him-had the piquancy of a vision, but its expression was one of confusion and guilt; there were tears on her cheeks; in her hand was a bed-room candlestick.

She turned quickly, and began to mount the stairs. Lancelot put his hand on her shoulder, and turned her face towards him, and said in an imperious whisper:

'Now then, what's up? What are you crying about?'

'I ain't-I mean I'm not crying,' said Mary Ann, with a sob in her breath.

'Come, come, don't fib. What's the matter?'

'I'm not crying; it's only the music,' she murmured.

'The music,' he echoed, bewildered.

'Yessir. The music always makes me cry-but you can't call it crying-it feels so nice.'

'Oh, then you've been listening!'

'Yessir.' Her eyes drooped in humiliation.

'But you ought to have been in bed,' he said. 'You get little enough sleep as it is.'

'It's better than sleep,' she answered.

The simple phrase vibrated through him like a beautiful minor chord. He smoothed her hair tenderly.

'Poor child!' he said.

There was an instant's silence. It was past midnight, and the house was painfully still. They stood upon the dusky landing, across which a bar of light streamed from his half-open door, and only Beethoven's eyes were upon them. But Lancelot felt no impulse to fondle her; only just to lay his hand on her hair, as in benediction and pity.

'So you liked what I was playing,' he said, not without a pang of personal pleasure.

'Yessir; I never heard you play that before.'

'So you often listen!'

'I can hear you, even in the kitchen. Oh, it's just lovely! I don't care what I have to do then, if it's grates or plates or steps. The music goes and goes, and I feel back in the country again, and standing, as I used to love to stand of an evening, by the stile, under the big elm, and watch how the sunset did redden the white birches, and fade in the water. Oh, it was so nice in the springtime, with the hawthorn that grew on the other bank, and the bluebells--'