“I shall have forty fits if I see him in the room, I know I shall!” she confided to Fil. “You’ve no idea how he scares me. I have my lessons on the study piano generally, and if only he would sit still I shouldn’t mind, but he will get up and prowl about the room, and swing out his arms when he’s explaining things; he only just missed knocking over that pretty statuette of Venus the other day. I’m sure if Miss Burd knew how he flourishes about, she wouldn’t let him loose among her cherished ornaments!”
“Perhaps he won’t turn up today!”
“Oh yes! He said he should make a point of buying a toy for his little boy. If I break down suddenly in the midst of my piece, you’ll know the reason. I’m shaking now.”
“Poor old sport! Don’t take it so hard!”
By three o’clock the lecture hall was filled with what Lilias Ashby (who had undertaken to write a report for the school magazine) described as “a distinguished crowd.” Fathers indeed were as few and far between as currants in a war pudding, but mothers, aunts, and sisters had responded nobly to the invitations, and were being conducted round by the girls to see their special exhibits.
Mrs. Saxon had been unable to come that afternoon, but Quenrede had turned up, looking very pretty in a plum-colored hat, and giving herself slight airs as of one who is now a finished young lady, and no longer a mere schoolgirl. She chatted, in rather mincing tones, to Miss Burd herself, while Ingred stood by in awe and amazement, and when she bought a cup of tea from Doreen Hayward at the refreshment stall, she murmured: “Oh, thanks so much!” with the manner of a patroness, though only six months ago she and Doreen had sat side by side in the Science Lectures. It was a new phase of Quenrede, which, though accepted to some extent at home, had never shown itself before with quite such aggravated symptoms.
Ingred, walking as it were in her shadow, was not sure whether to admire or laugh. It was, of course, something to have such a pretty and decidedly stylish sister; she appreciated the angle at which the plum-colored hat was set, and the self-restraint that made the tiny iced bun last such an enormous time, when a schoolgirl would have finished it in three bites, and have taken another. A grand manner was certainly rather an asset to the family, and Queenie was palpably impressing some of the intermediates, who poked each other to look at her.
“It’s my turn to play soon, and I’m just shivering!” whispered Ingred.
“Nonsense, child! Don’t be such a little goose!” declared her sister airily. “It’s only a school party—there’s really nothing to make a fuss about!”
“Only a school party!” That seemed to Ingred the absolute limit. Quenrede last term had, in her turn, shivered and trembled when she had been obliged to mount the platform! Could a few short months have indeed effected so magnificent a change of front?
“All the same, it’s I who’ve got to play, not she! It’s easy enough to tell somebody else not to mind,” thought Ingred, as, in answer to Miss Clough’s beckoning finger, she made her way towards the piano to undergo her ordeal.
One point in favor of the recital was that the audience moved about the room and went on buying toys or cups of tea and cakes, and even talking, instead of sitting on rows of seats doing nothing but watching and listening. It was rather comforting to think that the concert was really only like the performance of a band, a soothing accompaniment to conversation. Ingred opened her music with an almost “don’t care” feeling. For one delirious moment she felt at her ease, then, alack! her mood suddenly changed. In a last lightning glance towards the audience she noticed among the crowd near the tea-stall the tall thin figure, cadaverous face, and long lank hair of Dr. Linton. The sight instantly wrecked her world of composure. If it had not been for the fact that Miss Clough was standing near, and nodding to her to begin, she would have run away from the platform.
“Oh, the ill luck of it!” she thought. “If I had only played last time, instead of Gertie, I’d have had it over before he came into the room! I know he’ll be just listening to every note, and criticizing!”
With a horrid feeling, as if her breath would not come properly, and her head was slightly spinning, and her hands dithering, Ingred began her “Nocturne,” trying with a sort of “drowning” effort to keep her mind on the music in front of her, instead of on the music-master at the other end of the room. For sixteen bars she succeeded, then came the hitch. She had rejected the offered services of Doris Grainger, and had elected to turn over her own pages. She now made a hasty dash at the leaf, her trembling hand was not sufficiently agile, the sheet slipped, she grabbed in vain, and the music fluttered on to the floor. The performance came to a dead halt. Doris and Miss Clough rushed to the rescue, but they were put politely aside by a tall figure who stepped on to the platform, and Dr. Linton himself picked up the scattered sheets of the unfortunate “Nocturne.” He arranged them together in order, placed them upon the stand, and, addressing his dismayed pupil, said:
“Now, then, begin again, and I shall turn over for you. Bring out that forte passage properly! Remember there’s a pedal on the piano!”
It was like having a lesson
