The Wonderful Visit, H. G. Wells [me reader txt] 📗

There were one or two little things⁠ ⁠… I would like to talk to him.”

“His trousers look like concertinas,” said Mr. Rathbone-Slater. “He ought to be told that. It’s scarcely decent.”

“Can you do imitations, Mr. Angel?” said Lady Hammergallow.

“Oh do, do some imitations!” said Mrs. Jehoram. “I adore imitations.”

“It was a fantastic thing,” said the Curate of Iping Hanger to the Vicar of Siddermorton, waving his long indisputably musical hands as he spoke; “a little involved, to my mind. I have heard it before somewhere⁠—I forget where. He has genius undoubtedly, but occasionally he is⁠—loose. There is a certain deadly precision wanting. There are years of discipline yet.”

“I don’t admire these complicated pieces of music,” said George Harringay. “I have simple tastes, I’m afraid. There seems to me no tune in it. There’s nothing I like so much as simple music. Tune, simplicity is the need of the age, in my opinion. We are so over subtle. Everything is farfetched. Home grown thoughts and ‘Home, Sweet Home’ for me. What do you think?”

“Oh! I think so⁠—quite,” said the younger Miss Pirbright.

“Well, Amy, chattering to George as usual?” said Mrs. Pirbright, across the room.

“As usual, Ma!” said the younger Miss Pirbright, glancing round with a bright smile at Miss Papaver, and turning again so as not to lose the next utterance from George.

“I wonder if you and Mr. Angel could manage a duet?” said Lady Hammergallow to the Curate from Iping Hanger, who was looking preternaturally gloomy.

“I’m sure I should be delighted,” said the Curate from Iping Hanger, brightening up.

“Duets!” said the Angel; “the two of us. Then he can play. I understood⁠—the Vicar told me⁠—”

“Mr. Wilmerdings is an accomplished pianist,” interrupted the Vicar.

“But the imitations?” said Mrs. Jehoram, who detested Wilmerdings.

“Imitations!” said the Angel.

“A pig squeaking, a cock crowing, you know,” said Mr. Rathbone-Slater, and added lower, “Best fun you can get out of a fiddle⁠—my opinion.”

“I really don’t understand,” said the Angel. “A pig crowing!”

“You don’t like imitations,” said Mrs. Jehoram. “Nor do I⁠—really. I accept the snub. I think they degrade.⁠ ⁠…”

“Perhaps afterwards Mr. Angel will relent,” said Lady Hammergallow, when Mrs. Pirbright had explained the matter to her. She could scarcely credit her ear-trumpet. When she asked for imitations she was accustomed to get imitations.

Mr. Wilmerdings had seated himself at the piano, and had turned to a familiar pile of music in the recess. “What do you think of that Barcarole thing of Spohr’s?” he said over his shoulder. “I suppose you know it?” The Angel looked bewildered.

He opened the folio before the Angel.

“What an odd kind of book!” said the Angel. “What do all those crazy dots mean?” (At that the Vicar’s blood ran cold.)

“What dots?” said the Curate.

“There!” said the Angel with incriminating finger.

“Oh come!” said the Curate.

There was one of those swift, short silences that mean so much in a social gathering.

Then the eldest Miss Papaver turned upon the Vicar. “Does not Mr. Angel play from ordinary.⁠ ⁠… Music⁠—from the ordinary notation?”

“I have never heard,” said the Vicar, getting red now after the first shock of horror. “I have really never seen.⁠ ⁠…”

The Angel felt the situation was strained, though what was straining it he could not understand. He became aware of a doubtful, an unfriendly look upon the faces that regarded him. “Impossible!” he heard Mrs. Pirbright say; “after that beautiful music.” The eldest Miss Papaver went to Lady Hammergallow at once, and began to explain into her ear-trumpet that Mr. Angel did not wish to play with Mr. Wilmerdings, and alleged an ignorance of written music.

“He cannot play from notes!” said Lady Hammergallow in a voice of measured horror. “Non⁠—sense!”

“Notes!” said the Angel perplexed. “Are these notes?”

“It’s carrying the joke too far⁠—simply because he doesn’t want to play with Wilmerdings,” said Mr. Rathbone-Slater to George Harringay.

There was an expectant pause. The Angel perceived he had to be ashamed of himself. He was ashamed of himself.

“Then,” said Lady Hammergallow, throwing her head back and speaking with deliberate indignation, as she rustled forward, “if you cannot play with Mr. Wilmerdings I am afraid I cannot ask you to play again.” She made it sound like an ultimatum. Her glasses in her hand quivered violently with indignation. The Angel was now human enough to appreciate the fact that he was crushed.

“What is it?” said little Lucy Rustchuck in the further bay.

“He’s refused to play with old Wilmerdings,” said Tommy Rathbone-Slater. “What a lark! The old girl’s purple. She thinks heaps of that ass, Wilmerdings.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Wilmerdings, you will favour us with that delicious Polonaise of Chopin’s,” said Lady Hammergallow. Everybody else was hushed. The indignation of Lady Hammergallow inspired much the same silence as a coming earthquake or an eclipse. Mr. Wilmerdings perceived he would be doing a real social service to begin at once, and (be it entered to his credit now that his account draws near its settlement) he did.

“If a man pretend to practise an art,” said George Harringay, “he ought at least to have the conscience to study the elements of it. What do you.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh! I think so too,” said the younger Miss Pirbright.

The Vicar felt that the heavens had fallen. He sat crumpled up in his chair, a shattered man. Lady Hammergallow sat down next to him without appearing to see him. She was breathing heavily, but her face was terribly calm. Everyone sat down. Was the Angel grossly ignorant or only grossly impertinent? The Angel was vaguely aware of some frightful offence, aware that in some mysterious way he had ceased to be the centre of the gathering. He saw reproachful despair in the Vicar’s eye. He drifted slowly towards the window in the recess and sat down on the little octagonal Moorish stool by the side of Mrs. Jehoram. And under the circumstances he appreciated at more than its proper value Mrs. Jehoram’s kindly smile. He put down the violin in the window seat.

XXXV The Angel’s Debut (Continued)

Mrs. Jehoram and the Angel (apart)⁠—Mr. Wilmerdings playing.

“I have so longed for a quiet word with you,” said Mrs. Jehoram in a low tone. “To tell you how delightful I found your playing.”

“I am