Jane Harding had a flat at the top of a block of mansions overlooking the river in Chelsea.
Here, on the evening following the party, came Sebastian Levinne.
‘I’ve fixed it up, Jane,’ he said. ‘Radmaager is coming here to see you some time tomorrow. He prefers to do that, it seems.’
‘Come, tell me how you live, he cried,’ quoted Jane. ‘Well, I’m living very nicely and respectably, entirely alone! Do you want something to eat, Sebastian?’
‘If there is anything?’
‘There are scrambled eggs and mushrooms, anchovy toast and black coffee if you’ll sit here peaceably while I get them.’
She put the cigarette box and the matches beside him and left the room. In a quarter of an hour, the meal was ready.
‘I like coming to see you, Jane,’ said Sebastian. ‘You never treat me as a bloated young Jew to whom only the flesh pots of the Savoy would make appeal.’
Jane smiled without speaking.
Presently she said: ‘I like your girl, Sebastian.’
‘Joe?’
‘Yes, Joe.’
Sebastian said gruffly: ‘What – what do you really think of her?’
Again Jane paused before answering.
‘So young,’ she said at last. ‘So terribly young.’
Sebastian chuckled.
‘She’d be very angry if she heard you.’
‘Probably.’ After a minute she said: ‘You care for her very much, don’t you, Sebastian?’
‘Yes. It’s odd, isn’t it, Jane, how little all the things you’ve got matter? I’ve got practically all the things I want, except Joe, and Joe is all that matters. I can see what a fool I am, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference! What’s the difference between Joe and a hundred other girls? Very little. And yet she’s the only thing in the world that matters to me just now.’
‘Partly because you can’t get her.’
‘Perhaps. But I don’t think that’s so entirely.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘What do you think of Vernon?’ asked Sebastian, after a pause.
Jane changed her position, shading her face from the fire.
‘He’s interesting,’ she said slowly, ‘partly, I think, because he is so completely unambitious.’
‘Unambitious, do you think?’
‘Yes. He wants things made easy.’
‘If so, he’ll never do anything in music. You want driving power for that.’
‘Yes, you want driving power. But music will be the power that drives him!’
Sebastian looked up, his face alight and appreciative.
‘Do you know, Jane?’ he said. ‘I believe you’re right!’
She smiled but made no answer.
‘I wish I knew what to make of the girl he’s engaged to,’ said Sebastian.
‘What is she like?’
‘Pretty. Some people might call it lovely – but I’d call it pretty. She does the things that other people do, and does them very sweetly. She’s not a cat. I’m afraid – yes, I am afraid now, that she definitely cares for Vernon.’
‘You needn’t be afraid. Your pet genius won’t be turned aside or held down. That doesn’t happen. I’m more than ever sure, every day I live, that that doesn’t happen.’
‘Nothing would turn you aside, Jane, but then you have got driving power.’
‘And yet, do you know, Sebastian, I believe I should be more easily “turned aside” as you call it, than your Vernon? I know what I want and go for it – he doesn’t know what he wants, or rather doesn’t want it, but it goes for him … And that It whatever It is, will be served – no matter at what cost.’
‘Cost to whom?’
‘Ah! I wonder …’
Sebastian rose.
‘I must go. Thanks for feeding me, Jane.’
‘Thank you for what you’ve done for me with Radmaager. You’re a very good friend, Sebastian. And I don’t think success will ever spoil you.’
‘Oh! success –’ He held out his hand.
She laid both hands on his shoulders and kissed him.
‘My dear, I hope you will get your Joe. But if not I am quite sure you will get everything else!’
Herr Radmaager did not come to see Jane Harding for nearly a fortnight. He arrived without warning of any kind at half-past ten in the morning. He stumped into the flat without a word of apology and looked round the walls of the sitting-room.
‘It is you who have furnished and papered this? Yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘You live here alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you have not always lived alone?’
‘No.’
Radmaager said unexpectedly:
‘That is good.’
Then he said commandingly:
‘Come here.’
He took her by both arms, and drew her towards the window. There he looked her over from head to foot. He pinched the flesh of her arm between finger and thumb, opened her mouth and looked down her throat, and finally put a large hand on each side of her waist.
‘Breathe in – good! Now out – sharply.’
He took a tape measure out of his pocket, made her repeat the two movements, passing the tape measure round her each time. Finally he pocketed it and put it away. Neither he nor Jane seemed to see anything curious in the proceedings.
‘It is well,’ said Radmaager. ‘Your chest is excellent, your throat is strong. You are intelligent – since you have not interrupted me. I can find many singers with a better voice than yours – your voice is very true, very beautiful – very clear, a silver thread. But if you force it, it will go – and where will you be then, I ask you? The music you sing now is absurd – if you were not pig-headed as the devil you would not sing those roles. Yet I respect you because you are an artist.’
He paused, then went on:
‘Now listen to me. My music is beautiful and it will not hurt your voice. When Ibsen created Solveig, he created the most wonderful woman character that has ever been created. My opera will stand and fall by its Solveig – and it is not sufficient to have a singer. There are Cavarossi – Mary Wontner – Jeanne Dorta – all hope to sing Solveig. But I will not have it. What are they? Unintelligent animals with marvellous vocal cords. For my Solveig I must have a perfect instrument, an instrument with intelligence. You are a young singer – as yet unknown. You shall sing at Covent Garden next year in my Peer Gynt if you satisfy me. Now listen …’
He sat down at Jane’s piano and began to play – queer rhythmic monotonous notes …
‘It is the snow, you comprehend – the northern snow. That is what your voice must be like – the snow. It is white like damask – and the pattern runs through it. But the pattern is in the music, not in your voice.’
He went on playing. Endless monotony – endless repetition – and yet suddenly the something that was woven through it caught your ear – what he had called the pattern.
He stopped.
‘Well?’
‘It will be very difficult to sing.’
‘Quite right. But you have an excellent ear. You wish to sing Solveig – yes?’
‘Naturally. It’s the chance of a lifetime. If I can satisfy you –’
‘I think you can.’ He got up again, laid his hands on her shoulders. ‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-three.’
‘And you have been very unhappy – that is so?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many men have you lived with?’
‘One.’
‘And he was not a good man?’
Jane answered evenly:
‘He was a very bad one.’
‘I see. Yes, it is that which is written in your face. Now listen to me, all that you have suffered, all that you have enjoyed, you will put it into my music not with abandon, not with unrestraint, but with controlled and disciplined force. You have intelligence and you have courage. Without courage nothing can ever be accomplished. Those without courage turn their backs on life. You will never turn your back on life. Whatever comes you will stand there facing it with your chin up and your eyes very steady … But I hope, my child, that you will not be too much hurt …’
He turned away.
‘I will send on the score,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘And you will study it.’
He stumped out of the room and the flat door banged.
Jane sat down by the table. She stared at the wall in front of her with unseeing eyes. Her chance had come.
She murmured very softly to herself:
‘I’m afraid.’
For a whole week Vernon debated the question of whether he should or should not take Jane at her word. He could get up to town at the week-end – but then perhaps Jane would be away. He felt miserably self-conscious and shy. Perhaps by now she had forgotten that she had asked him.
He let the week-end go by. He felt that certainly by now she would have forgotten him. Then he got a letter from Joe in which she mentioned having seen Jane twice. That decided Vernon. At six o’clock on the following Saturday, he rang the bell of Jane’s flat.
Jane herself opened it. Her eyes opened a little wider when she saw who it was. Otherwise she displayed no surprise.
‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’m finishing my practising. But you won’t mind.’
He followed her into a long room whose windows overlooked the river. It was very empty. A grand piano, a divan, a couple of chairs and walls that were papered with a wild riot of bluebells and daffodils. One wall alone was papered in sober dark green and on it hung a single picture – a queer study of bare tree trunks. Something about it reminded Vernon of his early adventures in the Forest.
On the music stool was the little man like a white worm.
Jane pushed a cigarette box towards Vernon, said in her brutal commanding voice, ‘Now, Mr Hill,’ and began to walk up and down the room.
Mr Hill flung himself upon the piano. His hands twinkled up and down it with marvellous speed and dexterity. Jane sang. Most of the time sotto voce, almost under her breath. Occasionally she would take a phrase full pitch. Once or twice she stopped with an exclamation of what sounded like furious impatience, and Mr Hill was made to repeat from several bars back.
She broke off quite suddenly by clapping her hands. She crossed to the fireplace, pushed the bell, and turning her head addressed Mr Hill for the first time as a human being.
‘You’ll stay and have some tea, won’t you, Mr Hill?’
Mr Hill was afraid he couldn’t. He twisted his body apologetically several times and sidled out of the room. A maid brought in black coffee and hot buttered toast which appeared to be Jane’s conception of afternoon tea.
‘What was that you were singing?’
‘Electra – Richard Strauss.’
‘Oh! I liked it. It was like dogs fighting.’
‘Strauss would be flattered. All the same, I know what you mean. It is combative.’
She pushed the toast towards him and added:
‘Your cousin’s been here twice.’
‘I know. She wrote and told me.’
He felt tongue-tied and uncomfortable. He had wanted so much to come, and now that he was here he didn’t know what to say. Something about Jane made him uncomfortable. He blurted out at last:
‘Tell me truthfully – would you advise me to chuck work altogether and stick to music?’
‘How can I possibly tell? I don’t know what you want to do.’
‘You spoke like that the other night. As though everyone can do just what they like.’
‘So they can. Not always, of course – but very nearly always. If you want to murder someone, there is really nothing to stop you. But you will be hanged afterwards – naturally.’
‘I don’t want to murder anyone.’
‘No, you want your fairy story to end happily. Uncle dies and leaves you all his money. You marry your lady love and live at Abbots – whatever it’s called – happily ever afterwards.’
Vernon said angrily:
‘I wish you wouldn’t laugh at me.’
Jane was silent a minute, then she said in a different voice:
‘I wasn’t laughing at you. I was doing something I’d no business to do – trying to interfere.’
‘What do you mean, trying to interfere?’
‘Trying to make you face reality, and forgetting that you are – what – about eight years younger than I am? – and that your time for that hasn’t yet come.’
He thought suddenly: ‘I could say anything to her – anything at all. She wouldn’t always answer the way I wanted her to, though.’
Aloud he said: ‘Please go on – I’m afraid it’s very egotistical my talking about myself like this, but I’m so worried and unhappy. I want to know what you meant when you said the other evening that of the four things I wanted, I could get any one of them but not all together.’
Jane considered a minute.
‘What did I mean exactly? Why, just this. To get what you want, you must usually pay a price or take a risk – sometimes both. For instance, I love music – a certain kind of music. My voice is suitable for a totally different kind of music. It’s an unusually good concert voice – not an operatic one – except for very light opera. But I’ve sung in Wagner, in Strauss – in all the things I like. I haven’t exactly paid a price – but I take an enormous risk. My voice may give out any minute. I know that. I’ve looked the fact in the face and I’ve decided that the game is worth the candle.
‘Now in your case, you mentioned four things. For the first, I suppose that if you remain in your uncle’s business for a sufficient number of years, you will grow rich without any further trouble. That’s not very interesting. Secondly, you want to live at Abbots Puissants – you could do that tomorrow if you married a girl with money. Then the girl you’re fond of, the girl you want to marry –’
‘Can I get her tomorrow?’ asked Vernon. He spoke with a kind of angry irony.
‘I should say so – quite easily.’
‘How?’
‘By selling Abbots Puissants. It is yours to sell, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but I couldn’t do that – I couldn’t – I couldn’t …’
Jane leaned back in her chair and smiled.
‘You prefer to go on believing that life is a fairy story?’
‘There must be some other way.’
‘Yes, of course there is another. Probably the simplest. There’s nothing to stop you both going out to the nearest Registry Office. You’ve both got the use of your limbs.’
‘You don’t understand. There are hundreds of difficulties in the way. I couldn’t ask Nell to face a life of poverty. She doesn’t want to be poor.’
‘Perhaps she can’t.’
‘What do you mean by can’t?’
‘Just that. Can’t. Some people can’t be poor, you know.’
Vernon got up, walked twice up and down the room. Then he came back, dropped on the hearth-rug beside Jane’s chair, and looked up at her.
‘What about the fourth thing? Music? Do you think I could ever do that?’
‘That I can’t say. Wanting mayn’t be any use there. But if it does happen – I expect it will swallow up all the rest. They’ll all go – Abbots Puissants – money – the girl. My dear, I don’t feel life’s going to be easy for you. Ugh! a goose is walking over my grave. Now tell me something about this opera Sebastian Levinne says you are writing.’
When he had finished telling her, it was nine o’clock. They both exclaimed and went out to a little restaurant together. As he said goodbye afterwards, his first diffidence returned.
‘I think you are one of the – the nicest people I ever met. You will let me come again and talk, won’t you? If I haven’t bored you too frightfully.’
‘Any time you like. Good night.’
Myra wrote to Joe:
‘Dearest Josephine, – I am so worried about Vernon and this woman he is always going up to town to see – some opera singer or other. Years older than he is. It’s so dreadful the way women like that get hold of boys. I am terribly worried and don’t know what to do about it. I have spoken to your Uncle Sydney, but he was not very helpful about it and just said that boys will be boys. But I don’t want my boy to be like that. I was wondering, dear Joe, if it would be any good my seeing this woman and begging her to leave my boy alone. Even a bad woman would listen to a mother, I think. Vernon is too young to have his life ruined. I really don’t know what to do. I seem to have no influence over Vernon nowadays.
‘With much love, Your affectionate
‘Aunt Myra.’
Joe showed this letter to Sebastian.
‘I suppose she means Jane,’ said Sebastian. ‘I’d rather like to see an interview between them. Frankly, I think Jane would be amused.’
‘It’s too silly,’ said Joe hotly. ‘I wish to goodness Vernon would fall in love with Jane. It would be a hundred times better for him than being in love with that silly stick of a Nell.’
‘You don’t like Nell, do you, Joe?’
‘You don’t like her either.’
‘Oh, yes, I do, in a way. She doesn’t interest me very much, but I can quite see the attraction. In her own way, she’s quite lovely.’
‘Yes, in a chocolate box way.’
‘She doesn’t attract me, because to my mind there’s nothing there to attract as yet. The real Nell hasn’t happened. Perhaps she never will. I suppose to some people that is very attractive because it opens out all sorts of possibilities.’
‘Well, I think Jane is worth ten of Nell! The sooner Vernon gets over his silly calf love for Nell and falls in love with Jane instead, the better it will be.’
Sebastian lit a cigarette and said slowly:
‘I’m not sure that I agree with you.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it’s not very easy to explain. But, you see, Jane is a real person – very much so. To be in love with Jane might be a whole-time job. We’re agreed, aren’t we, that Vernon is very possibly a genius? Well, I don’t think a genius wants to be married to a real person. He wants to be married to someone rather negligible – someone whose personality won’t interfere. Now it may sound cynical, but that’s what will probably happen if Vernon marries Nell. At the moment she represents – I don’t quite know what to call it – what’s that line? “The apple tree, the singing and the gold …” Something like that. Once he’s married to her, that will go. She’ll just be a nice pretty sweet-tempered girl whom, naturally, he loves very much. But she won’t interfere – she’ll never get between him and his work – she hasn’t got sufficient personality. Now Jane might – she wouldn’t mean to, but she might. It isn’t Jane’s beauty that attracts you – it’s herself. She might be absolutely fatal to Vernon …’
‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘I don’t agree with you. I think Nell’s a silly little ass, and I should hate to see Vernon married to her … I hope it will all come to nothing …’
‘Which is much the likeliest thing to happen,’ said Sebastian.