Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (45 page)

‘Yes, that must be the name. I know it was something like that. Well now, my dears, I must say good-night, and leave you to the tender mercies of each other and the dessert. I daresay Kate will let you smoke a cigar afterwards, and then you can get her to sing for you. I have to go to bed early on account of my health. By-the-bye, we breakfast at half after eight. I suppose, if I tell them to bring your water up at eight, it will leave you time. Good-night. God bless you both,’ and she kissed her niece and left them to themselves, much to the delight of Kate. As to Hollebone, he was quite unconcerned either way.

‘The time must pass one way or another,’ he said philosophically, ‘and I may as well talk to this girl as to anyone else since I can’t get at Edith.’

One is apt to forget one’s pessimism to a large extent just after a good dinner. It is not until the dinner begins to have its effects on the liver some hours afterwards that the vapours rise up to the brain and cause impenetrable despondency and gloom to settle down over one’s mental prospect, and so Hollebone accepted his fate with as good grace as possible; and any other young man might have felt himself in remarkably happy circumstances to be thus
tête-à-tête
with a beautiful cousin, most anxious to charm and to appear charming — though certainly Hollebone did not know that.

But he was very much in love with his beloved, and for the time, as indeed it had been for some two years, his love was his ruling passion, and he never committed the smallest action in his life without thinking whether it would have any effect on his relationship to Edith.

Therefore he passed a more or less pleasant evening in the society of his cousin. That young lady, with a view to adapting herself to his tastes, felt him carefully all over, and not being able to make very much out of the indications that she thus discovered, fell back on the infallible method of getting at the hearts of all young men, and of old ones too, for that matter (but more especially of such as have what one calls by courtesy, a talent for one thing or another), namely, pretending great ignorance of his particular
forte,
and wonder at the gigantic intellect enabling one to pursue that study.

Dinner had been finished, coffee had made its appearance and disappearance, Hollebone’s cigar had let its last wreath of smoke float upwards to the dark oak ceiling of the dining room, and he had done his best to persuade his cousin to join him in a cigarette — which she had smilingly refused — and they had adjourned to the drawing-room.

‘Now you are going to sing me something,’ Hollebone said, for to tell the truth, much to his discredit, he was beginning to get a little tired of her innocent conversation.

I say much to his discredit, because no young man of a well-regulated turn of mind should get tired in the course of a single evening of the conversation of a fair girl, whose face is, ostensibly, the index of her mind, and whose blue eyes are, or at least seem to be, the windows of her soul, more especially when he has already the advantage of a cousinly standing, which is worth at least two months’ start in an acquaintanceship.

‘Now you are going to sing me something,’ Hollebone said.

And she answered, —

‘Oh, certainly — that is, if you don’t ask it out of courtesy, because Aunt Joan suggested it — besides which, I haven’t got much of a voice, and perhaps you don’t care much about music.’

Hollebone gave a sort of internal groan.

‘Oh, on the contrary, I am particularly fond of music, and as to your voice I’m sure it must be lovely, anyhow.’

Kate blushed with joy. She was a very good actress, and said, —

‘Oh, come, Cousin Clement, how can you possibly know that?’

Clement smiled.

‘Why,’ he said, ‘one generally judges of a person’s singing voice by their talking voice. If they have a very melodious and sweet speaking voice one imagines that they sing equally well, don’t you see?’

And Kate answered, —

‘Ye — es,’ with another blush, and then she went on. ‘Well, since you
are
so pressing, and pay such nice compliments, cousin, I will sing you something, but you must accompany me.’ Hollebone said, ‘Oh, blow it!’ to himself, but aloud, —

‘Oh, very well, if you don’t mind a somewhat wooden touch.’

But Kate answered archly, —

‘Oh, I’m sure, cousin, your touch must be lovely, anyhow.’

‘I certainly don’t see how you can tell that,’ he replied.

‘Why,’ she answered, ‘one generally judges of a person’s playing touch by their shaking touch. If they have a very pleasant way of shaking hands one imagines that they will have an equally pleasant touch, don’t you see.’ Hollebone answered, —

‘Oh, c-come now, that’s rather far-fetched now,’ and his cousin retorted, with a light in her dark blue orbs, ‘Tit for tat, Cousin Clement.’

But Cousin Clement was instituting a mental comparison between his cousin and Edith, which was not altogether flattering to his cousin.

‘Bother the girl,’ he said to himself, referring to Kate, ‘what a nuisance she is. I wish she’d begin and squall — at anyrate then I should not need to bother myself with answering her nonsense, though I shall have to strum. Not that she is bad-looking by any means, but she ain’t a patch on Edith. You see, although they’re both fair, it’s a different kind of fairness. Little E.’s is quite transparent, like marble or alabaster, with just a faint tinge of colour — oh, and such a lovely mouth, that looks as if it were just always wanting to be kissed — whereas this ‘n’s got a regular peachy pink-and-white complexion, with the peach bloom and all, if it isn’t powder, and then her mouth is sort of puckered up under the lips, so that it looks as if she were always pouting; and then Edie’s nose is quite straight down, not turned up at the end like this one’s, and Edie’s eyebrows are dark and beautifully shaped, not pale and invisible, and her lashes are dark too, and when they lie down on her cheeks they’re just like a delicate fringe — and her face is a lovely oval, not round like Kate’s here — and her hair isn’t near so light as Kate’s, not golden at all, but just dusky brown, with a tinge of gold in the shadows — and then her eyes, why, this girl’s are cold and hard, steel-blue in fact, whilst Edie’s — oh, how lovely they are! — light green-brown, so that one can look right down into the depths and see all her thoughts; and then to see the love come up in them, and to see her flush, and to think that she loves me! I tell you what it is, Chaucer knew what he was about when he wrote —

Youre two eyn will sle’ me sodenly.

If she had eyes anything like Edith’s — but that isn’t possible.’

During the time it took him to think this rhapsody he was saying, ‘Let’s have a song, cousin.’ But his cousin, who noticed the longing look which had come into his eyes
maugre lui
at the thought of his love, divined easily enough the reason for it, and recognised the fact that it would be necessary for her to make herself very agreeable indeed to counteract that influence.

Therefore she said to herself, ‘H’m, he wants flattering a little; ‘but aloud, —

‘Well, you shall have a song, only it’s just a little too soon after dinner, and we’ve got the whole evening before us. I’m afraid you’ll find it awfully dull with no one but me to talk to.’

And Hollebone answered, —

‘Are you often “took sarcastic?”’ but to himself, ‘Oh, blank that girl and her gush!’ and Kate went on, —

‘I wonder how it is that anyone who is so great a scientist as yourself can possibly condescend to care for so trivial a thing as music.’

‘Think I’m too stupid? ‘suggested Hollebone lightly.

‘Oh, no,’ she answered, ‘not
exactly
that, only music is so simple, and requires such little thought to make and understand, whereas chemistry is a serious and dignified study.’

‘Think so?’ said Hollebone, who was beginning to get cantankerous.

‘Why, yes,’ she went on. ‘Now all a composer of music has to do is to find out a tune on the piano, and then put some chords to it, and then have it played on a dozen fiddles and some trumpets and give it a name, opera or symphony or anything. Well, and then a painter merely takes a pencil and a piece of paper and draws away and rubs out until he gets something like something, and then he takes a brush and puts paint on, and that’s practically all. And as for a poet, he just gets a story, and rhymes “dove” with “love” and “above,” and then he’s written a poem. But a chemist is something really wonderful. He can take a piece of iron and find out its components and constituents in a minute, and knows how long it will take for a stone to fall from the top of a tower, and can understand all sorts of queer signs, like eels and crabs, that they call scruples and drachms, and that S20 means sulphuric acid. But just fancy a stupid man of business, now, who sits all day long and writes down figures and adds them up again — and then a mere pianist or fiddler is even more stupid, he only has to look at notes and draw a bow across some squeaky strings.’

This was just a little too much for Hollebone, who, like every true lover, thought that his mistress’s occupation must of itself be infinitely above his own because she engaged in it. He didn’t mind Kate’s strictures upon composers, painters, and poets, and rather liked her ignorance on the subject of iron as an element, because it made him feel very wise indeed, which was as a matter of fact exactly what she had meant that it should do; but when it came to her estimate of the genius that Edith needed he felt himself struck on a raw spot.

‘My dear girl,’ he said, ‘if you will allow me a cousin’s privilege of speaking a little didactically, I would say you are talking abject nonsense. The exact reverse of what you imagine is the true view of the case. Anyone, by serious application and hard work, can become a very decent chemist, but to compose, and more especially to play the violin really well, needs a genius of the highest order, such as I can never hope to attain.’

Kate said very humbly, —

‘Well, cousin, I suppose you are right, because you know all about it, and I know very little.’

But to herself she said, ‘Good Lord, what a fool I was not to remember that his beloved might perhaps play the fiddle. I do nothing but put my foot in it this evening.’

But Hollebone was beginning to repent his rudeness at seeing her humbleness of demeanour, and he said, —

‘Well, Kate, let’s have a song now, if you’ve had rest enough after dinner.’

And she answered, —

‘Oh, yes. Have you got any matches? You might just light the candles at the piano.’

He did so.

‘What would you like?’ she asked.

And he answered, —

‘Oh, just anything you please.’

‘Let’s have something old-fashioned to begin with,’ she said, and produced ‘
Batti
,
Batti
,’ singing it indifferent badly, as amateurs
will
sing Mozart. Hollebone at the end paid her the most brilliant compliments on her voice, and begged for something more, whereupon she accordingly essayed one of those terrible ballads of a sentimental order, all about people wandering over hills in all sorts of ‘weathâh,’ accompanied by a fiddle or a dog, and set to a peculiarly diabolical waltz tune that goes on jingling through one’s head for hours after the song has ceased sounding through the air. Now it happened that, by some strange coincidence, Hollebone’s beloved, whom he, rightly or wrongly, thought to be possessed of the most wonderfully sweet voice that ever thrilled out into space, when she was more than usually inclined to torment her unfortunate lover, was in the habit of insisting on singing this identical song, until he, who swore by nothing but the Music of the Future, was fain to stop the proceeding coercively.

Therefore when his fair cousin commenced this effusion his flesh began to creep, and, what with her singing and the badness of the song, he suffered frightfully. Nevertheless in spite of that he struggled gamely through to the end, but all the same his cousin noticed his agony, and when she had finished, said, —

‘You don’t like that, do you, cousin?’ and Hollebone replied, —