Terrible minutes to six when Mamma’s face watched and listened, when she knew what you were thinking. You kept on looking at the clock, you wondered whether this time Papa would really go. You hoped—
Mamma’s eyes hurt you. They said, “She doesn’t care what becomes of him so long as she can play.”
II
Sometimes the wounded, mutilated Allegro would cry inside you all day, imploring you to finish it, to let it pour out its life in joy.
When it left off the white sound patterns of poems came instead. They floated down through the dark as she lay on her back in her hard, narrow bed. Out of doors, her feet, muffled in wet moor grass, went to a beat, a clang.
She would never play well. At any minute her father’s voice or her mother’s eyes would stiffen her fingers and stop them. She knew what she would do; she had always known. She would make poems. They couldn’t hear you making poems. They couldn’t see your thoughts falling into sound patterns.
Only part of the pattern would appear at once while the rest of it went on sounding from somewhere a long way off. When all the parts came together the poem was made. You felt as if you had made it long ago, and had forgotten it and remembered.
III
The room held her close, cold and white, a nun’s cell. If you counted the window-place it was shaped like a cross. The door at the foot, the window at the head, bookshelves at the end of each arm. A kitchen lamp with a tin reflector, on a table, stood in the breast of the cross. Its flame was so small that she had to turn it on to her work like a lantern.
“Dumpetty, dumpetty dum. Tell them that Bion is dead; he is dead, young Bion, the shepherd. And with him music is dead and Dorian poetry perished—”
She had the conceited, exciting thought: “I am translating Moschus, ‘The Funeral Song for Bion.’ ”
Moschus was Bion’s friend. She wondered whether he had been happy or unhappy, making his funeral song.
If you could translate it all: if you could only make patterns out of English sounds that had the hardness and stillness of the Greek.
‘Archetë, Sikelikai, to pentheos, archetë Moisai,
adones hai pukinoisin oduramenai poti phullois.’
The wind picked at the pane. Through her thick tweed coat she could feel the air of the room soak like cold water to her skin. She curved her aching hands over the hot globe of the lamp.
—Oduromenai. Mourning? No. You thought of black crape, bunched up weepers, red faces.
The wick spluttered; the flame leaned from the burner, gave a skip and went out.
Oduromenai—Grieving; perhaps.
Suddenly she thought of Maurice Jourdain.
She saw him standing in the field path. She heard him say “Talk to me. I’m alive. I’m here. I’ll listen. I’ll never misunderstand.” She saw his worn eyelids; his narrow, yellowish teeth.
Supposing he was dead—
She would forget about him for months together; then suddenly she would remember him like that. Being happy and excited made you remember. She tried not to see his eyelids and his teeth. They didn’t matter.
IV
The season of ungovernable laughter had begun.
“Roddy, they’ll hear us. We m‑m‑mustn’t.”
“I’m not. I’m blowing my nose.”
“I wish I could make it sound like that.”
They stood on the Kendals’ doorstep, in the dark, under the snow. Snow powdered the flagstone path swept ready for the New Year’s party.
“Think,” she said, “their poor party. It would be awful of us.”
Roddy rang. As they waited they began to laugh again. Helpless, ruinous, agonising laughter.
“Oh—oh—I can hear Martha coming. Do something. You might be unbuckling my snowshoes.”
The party was waiting for them in the drawing-room. Dr. Charles. Miss Louisa Wright, stiff fragility. A child’s face blurred and delicately weathered; features in innocent, low relief. Pale hair rolled into an insubstantial puff above each ear. Speedwell eyes, fading milkily. Hurt eyes, disappointed eyes. Dr. Charles had disappointed her.
Dorsy Heron, tall and straight. Shy hare’s face trying to look austere.
Norman Waugh, sulky and superior, in a corner.
As Roddy came in everybody but Norman Waugh turned round and stared at him with sudden, happy smiles. He was so beautiful that it made people happy to look at him. His very name, Rodney Olivier, sounded more beautiful than other people’s names.
Dorsy Heron’s shy hare’s eyes tried to look away and couldn’t. Her little high, red nose got redder.
And every now and then Dr. Charles looked at Rodney, a grave, considering look, as if he knew something about him that Rodney didn’t know.
V
“She shall play what she likes,” Mr. Sutcliffe said. He had come in late, without his wife.
She was going to play to them. They always asked you to play.
She thought: “It’ll be all right. They won’t listen; they’ll go on talking. I’ll play something so soft and slow that they won’t hear it. I shall be alone, listening to myself.”
She played the first movement of the “Moonlight Sonata.” A beating heart, a grieving voice; beautiful, quiet grief; it couldn’t disturb them.
Suddenly they all left off talking. They were listening. Each note sounded pure and sweet, as if it went out into an empty room. They came close up, one by one, on tiptoe, with slight creakings and rustlings, Miss Kendal, Louisa Wright, Dorsy Heron. Their eyes were soft and quiet like the music.
Mr. Sutcliffe sat where he could see her. He was far away from the place where she heard herself playing, but she could feel his face turned on her like a light.
The first movement died on its two chords. Somebody was saying “How beautifully she plays.” Life and warmth flowed into her. Exquisite, tingling life and warmth. “Go on. Go on.” Mr. Sutcliffe’s voice sounded miles away beyond the music.
She went on into the lovely Allegretto. She could see their hushed faces leaning nearer.
