Part 11 (1/2)
”Turkish coffee, certainly, and a cigarette, and a moment's peace before the serious business of the afternoon claims us. Talking about peace, do you know, Ronnie, it has just occurred to me that we have left out one of the most important things in our affaire; we have never had a quarrel.”
”I hate quarrels,” said Ronnie, ”they are so domesticated.”
”That's the first time I've ever heard you talk about your home,” said Cicely.
”I fancy it would apply to most homes,” said Ronnie.
”The last boy-friend I had used to quarrel furiously with me at least once a week,” said Cicely reflectively; ”but then he had dark slumberous eyes that lit up magnificently when he was angry, so it would have been a sheer waste of G.o.d's good gifts not to have sent him into a pa.s.sion now and then.”
”With your excursions into the past and the future you are making me feel dreadfully like an instalment of a serial novel,” protested Ronnie; ”we have now got to 'synopsis of earlier chapters.'”
”It shan't be teased,” said Cicely; ”we will live in the present and go no further into the future than to make arrangements for Tuesday's dinner- party. I've asked the d.u.c.h.ess; she would never have forgiven me if she'd found out that I had a crowned head dining with me and hadn't asked her to meet him.”
A sudden hush descended on the company gathered in the great drawing-room at Berks.h.i.+re Street as Ronnie took his seat at the piano; the voice of Canon Mousepace outlasted the others for a moment or so, and then subsided into a regretful but gracious silence. For the next nine or ten minutes Ronnie held possession of the crowded room, a tense slender figure, with cold green eyes aflame in a sudden fire, and smooth burnished head bent low over the keyboard that yielded a disciplined riot of melody under his strong deft fingers. The world-weary Landgraf forgot for the moment the regrettable trend of his subjects towards Parliamentary Socialism, the excellent Grafin von Tolb forgot all that the Canon had been saying to her for the last ten minutes, forgot the depressing certainty that he would have a great deal more that he wanted to say in the immediate future, over and above the thirty-five minutes or so of discourse that she would contract to listen to next Sunday. And Cicely listened with the wistful equivocal triumph of one whose goose has turned out to be a swan and who realises with secret concern that she has only planned the role of goosegirl for herself.
The last chords died away, the fire faded out of the jade-coloured eyes, and Ronnie became once more a well-groomed youth in a drawing-room full of well-dressed people. But around him rose an explosive clamour of applause and congratulation, the sincere tribute of appreciation and the equally hearty expression of imitative homage.
”It is a great gift, a great gift,” chanted Canon Mousepace, ”You must put it to a great use. A talent is vouchsafed to us for a purpose; you must fulfil the purpose. Talent such as yours is a responsibility; you must meet that responsibility.”
The dictionary of the English language was an inexhaustible quarry, from which the Canon had hewn and fas.h.i.+oned for himself a great reputation.
”You must gom and blay to me at Schlachsenberg,” said the kindly-faced Landgraf, whom the world adored and thwarted in about equal proportions.
”At Christmas, yes, that will be a good time. We still keep the Christ- Fest at Schlachsenberg, though the 'Sozi' keep telling our schoolchildren that it is only a Christ myth. Never mind, I will have the Vice-President of our Landtag to listen to you; he is 'Sozi' but we are good friends outside the Parliament House; you shall blay to him, my young friendt, and gonfince him that there is a Got in Heaven. You will gom? Yes?”
”It was beautiful,” said the Grafin simply; ”it made me cry. Go back to the piano again, please, at once.”
Perhaps the near neighbourhood of the Canon inspired this command, but the Grafin had been genuinely charmed. She adored good music and she was unaffectedly fond of good-looking boys.
Ronnie went back to the piano and tasted the matured pleasure of a repeated success. Any measure of nervousness that he may have felt at first had completely pa.s.sed away. He was sure of his audience and he played as though they did not exist. A renewed clamour of excited approval attended the conclusion of his performance.
”It is a triumph, a perfectly glorious triumph,” exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess of Dreys.h.i.+re, turning to Yeovil, who sat silent among his wife's guests; ”isn't it just glorious?” she demanded, with a heavy insistent intonation of the word.
”Is it?” said Yeovil.
”Well, isn't it?” she cried, with a rising inflection, ”isn't it just perfectly glorious?”
”I don't know,” confessed Yeovil; ”you see glory hasn't come very much my way lately.” Then, before he exactly realised what he was doing, he raised his voice and quoted loudly for the benefit of half the room:
”'Other Romans shall arise, Heedless of a soldier's name, Sounds, not deeds, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.'”
There was a sort of s.h.i.+ver of surprised silence at Yeovil's end of the room.
”h.e.l.l!”
The word rang out in a strong young voice.
”h.e.l.l! And it's true, that's the worst of it. It's d.a.m.ned true!”
Yeovil turned, with some dozen others, to see who was responsible for this vigorously expressed statement.
Tony Luton confronted him, an angry scowl on his face, a blaze in his heavy-lidded eyes. The boy was without a conscience, almost without a soul, as priests and parsons reckon souls, but there was a slumbering devil-G.o.d within him, and Yeovil's taunting words had broken the slumber.