CHAPTER XVI
Verityput a hand round the curtain and waved wildly, and Larruppin’ Lyndesay, who had been at the beck of those fingers too long not to recognise them under any circumstances, stopped trying to sell programmes to people who had them already, and shouldered his way on to the stage, where a crowd of piqué nightmares, rather terrible in their exaggerated make-up, were busy settling themselves upon insecure pedestals.
The gas smelt vilely, and already the whole place was hot and airless. Larry tugged uneasily at his stiff collar, and wriggled uncomfortably in his evening clothes. He was frightfully sleepy too, having been out on the moor all day, and he wondered how on earth he should ever pull through the sing-song without a snore. He met Verity’s agitation rather unsympathetically, looking gloomily at the dainty little figure in its short skirt and coquettish hat, and wished she were out in the rain with him in a Burberry, and only the painting of Nature on her face. Billy-boy Blackburn, it seemed, had not yet put in an appearance, and Verity was beginning to be alarmed.
“Oh, of course I can start out an’ hunt for him, ifyou like,” Larry said morosely. “I shan’t have to go scoutin’ very far. The Red Lion is his favourite restin’-place. If not, there’s the Brown Cow,—just as soothin’. Never say die. But if he doesn’t turn up without bein’ booted, I should say leave him where he’s roostin, an’ plank along without him.”
“We can’t! He’s the making of the whole thing. Everybody depends on him.” Verity looked worried and rather helpless, a totally fresh attitude to which the young man’s heart warmed. “Do have a look for him, Larry! We ought to start in a minute.”
“All right. I’ll see where the bounder’s hidin’,”—Larry turned, obedient though disapproving,—“but I warn you I shall make a point of usin’ my own discretion. If I find him goin’ strong, I shall detain him on licensed premises, an’ you can send old Grange runnin’ at ten o’clock to shove us both under the pump!”
Verity’s heart smote her for a moment. Perhaps it was scarcely fair to send young Lionel Lyndesay scouring after a doubtful blacksmith through a series of equally doubtful pubs; and moreover she was a little afraid of her black donkey, to-night. He looked older, and, being tired, much less sunny and complaisant. Indeed, there was something almost grim about his bullet head and big shoulders and his grumbling bass. For the first time she felt him tug at his leading-strings.
She laid her hand rather timidly on his arm, and he wanted to kiss her on the one bit of eyebrowwhich had escaped the pencil, but the whole effect was distasteful to him, and again he thought longingly of Burberries and a certain bog on the moor that had played him desperately false.
“You’ll do no more of this sort of thing, do you hear?” he added, almost roughly. “It’s not fittin’! This isn’t the time for jawin’, but I’ve been meanin’ to say somethin’ for weeks, an’ the Lord only knows what it’s been like, holdin’ it in. This is goin’ to be the wind-up of your private Hippodrome, so you can just be makin’ the most of it, an’ gettin’ ready for shuttin’ down!”
He stumped off again, and fell almost into the arms of Grant, sitting in the middle of the front row. He greeted him moodily.
“Goin’ to start an opposition meetin’, old man? Verity’s agitatin’ somethin’ alarmin’ because that prize squawker of hers hasn’t turned up yet.”
“Do you mean Blackburn?” Grant got up, paling slightly, and Larry nodded.
“He’s found missin’, an’ I’m off Sherlock-Holmesin’ round the village pubs, an’ if he’s not in drawin’-room form I’ll have an amusin’ evenin’ entertainin’ him on my own. You can trust me for that.”
“I’ll come with you,” Grant said impulsively, but Larry would have none of him.
“Thanks. I can stand up to Billy all right without any parsons holdin’ my hat,” he returned unkindly. (Larry, as well as Christian, had figured in the ring, but had been pronounced unsafe.) “If you’rehankerin’ after bein’ useful, you can start in sellin’ the programmes,” he added, thrusting the pink papers into Grant’s hands, “an’ be sure you’re on the spot an’ throwin’ flowers if any of the squawkers gets a really bad drop.”
He disappeared beyond the fast-filling seats; and as he went out at the main entrance, Billy-boy slipped in by the stage-door. A minute earlier, Larrupper would have discovered him, as he had prophesied, fortifying the artistic temperament in the Red Lion; but he was still sufficiently sober to read a clock, and an ironic Providence steered him safely past Verity with a respectful salute to his place beside the piano. The curve of the grand formed a comfortable prop, and his trainer, beholding him decorously seated, breathed a sigh of relief and took a final glance at the audience before ringing up the curtain.
The room was full now, the whole district being well represented, from the dear old things who had known her from childhood and thought her amazingly clever, to the dear young ones who were being brought up in the same belief and the fear of Cantacute. They had come prepared to enjoy themselves, confidently looking for a good programme. Verity knew the standard they expected, and thought uncomfortably of one or two doubtful items; then recollected Billy-boy’s magnetic genius for keeping stragglers together, and took heart.
Christian and Mrs. Stanley were sitting in the second row, with Rishwald within “collecting”distance just behind, and Callander, looking uneasily for fire-exits and ventilators. The Bracewell girls, inspired by the atmosphere, were trying to persuade the doctor to join a choral society. Perhaps they remembered Garrick’s advice to his tongue-tied acquaintance,—“If you c-c-c-c-can’t s-speak, why d-d-don’t yousing?”
Deb had come with the Savaurys. Roger Lyndesay had a horror of stuffy rooms and noisy entertainments. He liked best his own fireside, with a pipe and some queer old book of Westmorland history that had long “s’s” spiking up and down the page. Savaury purchased three programmes from the somewhat abashed parson, and asked if the living required supplementing; then buried his nose in the pink sheet, snorting contemptuously as he recited the items aloud.
“‘I know a lovely garden’—h’m—that’s the chemist, isn’t it? Verbena hairwash, I suppose, and camomile tea. ‘I see you on every side’—the policeman’s wife with the squint. Mrs. Andrews—‘Come where my love lies dreaming’—as if onecould, when he’s been in the churchyard these last ten years, and a very good thing, too! Here’s another garden—‘Beautiful Garden of Roses’—(sotiresomenever to get away from Nature!) and—dear, dear! This is reallytoomuch—‘Leaving yet Loving’—duet by the schoolmaster and the assistant teacher who has just given notice. I shall complain to the County Council!”
Christian leaned back to ask Deborah some question about the performance, and she answered casually, without lifting her eyes from the programme. She had been stopping at Heron, helping Verity with her preparations, so had only seen him once since that mystic hour in the gloaming which had entrapped them both. The “once” had been but a lightning interview snatched in the street while Verity threw skirts at various squawkers’ doors, and they had had little chance of improving the situation, either way. She had impressed silence upon him rather fiercely, and had stayed awake half the night, recalling his hurt and puzzled face. It was all wrong,—she felt it in every nerve—and wondered how long the situation would last. She had started at least half a dozen letters that would have brought it to an end, but always some little thing had stopped her,—some chance word or thought that sent all the springs of longing flowing back in the same direction. How easily things might have been so graciously otherwise, had those fatal words never been spoken on the old bridge! They cared enough,—she almost believed,—understood enough, to have been happy together, with the promise of something greater to come; but Slinker stood between, and across the dawn of the new hope the old doubt lingered in Christian’s eyes. She was taking him as she would have taken Stanley—for Crump. His mother’s words—“You would have married Christian on the same terms!”—haunted him, sleeping and waking, torturing him past endurance.The affinity born of the long day in the open and the quiet evening at dusk had vanished, leaving only a sense of upheaval and strain and helpless bewilderment. Thingscouldnot be right, as they were; yet how to mend them? They groped for each other in the dark, and, touching hands, found each a stranger where had been a friend.
Going wearily over the same ground, her eyes resting miserably on the back of Christian’s head, she became suddenly conscious that Callander was watching her, and wrenched her attention back to Savaury and the programme.
Callander had called, the day after the meet, to apologise for his desertion.
“I thought you were coming, too,” he said bluntly, “or they’d never have got me inside! I was just backing out when Lyndesay told Miss Bracewell he was on his way to tea with you, so I knew you were all right. He said something about a fender-stool and a brown tea-pot, and made off after you. I suppose he caught you up?”
“Yes,—in the next field. What did he say about the tea-pot?”
“I didn’t quite grasp it. Something about you having one at Kilne. Miss What’s-her-name said—‘Oh, Iquiteunderstand! How sweet of you to admire your poor relations’ tea-pots!’ and Christian looked at her for a whole minute. Then he said—‘Miss Lyndesay and I have an ancestor who made tea for his Queen in a brown tea-pot. Since then,it has been the fashion in our family,’—and went away very politely; and Miss What-d’you-call-her snapped at me for forgetting to shut the gate. She must have put his back up, for Lyndesay never shoves his ancestors down your throat. When we got inside, Miss Braces sent the silver tea-pot back to the kitchen, and ordered an enamel thing with a cracked spout that poured all over the place. Were you long in getting home?”
She forgot how she had answered that. Perhaps not at all. She knew by now that Callander didn’t always need an answer.
“Everybody’s here from everywhere,” Savaury was saying, waving his eyeglasses and turning to stare, as only he could stare, at the people behind. “It’s astonishing how we all turn up at these tiresome old things,—almost as if we couldn’t help it. I suppose we get into the habit, like standing up for the National Anthem, and ordering the usual Christmas dinner even if everybody in the house has dyspepsia. Of course, Verity is quite clever and all that kind of thing, but she’s not very good at taking suggestions. It’s sotiresomewhen people won’t follow really valuable advice. I often send her heaps of music, but she’s never used a note of it yet. I see Mrs. Gardner is here in her cinematograph dress,—sequins, you say?—oh, possibly, but just as upsetting to the optic nerve. And really, somebody ought to tell Mrs. Broughton that green velvet is unlucky, and you can’t be toocarefulwhen you’rejust out of the Divorce Court,—well, Petronilla, I suppose Deborah hasheardof such a thing in this enlightened age, and you’ve broken that fan over me once already!”
The curtain went up, then, and he settled himself blissfully to fresh criticism.
“Now, did you ever—! I ask you—didyou? Is it paint or mortar, I should like to know? And why white powder on a chin receding at least 45 degrees,—not to speak of ruddy rouge on a nose that certainly shouldn’t be encouraged? Oh, of course Verity is quite charming, but I’m not altogether sure that it’s quite thethingto look as stage-finished as all that. Too suggestive of our new peerage, don’t you think? The singing? Oh, fair, yes,fair. A little unsteady, perhaps, and a shade of difference in opinion as to—— Surely there must be something wrong?”
There was certainly something wrong, and everybody in the room was beginning to realise what it was. Verity had grasped it from the start of the opening chorus, for Billy-boy had roused suddenly from his state of somnolence and dashed spiritedly into his part. She could feel him lurching against the piano as he put on pace with each verse. At first there was merely an added swing to the usual rather tame opening, but as the speed grew, and Verity’s fingers began to race along the keys, the choir took fright. The last verse found everybody in a different bar, and Billy finished first in a triumphantbellow, topping a crashing discord that made Savaury jump clean out of his seat.
Verity hurriedly dragged out the next song, trying to look as if nothing had happened, and beckoned to Harry Lauder to begin, praying that her fallen star might recover during the next item, but the soloist had barely got to his feet before the black-haired giant was in front of him, pushing him aside.
“Now don’t you get shoving where you’re not wanted, Tom m’lad!” he reproved him genially, barring his progress with a piqué arm. “My song this—‘Honish’—you know ‘Honish,’ Tom m’lad? Men not shinging all to sit down!”
He waved his arm pleasantly, and Harry-Lauder-Tom-m’lad sat down instantly, not on his pedestal, unfortunately, but very sharply and suddenly on the floor; while Verity, afraid to interfere, yet still more afraid to let him continue, tried to order the rebel back to his place.
“Your turn next after this, Billy!” she observed, with as Pélissier-like ease as she could command. “It’s ‘Queen amang the Heather’ now, you know. Give Mr. Bell a chance!”
But alas! Billy was beyond even her influence. He staggered to the front of the stage and treated the scandalised audience to a confidential wink.
“Goin’ to shing ‘Honish’!” he announced sweetly. “Honish my girl, as everybody knowsh. Everybody got a honish, like me,—everybody in thish room!” Here he fixed a pleasantly meaning gaze on Savaury,who went pink all over and waved his glasses, and would have stood up and argued the point had not Deb on one side, and Petronilla on the other, held him firmly in his seat.
Billy-boy set his feet squarely apart, and contrived to look over his shoulder at the piano without actually taking a header into Mrs. Andrews’ lap.
“Now then, come on, Honish, my dear!” he addressed his petrified leader, with a particular brand of smile that had never yet come within her experience. “Give us the twiddley-bitsh at the start, an’ we’ll show ’em all whatsh what,—see if we don’t! Good little Honish—come along!”
He filled his big chest without waiting for her, and let out one long, pure, golden note, just as Verity, wringing the hands of her soul for Larrupper scouring beer-shops, beheld Grant’s thin fingers snatch the curtain-ropes from the paralysed attendant, and snap it down before Billy-boy’s open mouth and astonished eyes. Christian and Callander had risen to follow him when he made for the steps in a single bound, but he frowned them back as he slid behind. Billy could give him half a dozen inches and as many stone, but he had him off the stage and into the green-room before the audible gasp of horror had died away. “Go straight on!” he threw at Verity as they disappeared, and as the audience broke into kindly applause which was none the less hopelessly ironic, the curtain went up again on a bruised but heroic Harry Lauder.
He was trembling in every limb, and Verity’s hands shook as they struck the keys, her eyes filling with tears of relief; but between them they sang “Queen amang the Heather” into the very heart of the crowd, so that the sixpennies, even at this early stage, caught the infection and plunged into the chorus. This time, the applause covered no awkward situation, and Verity smiled gratefully at the shaking station-master as he trembled back to his seat, at the same time beckoning to a shy bunch of curls to carry on the programme. In spite of Harry Lauder’s gallantry, she had little hope of averting failure. The star’s magnetism and the star’s songs were alike lost to them, and with them the glory of the concert; and Curls, whose memory was as circuitous as her hair, was scarcely likely to fill his place.
Her recitation was inaudible to any but the first four rows, and Savaury so far forgot himself as to prompt at one of her many sticking-points, to Petronilla’s utter confusion and shame; while the last verses had an accompaniment of yawns and ribald remarks from the sixpennies, who found this dull fare after the Highland lover. She was not much more than a child, and she finished in a series of gulps, her father and mother holding hands in the background and looking as though they would cry themselves on the slightest encouragement, in spite of their paint and giddy Pierrot hats; and though Christian tried to save the situation by throwing her a large azalea which his housekeeper had forced uponhim at the last moment, a deadly panic fell upon the unfortunate troupe. Indeed, the next “item” flatly refused to come forward at all, and Verity, beseeching him in an imploring undertone, was making up her mind to provide half the concert on her own account, when a miracle occurred. Grant, in full Pierrot costume and armed with a banjo, got Heaven knows where, marched gracefully on to the stage.
The first long moment of intense and unbelieving surprise was followed by a thunderous burst of appreciation, in which the unhappy performers joined with one accord; and having acknowledged it with a smiling bow, the new comer utilised the tail of it as cover for a few quick words with the stupefied lady at the piano. Then, stepping to the footlights, and accompanying himself on the banjo, he sang the promised “Honey.”
Nobody but Savaury noticed that Billy-boy’s large clothes hung painfully loosely upon the thin young parson. Nobody but Savaury had a shock when they saw the clerical collar bravely announcing its profession above the frivolous Pierrot frill. And even Savaury forgot to gasp at the wicked little cap cocked above the ascetic face, in the extreme excellence of the performance.
Such was the spectacle that greeted Larry, returning tired and cross from his fruitless search,—fruitless, indeed, since Billy was slumbering happily in the green-room, while Grant, in his astounding costume, held the audience in close and sympathetic attention,backed bravely enough now by the chorus, strung to action once more. Only Verity sat silent by the piano, with her hands in her lap, and her eyes on the floor, and in her heart a fighting mixture of thankfulness, admiration, relief and shame.
“So the minutes slip away—” Grant sang sweetly, twanging the banjo mechanically in the terrible nightmare which had suddenly caught him in its grip; then missed Verity’s pretty voice behind him, and threw all the soul of him into the refrain.
“’Nother night we’ll both be dead:’Nother couple dance instead:Honey! Lift your pretty head—Honey, there’ll be dancin’ in the sky!”
“’Nother night we’ll both be dead:’Nother couple dance instead:Honey! Lift your pretty head—Honey, there’ll be dancin’ in the sky!”
“’Nother night we’ll both be dead:
’Nother couple dance instead:
Honey! Lift your pretty head—
Honey, there’ll be dancin’ in the sky!”
He not only sang, he danced, danced like a leaf, like a feather, an indiarubber ball,—danced as even Billy-boy had never danced! And from that moment his clerical reputation was gone for ever.
Larrupper dropped into a chair beside Callander, and let out a volley of demand, ejaculation and applause.
“Wish I’d been on the spot!” he muttered worriedly, when the other had briefly put him in possession of the facts. “I’d have taught Mr. Billy-boy an interestin’ sing-song with a dog-whip! But I was busy crawlin’ behind settles an’ peerin’ into parlours, an’ gettin’ myself disliked somethin’ amazin’, lookin’ for the drunken squawker. I’ll have some charmin’ moments alone with him, by an’ by! But can’t old Grant just sing an’ twiddle that banjo!Who’d have thought he’d got it in him? You don’t look a bit like shoutin’, old man. One might think you were used to it!”
“So I am,” Callander answered calmly. “I knew Grant intimately before he was ordained. He was the crack entertainer of our particular neighbourhood,—always figuring on somebody’s charitable platform. I’ve heard him sing ‘Honey’ scores of times,—seen him as Pavlova, too, in frills. He can play anything and sing anything that he’s once heard. Mean to say you folks didn’t know? You’re mighty slow at picking up facts! He’s as clever as they’re made, though he’s a little bit out of practice—for him. Been starving himself for his thankless village, I expect, poor little chap! I wonder what the Bishop will say when this gets round to him?”
But Grant had left the Bishop in the green-room with Billy-boy and his parson’s clothes, and had sunk every other consideration before the success of Verity’s concert. And a success he made it indeed! Never deliberately asserting himself, he was yet definitely behind each performance, blending, guiding, smoothing over awkward places; and once, when an accompaniment disappeared, he sat down at the piano and played it by ear. At the end, dropping his banjo, he sang his mother’s cradle-song, and when he had persistently refused demands for an encore, some enterprising soul requested a speech. The cry was taken up at once, and after a moment’s hesitation he got up and came back to the footlights.
“I hope to Heaven he’s not goin’ to say anythin’ about Billy!” Larrupper agitated, nearly pushing Callander off his chair. “So upsettin’ for Verity, don’t you know? Hadn’t I better stop him jawin’ by callin’ three cheers?”
“Don’t you worry!” Callander said tranquilly, levering him gently back into his own seat. “Grant knows the right thing to do as well as anybody. He wasn’tborna parson. And your Miss Verity may be jolly thankful she had him at her back!”
Grant spoke in a rather low tone, looking pale against the painted faces round him, and also rather exhausted. He was out of practice, as Callander had said, and a young, unmarried parson has the poor very much always with him, as well as (most often) a more or less inadequate housekeeper.
“I want to thank you very much for your kindness,” he began, hugging his banjo rather nervously. “We’ve all done our best,—I’m sure you know that,—and your kind encouragement has helped some of us to do better than our best. I expect some of you are a little surprised to see me here to-night in this position,—perhaps even a little shocked—so I should just like to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed it. Some people think a parson doesn’t enjoy making a fool of himself anywhere but in his own pulpit, but it isn’t true. ‘’Nother night we’ll all be dead,’ and perhaps even a parson will be glad then that he had a last dance. In any case, this parson is proud and happy to have had a chance of serving Miss Verity Cantacute.You none of you need telling what Miss Verity does for Cantacute; it’s before you every day, speaking for itself. A gentleman of my acquaintance—and of hers—said to me the other night just this—gave me this very pithy and definite summing-up. ‘Miss Verity,’ he told me, ‘is top-dog here in Cantacute!’ That was his tribute to her—‘Miss Verity is top-dog in Cantacute.’ Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to subscribe to that tribute. In kindness, in charm, in sweetness and sympathy, in our affection, our admiration and our respect, Miss Verity is indeed top-dog in Cantacute!”
He stepped back, and Larry grinned delightedly, stumbling to his feet at the call of the National Anthem.
“If that doesn’t send my little girl scootin’ Arevar way,” he told himself gleefully, “all the Larry Lyndesays in the world will never do it!”