Music at Long Verney Read online

  Georgina retired. When she came back with the tray, they were reclining from their labours on the hearthrug. The Girl Guide had ash on her nose, the Boy Scout was wheezing.

  “What will you drink, children? Whisky, vodka? Some orange juice for you, Antonia?”

  “But where is my hot milk? You promised me hot milk, Georgina.”

  Affronted by this unchivalrous reminder, Georgina contented herself by suavely supposing Antonia would like hot milk, too.

  “I’d love some. Let me make it!” She half rose, thought better of it, sank down again; as Georgina left the room, she heard Antonia say, “But why don’t you try iodine? Sailors never catch cold.”

  The kitchen was warm and exclusive. With leisurely movements, Georgina took a bottle of milk from the refrigerator, selected two suitable mugs, opened the lid of the Aga stove, and took down a heavy saucepan. For one does not spend a lifetime enjoying English literature without being made aware of the nature and capabilities of milk. Milk, proverbially mild, is a devil when roused by boiling, and in a moment will writhe out of the pan and spread itself all over the place – waiting with fiendish malice till your back is turned before doing so. Profiting by the strenuously acquired wisdom of novelists and essayists, Georgina did not intend to be caught like this. She put the saucepan on the hot plate and emptied the bottle of milk into it. Half the amount would have been quite enough, but she had enjoyed the gesture of emptying, a gesture at once lavish and contemptuous. They would just have to wait rather longer – what of that? Besides, presumably the skin would be all that much thicker. Words rose in her mind: “If you want to have proper skin on your boiled milk, it’s hopeless to use less than a pint.” Other words floated in from the sitting room – soothing, diagnosing words from Antonia to George, who liberally as to a midwife was declaring the state of his bronchial tubes. George would be all right if he didn’t eat so much – but Antonia didn’t raise this issue. Meanwhile, the milk lay quietly in its saucepan.

  An hour ago, heads had been rolling, and Canon Toller, pierced in a dozen places, had been tossed aside, the sawdust trickling from his reputation as an apostle to youth. Now George was maundering on the hearthrug and she was in the kitchen – alone, ageing, disregarded, haggard with fatigue, still not over her influenza but expected to be as strong as a horse, with the garden full of apples and the sink full of dirty plates and dishes – waiting for milk to come to the boil. The voices had become lower, more confidential – bunions, probably; the milk was unchanged except that from time to time a vague, sneering frown seemed to cross its smooth brow. Antonia said something not perfectly audible about it perhaps getting worse if you lived alone. George, perfectly audible, replied, “The truth is, Georgina’s totally selfish.” And at the same moment the milk exploded and spread itself all over the top of the Aga.

  Georgina filled the two mugs and carried them into the sitting room and set them down without a word, sincerely hoping her guests would scald themselves. They did not. Antonia sipped, and said how delicious. George sipped, and asked if he could have some sugar in his.

  “Oh, do you take sugar in yours?” Antonia said, plainly making a note of it.

  “And with porridge. But there I like it brown,” said George, as plainly expecting a note to be made.

  And when they had emptied their mugs they thanked her and went away – musingly, and slightly flushed.

  She heard their diminishing voices, and their lingering farewells. She heard George cough, and Antonia deplore. She heard them start their cars and drive away. Presently they would set out on an entirely novel way of life, hyphenated into George-and-Antonia – one of those late marriages that at first seem so surprising and soon after seem so natural that one can’t imagine why they did not happen earlier. And she would go on pretty much as usual – an aunt to Antonia, to George an old acquaintance, a headless phantom. They would always treat her with kindness, and Antonia would unfailingly remember her birthday and ask her to lunch.

  Love

  “NO. THERE’S NO telephone,” said the long-legged young woman. “It seemed more important to have drains, so we chose drains. We couldn’t afford both at once.”

  “Far better to have drains,” said Dinnie.

  “Yes, that was what we felt. You see, it needed so much doing to it. It was a farm cottage once, but no-one had lived in it for years. But we fell in love with it, we felt we must rescue it. We did think of calling it Cinderella Cottage, but Jim said it would be whimsical.”

  “I like Meadow Cottage much better.” Dinnie looked out of the window at the calm Cambridgeshire landscape, cows under elm trees, shorn midsummer fields dotted with trusses of hay. It wasn’t in the least what they were looking for, this rather self-conscious Meadow Cottage – but perhaps as a pro tem? It smelled of wood smoke . . . Wood smoke always makes one sentimental.

  “It will be sad for you to leave it, when you’ve made it so charming – even if it’s only for a couple of years.”

  “Nothing would make us, if it weren’t for Jim having to go to Rhode Island to print The Anatomy of Melancholy.”

  A queer reversal, thought Avery. Twenty years ago, young couples were writing arresting new books. Now they were all typographers, doing limited editions of classics. Twenty years ago, too, young couples used to be approximately the same height.

  “What rent –” began Dinnie. Avery broke in; he could see she was dangerously drawn towards Meadow Cottage. “Which press?” he asked.

  At the same moment a door opened, a coffee tray was put down with a clatter, and the short stout young man said, “I hope you’ll excuse me, but the house is on fire.”

  He darted away, leaving the door open behind him. The young woman hurried after him. A waft of flame came down the wide chimney like a goblin, flared, vanished. Avery shut the door and the window opening on the calm landscape.

  Dinnie was on her feet. She had emptied a log basket and was filling it with their Staffordshire chimney ornaments.

  “You get down the pictures, Avery. We can’t just sit here fiddling. We’ll take everything we can outside, the poor creatures!”

  He unhooked the pictures and stacked them. Dinnie had opened a bureau drawer. It was full to overflowing. So was the next drawer, and the next.

  “There never is anything to put anything in in an emergency,” she said in the fractious voice of one hardened to insult.

  “And all these books,” said Avery. “Folios and the Lord knows what.” He had a pile of them in his arms as he spoke, his chin resting on the topmost. As he spoke the midmost books escaped and cascaded onto the floor.

  “Use the curtains.”

  The curtains were on a rustic string. He wrenched them down and the books were bundled up in them.

  “Now for it! Let’s hope the passage isn’t blazing.”

  As they opened the door, another goblin of flame darted down the chimney. The passage was filled with smoke. The young man peered over the stair rail.

  “We’re taking some of your belongings into the garden,” said Avery.

  “To be on the safe side,” added Dinnie.

  The young man said, “Thanks a lot,” choked, and disappeared.

  “Have a wet blanket,” Dinnie shouted after him.

  Thick smoke drifted over the garden. Tufts of burning straw floated down. Overhead was a noise like the swarming of innumerable hornets, and looking up they saw flames cringing among the thatch.

  “Her linen! The linen cupboard is sure to be upstairs.” Dinnie ran back to the house. The young man came running downstairs, holding a picture. They collided, and went on their ways.

  “We can get out that bureau between us,” said Avery to the young man. “This is bloody for you. I suppose it’s a fuse. It’s usually a fuse.” The bureau was massy. They paused in the passage to set it down.

  “Where’s your wife?” asked Avery.

  The young man replied that she was putting things into cartons and that he didn’t know where they would be i
f it hadn’t been for Mrs – “But I don’t know your name.”

  “Kelso.”

  A pile of sheets fell on them. “I believe all women feel like that about bed linen,” said Avery, the first to recover.

  “Not in Switzerland,” said the young man. “In Switzerland, people use paper sheets.”

  “Good God!”

  They picked up the bureau and when out with it, returned for more furniture. As they carried out a settee, a hail of shoes descended. Dinnie was at an upper window, encircled with roses below, flames above.

  “Dinnie! Come down.”

  “Mrs Kelso, you oughtn’t to stay up there.”

  “I’m putting Sheila’s clothes in pillowcases,” she said. There was a smudge on her cheek. The smudge and her wide-brimmed hat made her look absurdly girlish – childish, rather. For the thousandth time in his life Avery reflected that he was the hearthrug of a fireside sphinx. How did she know the young woman was called Sheila? How had the hat stayed on?

  “Dinnie! Come down!”

  Sheila came out, carrying a glass rolling pin, a miscellany of kitchen equipment, and an umbrella. She stood silent as a dumbwaiter while Jim unloaded her. “We’ve got each other,” she said despairingly when he removed the umbrella. Another pillowcase thumped down, and another. It struck Avery that Jim and Sheila had got considerably more than each other – and that so far Dinnie had done nothing to insure Jim more than the clothes he stood up in.

  “Sheila, where do you keep –” Her voice leaped an octave. “Look! It’s coming!” Avery started back; he had been severely bruised by a flying alarm clock. “It’s coming! It’s seen us. We’re saved!”

  A lorry reeled across the meadow, shedding baled hay with every lurch. Two men jumped off.

  “Got a ladder, Mister? No? Well, if you’ll clear this stuff out of the way and not mind what happens to your hedge, we’ll drive right in and do it from there. Do it in no time.”

  A space was cleared, the lorry was backed in and manoeuvred into position. Standing on it, the two men clawed away the burning thatch with their long-handled forks. The beams, the blackened rooftree appeared. Vast quantities of thatch smouldered on the ground, and the men went to and fro kicking the sparks out of it.

  “There,” said the older man. “You’ll be all right now. This cottage has been needing a red jacket for the last fifty years, but it won’t have one this time.” He laughed kind-heartedly and contemptuously. The younger man said he’d see what he could do about putting his hand on some hayrick tarpaulins. They drove off. As the noise of the lorry died away, there was an extraordinary silence; the hornets swarmed no longer. Dinnie walked out of the house as though she were going to a royal garden party, glanced at Sheila, and put her arms round her. By the time Jim and Avery had carried everything back, she had collected the remains of the picnic lunch from the car and was feeding Sheila on cucumber sandwiches.

  “What a strange day,” she mused as Avery drove westwards. “One never knows what one’s setting out for. That’s why I had my smelling salts. Poor girl! Not that I liked either of them very much. Those nice men would have gone away without a grateful sixpence if it hadn’t been for you. But they’ll soon forget it when they’re in Oregon.”

  “Rhode Island.”

  “Rhode Island? Well, somewhere, anyhow. Her comb hadn’t been cleaned for days, but her shoes were handmade, so they can’t be penniless. I wonder what the rent would have been. Not that we would have taken the place – I could see you didn’t like it.”

  “I believe you did.”

  “Only to think about. As a stopgap, you know, till we find something permanent we both like – with a moat, perhaps. I’ve always liked the idea of a moat.”

  What a strange wife, mused Avery after she had fallen asleep beside him in the hotel bedroom; which was no longer alien since it had her smell. Next year would be their silver wedding; the two sons she had borne him were out in the world; within three years, he would retire and live on beside her in that unknown house which they were already prospecting for. It would not long remain unknown: he would know without thinking where its electric-light switches were, the progress of the shadows across its walls, the trees – beech or conifer or palisade of aspens – he would see from its windows, the noise of the wind in its chimneys, the names of the local tradesmen. And Dinnie would be as unknown as ever – as kind, as heartless, as capable, as fallible, as mysterious. And he would be taking her for granted, since there was nothing else for it, it is what one settles to. But as for knowing her – he might as well hope to know her dreams. She stirred, moved closer, fitted herself into the curve of his buttocks.

  “Dinnie.”

  No answer.

  “Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain”

  THE MOON WAS at her full, and the choral society of Wells in Somerset was holding a practice. Moonshine had to be consulted, for many of the singers lived outside the town and would not venture from their homes by night unless they could see the ruts and puddles. Mr Mulready, however, was independent of the moon; he lived in the market place, and a gas lamp shone in at his bedroom window until 10:30 p.m., when all the street lamps gave a little jump and died.

  Mr Mulready was a draper. He lived above his shop, though he was sufficiently well-to-do to live, had he wished to do so, in a villa near the station; and this evidence of proper feeling made him much esteemed by the local gentry. He was a small, bald-headed, puggy man, and could sing both bass and alto. What was more, he could read music at sight. These good gifts he employed weekly at the Bethel Chapel, and it was said that Mr Bulmer, a vicar-choral, had fervently attempted Mr Mulready’s conversion, in order that he might sing in the Cathedral, especially that alto solo in an anthem by Samuel Sebastian Wesley which declares that, “as for the gods of the heathen, they are, are, are but idols” – a sneering chromatic phrase which would ring finely under the stone arches if delivered by the rescued Dissenter, but which that bleating old Philpot could never sing in tune.

  But Mr Mulready was faithful to Bethel, as much from social as from religious convictions; for, as he said, he was a Baptist born and dipped, and it never did for people to pretend to be what their neighbours knew full well they were not. The Choral Society was another matter: he had been a member of it for nearly twenty years, and he knew most of its repertory by heart.

  The piece they practised this evening was a madrigal by John Wilbye: “Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain.” He had sung in it many times before; he knew every note of it; but this did not lessen his pleasure – indeed, it increased it; for he was able to enjoy its beauty undistracted by the sheet of music that Mr Fair, his neighbour bass, jerked up and down before him in time to the music.

  Yet tonight he was destined to hear the old favourite with new ears.

  “Thy nymph is light and shadowlike,” sang the first sopranos, coming in on high G, and the second sopranos took up the phrase a fifth lower. All of a sudden Mr Mulready found himself wondering about nymphs, and wondering, too, in a very serious and pertinacious way. He had never to his knowledge given a thought to these strange beings before, and yet it now seemed to him that he had an idea of them both clear and pleasant – as though perhaps in childhood he had been taken to see one as a treat.

  He wished to see a nymph again: not from motives of curiosity, not because he thought a nymph would be a pretty sight to gaze at, not for any reasonable, pleasure-seeking reason – for how could anyone entertain a rational wish about a mythological fancy? What he felt was more than a whim; it was an earnest desire, a mental craving somehow to recreate a bright image that Time had once timelessly given, and then by course of time effaced.

  Even as he sang he looked round on the lady members of the Choral Society to see if they could afford him any clue as to the looks of a nymph. One by one he rejected them. Miss Fair was as pretty a girl as you could wish to see, young Mrs Buckley had a complexion as red and white as the rosebud chintz in his shop, little Jenny Davy was as light as a feather and as
ruthless as a kitten – yet none of these answered to his idea of a nymph. She would be quieter, somehow – more ladylike.

  So next he studied the ladies, the real ladies who came from the Cathedral Close or from the country houses round about. They were no more helpful. The Reverend Miss Perceval (so he thought of her) had something rather promising about her small pale ears; but, poor young lady, how she did stoop! And as for Mrs Hamlyn, whom there had been all that talk about, she was a highflier, sure enough, but nothing like a nymph. Her nose was too large.

  Not like any member of the Choral Society, not like his dead wife, not like his two daughters, not like any woman he had ever seen – how did it happen, then, that in his mind’s eye there should be this image of a nymph which he was now trying to confirm by looks of flesh and blood? A picture? On an almanac, perhaps; some of the wholesale firms sent out very handsome ones to the trade. But a picture was flat, a picture was dead: no picture could have become so living to him as this projection of a nymph which he couldn’t quite see, but which was none the less present in his thought; for otherwise how could he reject so certainly all these un-nymph-like ladies?

  “Thy nymph is light and shadowlike.”

  The words haunted him as he walked home, and he hummed the phrase over and over as he sat at supper, with a kind daughter on either hand. As he kissed Sophy goodnight, he thought how cool a nymph’s forehead would be. “Light.” Light-footed, that must mean, not light-complexioned; for his nymph was dark – at any rate, she had dark hair. The words ran into a new order: “Light-and-shadowlike” – wavering, rippling, as the light bubbles through the shadow of a bough that sways in a spring breeze. As one has a word on the tip of one’s tongue, so Mr Mulready had a nymph on the tip of his imagination. And for one moment, just as he blew out the candle and resigned his senses to the bed, he thought he had caught her. Alas, she was gone again in a flash, and he was left with a new perplexity; for now it seemed to him that instead of having seen her long ago he had seen her quite recently, so that her image was indistinct and elusive not because Time had effaced it, but because Time had not yet enforced it, leaving it still a faint pencilling, a sketch.