CHAPTER V

It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the

most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All

sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs.

Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come--of course, not so as

to disturb the others--or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks

in the music’s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or

like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full

score open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fraulein Mosebach, who

remembers all the time that Beethoven is echt Deutsch; or like Fraulein

Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing but Fraulein Mosebach: in

any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound

to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings. It is cheap, even

if you hear it in the Queen’s Hall, dreariest music-room in London,

though not as dreary as the Free Trade Hall, Manchester; and even if

you sit on the extreme left of that hall, so that the brass bumps at you

before the rest of the orchestra arrives, it is still cheap.

“Whom is Margaret talking to?” said Mrs. Munt, at the conclusion of the

first movement. She was again in London on a visit to Wickham Place.

Helen looked down the long line of their party, and said that she did

not know.

“Would it be some young man or other whom she takes an interest in?”

“I expect so,” Helen replied. Music enwrapped her, and she could not

enter into the distinction that divides young men whom one takes an

interest in from young men whom one knows.

“You girls are so wonderful in always having--Oh dear! one mustn’t

talk.”

For the Andante had begun--very beautiful, but bearing a family likeness

to all the other beautiful Andantes that Beethoven had written, and,

to Helen’s mind, rather disconnecting the heroes and shipwrecks of the

first movement from the heroes and goblins of the third. She heard the

tune through once, and then her attention wandered, and she gazed at the

audience, or the organ, or the architecture. Much did she censure

the attenuated Cupids who encircle the ceiling of the Queen’s

Hall, inclining each to each with vapid gesture, and clad in sallow

pantaloons, on which the October sunlight struck. “How awful to marry a

man like those Cupids!” thought Helen. Here Beethoven started decorating

his tune, so she heard him through once more, and then she smiled at

her Cousin Frieda. But Frieda, listening to Classical Music, could not

respond. Herr Liesecke, too, looked as if wild horses could not make him

inattentive; there were lines across his forehead, his lips were parted,

his pince-nez at right angles to his nose, and he had laid a thick,

white hand on either knee. And next to her was Aunt Juley, so British,

and wanting to tap. How interesting that row of people was! What diverse

influences had gone to the making! Here Beethoven, after humming and

hawing with great sweetness, said “Heigho,” and the Andante came to an

end. Applause, and a round of “wunderschoning” and pracht volleying from

the German contingent. Margaret started talking to her new young man;

Helen said to her aunt: “Now comes the wonderful movement: first of all

the goblins, and then a trio of elephants dancing”; and Tibby implored

the company generally to look out for the transitional passage on the

drum.

“On the what, dear?”

“On the drum, Aunt Juley.”

“No; look out for the part where you think you have done with the

goblins and they come back,” breathed Helen, as the music started with

a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others

followed him. They were not aggressive creatures; it was that that made

them so terrible to Helen. They merely observed in passing that there

was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world. After the

interlude of elephants dancing, they returned and made the observation

for the second time. Helen could not contradict them, for, once at all

events, she had felt the same, and had seen the reliable walls of youth

collapse. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! The goblins were

right. Her brother raised his finger; it was the transitional passage on

the drum.

For, as if things were going too far, Beethoven took hold of the goblins

and made them do what he wanted. He appeared in person. He gave them

a little push, and they began to walk in a major key instead of in a

minor, and then--he blew with his mouth and they were scattered! Gusts

of splendour, gods and demigods contending with vast swords, colour

and fragrance broadcast on the field of battle, magnificent victory,

magnificent death! Oh, it all burst before the girl, and she even

stretched out her gloved hands as if it was tangible. Any fate was

titanic; any contest desirable; conqueror and conquered would alike be

applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.

And the goblins--they had not really been there at all? They were only

the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse would

dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President Roosevelt, would

say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They

might return--and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might

boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the

terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked

quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic

and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall.

Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up.

He blew with his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were

scattered. He brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the

youth, the magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of

a superhuman joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the

goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that

is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.

Helen pushed her way out during the applause. She desired to be alone.

The music had summed up to her all that had happened or could happen in

her career.

She read it as a tangible statement, which could never be superseded.

The notes meant this and that to her, and they could have no other

meaning, and life could have no other meaning. She pushed right out of

the building and walked slowly down the outside staircase, breathing the

autumnal air, and then she strolled home.

“Margaret,” called Mrs. Munt, “is Helen all right?”

“Oh yes.”

“She is always going away in the middle of a programme,” said Tibby.

“The music has evidently moved her deeply,” said Fraulein Mosebach.

“Excuse me,” said Margaret’s young man, who had for some time been

preparing a sentence, “but that lady has, quite inadvertently, taken my

umbrella.”

“Oh, good gracious me!--I am so sorry. Tibby, run after Helen.”

“I shall miss the Four Serious Songs if I do.”

“Tibby, love, you must go.”

“It isn’t of any consequence,” said the young man, in truth a little

uneasy about his umbrella.

“But of course it is. Tibby! Tibby!”

Tibby rose to his feet, and wilfully caught his person on the backs of

the chairs. By the time he had tipped up the seat and had found his

hat, and had deposited his full score in safety, it was “too late” to

go after Helen. The Four Serious Songs had begun, and one could not move

during their performance.

“My sister is so careless,” whispered Margaret.

“Not at all,” replied the young man; but his voice was dead and cold.

“If you would give me your address--”

“Oh, not at all, not at all;” and he wrapped his greatcoat over his

knees.

Then the Four Serious Songs rang shallow in Margaret’s ears. Brahms, for

all his grumbling and grizzling, had never guessed what it felt like

to be suspected of stealing an umbrella. For this fool of a young man

thought that she and Helen and Tibby had been playing the confidence

trick on him, and that if he gave his address they would break into

his rooms some midnight or other and steal his walking-stick too. Most

ladies would have laughed, but Margaret really minded, for it gave her

a glimpse into squalor. To trust people is a luxury in which only the

wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it. As soon as Brahms had

grunted himself out, she gave him her card and said, “That is where

we live; if you preferred, you could call for the umbrella after the

concert, but I didn’t like to trouble you when it has all been our

fault.”

His face brightened a little when he saw that Wickham Place was W. It

was sad to see him corroded with suspicion, and yet not daring to be

impolite, in case these well-dressed people were honest after all. She

took it as a good sign that he said to her, “It’s a fine programme

this afternoon, is it not?” for this was the remark with which he had

originally opened, before the umbrella intervened.

“The Beethoven’s fine,” said Margaret, who was not a female of the

encouraging type. “I don’t like the Brahms, though, nor the Mendelssohn

that came first and ugh! I don’t like this Elgar that’s coming.”

“What, what?” called Herr Liesecke, overhearing. “The ‘Pomp and

Circumstance’ will not be fine?”

“Oh, Margaret, you tiresome girl!” cried her aunt.

“Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke to stop for ‘Pomp and

Circumstance,’ and you are undoing all my work. I am so anxious for him

to hear what WE are doing in music. Oh,--you musn’t run down our English

composers, Margaret.”

“For my part, I have heard the composition at Stettin,” said Fraulein

Mosebach, “on two occasions. It is dramatic, a little.”

“Frieda, you despise English music. You know you do. And English art.

And English literature, except Shakespeare, and he’s a German. Very

well, Frieda, you may go.”

The lovers laughed and glanced at each other. Moved by a common impulse,

they rose to their feet and fled from “Pomp and Circumstance.”

“We have this call to pay in Finsbury Circus, it is true,” said Herr

Liesecke, as he edged past her and reached the gangway just as the music

started.

“Margaret--” loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.

“Margaret, Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful little bag

behind her on the seat.”

Sure enough, there was Frieda’s reticule, containing her address book,

her pocket dictionary, her map of London, and her money.

“Oh, what a bother--what a family we are! Fr--frieda!”

“Hush!” said all those who thought the music fine.

“But it’s the number they want in Finsbury Circus.”

“Might I--couldn’t I--” said the suspicious young man, and got very red.

“Oh, I would be so grateful.”

He took the bag--money clinking inside it--and slipped up the gangway

with it. He was just in time to catch them at the swing-door, and he

received a pretty smile from the German girl and a fine bow from her

cavalier. He returned to his seat upsides with the world. The trust that

they had reposed in him was trivial, but he felt that it cancelled his

mistrust for them, and that probably he would not be “had” over his

umbrella. This young man had been “had” in the past badly, perhaps

overwhelmingly--and now most of his energies went in defending himself

against the unknown. But this afternoon--perhaps on account of music--he

perceived that one must slack off occasionally or what is the good

of being alive? Wickham Place, W., though a risk, was as safe as most

things, and he would risk it.

So when the concert was over and Margaret said, “We live quite near; I

am going there now. Could you walk round with me, and we’ll find your

umbrella?” he said, “Thank you,” peaceably, and followed her out of

the Queen’s Hall. She wished that he was not so anxious to hand a lady

downstairs, or to carry a lady’s programme for her--his class was near

enough her own for its manners to vex her. But she found him interesting

on the whole--every one interested the Schlegels on the whole at that

time--and while her lips talked culture, her heart was planning to

invite him to tea.

“How tired one gets after music!” she began.

“Do you find the atmosphere of Queen’s Hall oppressive?”

“Yes, horribly.”

“But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more oppressive.”

“Do you go there much?”

“When my work permits, I attend the gallery for the Royal Opera.”

Helen would have exclaimed, “So do I. I love the gallery,” and thus

have endeared herself to the young man. Helen could do these things. But

Margaret had an almost morbid horror of “drawing people out,” of “making

things go.” She had been to the gallery at Covent Garden, but she did

not “attend” it, preferring the more expensive seats; still less did she

love it. So she made no reply.

“This year I have been three times--to ‘Faust,’ ‘Tosca,’ and--” Was it

“Tannhouser” or “Tannhoyser”? Better not risk the word.

Margaret disliked “Tosca” and “Faust.” And so, for one reason and

another, they walked on in silence, chaperoned by the voice of Mrs.

Munt, who was getting into difficulties with her nephew.

“I do in a WAY remember the passage, Tibby, but when every instrument is

so beautiful, it is difficult to pick out one thing rather than another.

I am sure that you and Helen take me to the very nicest concerts. Not a

dull note from beginning to end. I only wish that our German friends had

stayed till it finished.”

“But surely you haven’t forgotten the drum steadily beating on the low

C, Aunt Juley?” came Tibby’s voice. “No one could. It’s unmistakable.”

“A specially loud part?” hazarded Mrs. Munt. “Of course I do not go

in for being musical,” she added, the shot failing. “I only care for

music--a very different thing. But still I will say this for myself--I

do know when I like a thing and when I don’t. Some people are the same

about pictures. They can go into a picture gallery--Miss Conder can--and

say straight off what they feel, all round the wall. I never could do

that. But music is so different from pictures, to my mind. When it comes

to music I am as safe as houses, and I assure you, Tibby, I am by no

means pleased by everything. There was a thing--something about a faun

in French--which Helen went into ecstasies over, but I thought it most

tinkling and superficial, and said so, and I held to my opinion too.”

“Do you agree?” asked Margaret. “Do you think music is so different from

pictures?”

“I--I should have thought so, kind of,” he said.

“So should I. Now, my sister declares they’re just the same. We have

great arguments over it. She says I’m dense; I say she’s sloppy.”

Getting under way, she cried: “Now, doesn’t it seem absurd to you? What

is the good of the Arts if they’re interchangeable? What is the good

of the ear if it tells you the same as the eye? Helen’s one aim is to

translate tunes into the language of painting, and pictures into the

language of music. It’s very ingenious, and she says several pretty

things in the process, but what’s gained, I’d like to know? Oh, it’s

all rubbish, radically false. If Monet’s really Debussy, and Debussy’s

really Monet, neither gentleman is worth his salt--that’s my opinion.”

Evidently these sisters quarrelled.

“Now, this very symphony that we’ve just been having--she won’t let it

alone. She labels it with meanings from start to finish; turns it into

literature. I wonder if the day will ever return when music will be

treated as music. Yet I don’t know. There’s my brother--behind us. He

treats music as music, and oh, my goodness! He makes me angrier than any

one, simply furious. With him I daren’t even argue.”

An unhappy family, if talented.

“But, of course, the real villain is Wagner. He has done more than any

man in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of the arts. I

do feel that music is in a very serious state just now, though

extraordinarily interesting. Every now and then in history there do

come these terrible geniuses, like Wagner, who stir up all the wells of

thought at once. For a moment it’s splendid. Such a splash as never

was. But afterwards--such a lot of mud; and the wells--as it were, they

communicate with each other too easily now, and not one of them will run

quite clear. That’s what Wagner’s done.”

Her speeches fluttered away from the young man like birds. If only he

could talk like this, he would have caught the world. Oh, to acquire

culture! Oh, to pronounce foreign names correctly! Oh, to be well

informed, discoursing at ease on every subject that a lady started! But

it would take one years. With an hour at lunch and a few shattered hours

in the evening, how was it possible to catch up with leisured women,

who had been reading steadily from childhood? His brain might be full

of names, he might have even heard of Monet and Debussy; the trouble

was that he could not string them together into a sentence, he could not

make them “tell,” he could not quite forget about his stolen umbrella.

Yes, the umbrella was the real trouble. Behind Monet and Debussy the

umbrella persisted, with the steady beat of a drum. “I suppose my

umbrella will be all right,” he was thinking. “I don’t really mind about

it. I will think about music instead. I suppose my umbrella will be all

right.” Earlier in the afternoon he had worried about seats. Ought he

to have paid as much as two shillings? Earlier still he had wondered,

“Shall I try to do without a programme?” There had always been something

to worry him ever since he could remember, always something that

distracted him in the pursuit of beauty. For he did pursue beauty, and,

therefore, Margaret’s speeches did flutter away from him like birds.

Margaret talked ahead, occasionally saying, “Don’t you think so? don’t

you feel the same?” And once she stopped, and said, “Oh, do interrupt

me!” which terrified him. She did not attract him, though she filled him

with awe. Her figure was meagre, her face seemed all teeth and eyes, her

references to her sister and her brother were uncharitable. For all

her cleverness and culture, she was probably one of those soulless,

atheistical women who have been so shown up by Miss Corelli. It was

surprising (and alarming) that she should suddenly say, “I do hope that

you’ll come in and have some tea. We should be so glad. I have dragged

you so far out of your way.”

They had arrived at Wickham Place. The sun had set, and the backwater,

in deep shadow, was filling with a gentle haze. To the right the

fantastic sky-line of the flats towered black against the hues of

evening; to the left the older houses raised a square-cut, irregular

parapet against the grey. Margaret fumbled for her latch-key. Of course

she had forgotten it. So, grasping her umbrella by its ferrule, she

leant over the area and tapped at the dining-room window.

“Helen! Let us in!”

“All right,” said a voice.

“You’ve been taking this gentleman’s umbrella.”

“Taken a what?” said Helen, opening the door. “Oh, what’s that? Do come

in! How do you do?”

“Helen, you must not be so ramshackly. You took this gentleman’s

umbrella away from Queen’s Hall, and he has had the trouble of coming

round for it.”

“Oh, I am so sorry!” cried Helen, all her hair flying. She had pulled

off her hat as soon as she returned, and had flung herself into the

big dining-room chair. “I do nothing but steal umbrellas. I am so very

sorry! Do come in and choose one. Is yours a hooky or a nobbly? Mine’s a

nobbly--at least, I THINK it is.”

The light was turned on, and they began to search the hall, Helen, who

had abruptly parted with the Fifth Symphony, commenting with shrill

little cries.

“Don’t you talk, Meg! You stole an old gentleman’s silk top-hat. Yes,

she did, Aunt Juley. It is a positive fact. She thought it was a muff.

Oh, heavens! I’ve knocked the In-and-Out card down. Where’s Frieda?

Tibby, why don’t you ever--No, I can’t remember what I was going to say.

That wasn’t it, but do tell the maids to hurry tea up. What about this

umbrella?” She opened it. “No, it’s all gone along the seams. It’s an

appalling umbrella. It must be mine.”

But it was not.

He took it from her, murmured a few words of thanks, and then fled, with

the lilting step of the clerk.

“But if you will stop--” cried Margaret. “Now, Helen, how stupid you’ve

been!”

“Whatever have I done?”

“Don’t you see that you’ve frightened him away? I meant him to stop to

tea. You oughtn’t to talk about stealing or holes in an umbrella. I saw

his nice eyes getting so miserable. No, it’s not a bit of good now.” For

Helen had darted out into the street, shouting, “Oh, do stop!”

“I dare say it is all for the best,” opined Mrs. Munt. “We know nothing

about the young man, Margaret, and your drawing-room is full of very

tempting little things.”

But Helen cried: “Aunt Juley, how can you! You make me more and more

ashamed. I’d rather he had been a thief and taken all the apostle spoons

than that I--Well, I must shut the front-door, I suppose. One more

failure for Helen.”

“Yes, I think the apostle spoons could have gone as rent,” said

Margaret. Seeing that her aunt did not understand, she added: “You

remember ‘rent’? It was one of father’s words--Rent to the ideal, to his

own faith in human nature. You remember how he would trust strangers,

and if they fooled him he would say, ‘It’s better to be fooled than to

be suspicious’--that the confidence trick is the work of man, but the

want-of-confidence trick is the work of the devil.”

“I remember something of the sort now,” said Mrs. Munt, rather tartly,

for she longed to add, “It was lucky that your father married a wife

with money.” But this was unkind, and she contented herself with, “Why,

he might have stolen the little Ricketts picture as well.”

“Better that he had,” said Helen stoutly.

“No, I agree with Aunt Juley,” said Margaret. “I’d rather mistrust

people than lose my little Ricketts. There are limits.”

Their brother, finding the incident commonplace, had stolen upstairs to

see whether there were scones for tea. He warmed the teapot--almost too

deftly--rejected the orange pekoe that the parlour-maid had provided,

poured in five spoonfuls of a superior blend, filled up with really

boiling water, and now called to the ladies to be quick or they would

lose the aroma.

“All right, Auntie Tibby,” called Helen, while Margaret, thoughtful

again, said: “In a way, I wish we had a real boy in the house--the kind

of boy who cares for men. It would make entertaining so much easier.”

“So do I,” said her sister. “Tibby only cares for cultured females

singing Brahms.” And when they joined him she said rather sharply: “Why

didn’t you make that young man welcome, Tibby? You must do the host a

little, you know. You ought to have taken his hat and coaxed him into

stopping, instead of letting him be swamped by screaming women.”

Tibby sighed, and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead.

“Oh, it’s no good looking superior. I mean what I say.”

“Leave Tibby alone!” said Margaret, who could not bear her brother to be

scolded.

“Here’s the house a regular hen-coop!” grumbled Helen.

“Oh, my dear!” protested Mrs. Munt. “How can you say such dreadful

things! The number of men you get here has always astonished me. If

there is any danger it’s the other way round.”

“Yes, but it’s the wrong sort of men, Helen means.”

“No, I don’t,” corrected Helen. “We get the right sort of man, but the

wrong side of him, and I say that’s Tibby’s fault. There ought to be a

something about the house--an--I don’t know what.”

“A touch of the W’s, perhaps?”

Helen put out her tongue.

“Who are the W’s?” asked Tibby.

“The W’s are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don’t,

so there!”

“I suppose that ours is a female house,” said Margaret, “and one must

just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don’t mean that this house is full of

women. I am trying to say something much more clever. I mean that it

was irrevocably feminine, even in father’s time. Now I’m sure you

understand! Well, I’ll give you another example. It’ll shock you, but

I don’t care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party, and that

the guests had been Leighton, Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith,

Fitzgerald, etc. Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would

have been artistic? Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would

have seen to that. So with our house--it must be feminine, and all we

can do is to see that it isn’t effeminate. Just as another house that

I can mention, but won’t, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its

inmates can do is to see that it isn’t brutal.”

“That house being the W’s house, I presume,” said Tibby.

“You’re not going to be told about the W’s, my child,” Helen cried, “so

don’t you think it. And on the other hand, I don’t the least mind if

you find out, so don’t you think you’ve done anything clever, in either

case. Give me a cigarette.”

“You do what you can for the house,” said Margaret. “The drawing-room

reeks of smoke.”

“If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere

is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria’s

dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if

she’d worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin.”

“With an India shawl over her shoulders--”

“Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin.”

Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half

German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, “How

inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art.” And the

conversation drifted away and away, and Helen’s cigarette turned to

a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with

lighted windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished

incessantly. Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that

could never be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of

Wapping, the moon was rising.

“That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man into

the dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate--and that is so

firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he had no tea.”

For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might

be supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not

for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these

superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has

recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him,

and no name.