The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

'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-by 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 bedroom candle-stick.

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-'

The pretty face was full of dreamy tenderness, the eyes lit up witchingly. She pulled herself up suddenly, and stole a shy glance at her auditor.

'Yes, yes, go on,' he said; 'tell me all you feel about the music.'

'And there's one song you sometimes play that makes me feel floating on and on like a great white swan.'

She hummed a few bars of the Gondel-Lied-flawlessly.

'Dear me! you have an ear!' he said, pinching it. 'And how did you like what I was playing just now?' he went on, growing curious to know how his own improvisations struck her.

'Oh, I liked it so much,' she whispered back, enthusiastically; 'because it reminded me of my favourite one- every moment I did think-I thought-you were going to come into that.'

The whimsical sparkle leapt into his eyes. 'And I thought I was so original,' he murmured.

'But what I liked best,' she began, then checked herself, as if suddenly remembering she had never made a spontaneous remark before, and lacking courage to establish a precedent.

'Yes-what you liked best?' he said encouragingly.

'That song you sang this afternoon,' she said shyly.

'What song? I sang no song,' he said, puzzled for a moment.

'Oh, yes! That one about-

''Kiss me, dear love, good-night.'

'I was going upstairs but it made me stop just here-and cry.'

He made his comic grimace.

'So it was you Beethoven was barking at! And I thought he had an ear! And I thought you had an ear! But no! You're both Philistines after all. Heigho!'

She looked sad. 'Oughtn't I to ha' liked it?' she asked anxiously.

'Oh, yes,' he said reassuringly; 'it's very popular. No drawing-room is without it.'

She detected the ironic ring in his voice. 'It wasn't so much the music,' she began apologetically.

'Now-now you're going to spoil yourself,' he said. 'Be natural.'

'But it wasn't,' she protested. 'It was the words-'

'That's worse,' he murmured below his breath.

'They reminded me of my mother as she laid dying.'

'Ah!' said Lancelot.

'Yes, sir, mother was a long time dying-it was when I was a little girl and I used to nurse her-I fancy it was our little Sally's death that killed her, she took to her bed after the funeral and never left it till she went to her own,' said Mary Ann, with unconscious flippancy. 'She used to look up to the ceiling and say that she was going to little Sallie, and I remember I was such a silly then, I brought mother flowers and apples and bits of cake to take to Sally with my love. I put them on her pillow, but the flowers faded and the cake got mouldy-mother was such a long time