The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure Page 3

  III.

  Later, catching through the open door fragments of a conversation on thestairs which indicated that his mother was at last coming down for tea,he sped like a threatened delinquent into the drawing-room. He had nowish to encounter his mother, though that woman usually said little.

  The drawing-room, after the bathroom, was Edward Henry's favouritedistrict in the home. Since he could not spend the whole of his time inthe bathroom,--and he could not!--he wisely gave a special care to thedrawing-room, and he loved it as one always loves that upon which onehas bestowed benefits. He was proud of the drawing-room, and he had theright to be. The principal object in it, at night, was the electricchandelier, which would have been adequate for a lighthouse. EdwardHenry's eyes were not what they used to be; and the minor advertisementsin the _Signal_, which constituted his sole evening perusals, oftenlacked legibility. Edward Henry sincerely believed in light and heat; hewas almost the only person in the Five Towns who did. In the Five Townspeople have fires in their grates--not to warm the room, but to make theroom bright. Seemingly they use their pride to keep themselves warm.At any rate, whenever Edward Henry talked to them of radiators, theywould sternly reply that a radiator did not and could not brighten aroom. Edward Henry had made the great discovery that an efficientchandelier will brighten a room better even than a fire; and he hadgilded his radiator. The notion of gilding the radiator was not hisown; he had seen a gilded radiator in the newest hotel at Birmingham,and had rejoiced as some peculiar souls rejoice when they meet a fineline in a new poem. (In concession to popular prejudice, Edward Henryhad fire-grates in his house, and fires therein during exceptionallyfrosty weather; but this did not save him from being regarded in theFive Towns as in some ways a peculiar soul.) The effulgent source ofdark heat was scientifically situated in front of the window, and onordinarily cold evenings Edward Henry and his wife and mother, and anacquaintance if one happened to come in, would gather round the radiatorand play bridge or dummy whist.

  The other phenomena of the drawing-room which particularly interestedEdward Henry were the Turkey carpet, the four vast easy chairs, thesofa, the imposing cigar-cabinet, and the mechanical piano-player. Atone brief period he had hovered a good deal about the revolving bookcasecontaining the encyclopedia, to which his collection of books waslimited; but the frail passion for literature had not survived astruggle with the seductions of the mechanical piano-player.

  The walls of the room never drew his notice. He had chosen, some yearsbefore, a patent washable kind of wall-paper (which could be wiped overwith a damp cloth), and he had also chosen the pattern of the paper, butit is a fact that he could spend hours in any room without even seeingthe pattern of its paper. In the same way, his wife's cushions andlittle draperies and bows were invisible to him, though he had searchedfor and duly obtained the perfect quality of swansdown which filled thecushions.

  The one ornament of the walls which attracted him was a large andsplendidly framed oil-painting of a ruined castle in the midst of asombre forest through which cows were strolling. In the tower of thecastle was a clock, and this clock was a realistic timepiece whosefingers moved and told the hour. Two of the oriel windows of the castlewere realistic holes in its masonry; through one of them you could put akey to wind up the clock, and through the other you could put a key towind up a secret musical box which played sixteen different tunes. Hehad bought this handsome relic of the Victorian era (not less artistic,despite your scorn, than many devices for satisfying the higherinstincts of the present day) at an auction sale in the Strand, London.But it, too, had been supplanted in his esteem by the mechanicalpiano-player.

  He now selected an example of the most expensive cigar in thecigar-cabinet, and lighted it as only a connoisseur can light acigar--lovingly; he blew out the match lingeringly, with regret, anddropped it and the cigar's red collar with care into a large copper bowlon the centre table, instead of flinging it against the Japaneseumbrella in the fireplace. (A grave disadvantage of radiators is thatyou cannot throw odds and ends into them.) He chose the most expensivecigar because he wanted comfort and peace. The ham was not digestingvery well.

  Then he sat down and applied himself to the property advertisements inthe _Signal_, a form of sensational serial which usually enthralledhim--but not to-night. He allowed the paper to lapse on to the floor,and then rose impatiently, rearranged the thick dark blue curtainsbehind the radiator, and finally yielded to the silent call of themechanical piano-player. He quite knew that to dally with thepiano-player while smoking a high-class cigar was to insult the cigar;but he did not care. He tilted the cigar upwards from an extreme cornerof his mouth, and through the celestial smoke gazed at the titles of thenew music-rolls which had been delivered that day, and which were rangedon the top of the piano itself.

  And while he did so he was thinking:

  "Why in thunder didn't the little thing come and tell me at once aboutthat kid and his dog-bite? I wonder why she didn't! She seemed only tomention it by accident. I wonder why she didn't bounce into thebathroom and tell me at once?"

  But it was untrue that he sought vainly for an answer to this riddle.He was aware of the answer. He even kept saying over the answer tohimself:

  "She's made up her mind I've been teasing her a bit too much latelyabout those kids and their precious illnesses. And she's doing thedignified. That's what she's doing! She's doing the dignified!"

  Of course, instantly after his tea he ought to have gone up-stairs toinspect the wounded victim of dogs. The victim was his own child, andits mother was his wife. He knew that he ought to have gone up-stairslong since. He knew he ought now to go, and the sooner the better. Butsomehow he could not go; he could not bring himself to go. In the minorand major crises of married life there are not two partners but four;each partner has a dual personality; each partner is indeed twodifferent persons, and one of these fights against the other, with thecommon result of a fatal inaction.

  The wickeder of the opposing persons in Edward Henry, getting the upperhand of the more virtuous, sniggered. "Dirty teeth, indeed!Blood-poisoning, indeed! Why not rabies, while she's about it? Iguarantee she's dreaming of coffins and mourning coaches already!"

  Scanning nonchalantly the titles of the music-rolls, he suddenly saw:"Funeral March. Chopin."

  "She shall have it," he said, affixing the roll to the mechanism. Andadded, "Whatever it is!"

  For he was not acquainted with the Funeral March from Chopin'sPianoforte Sonata. His musical education had in truth begun only a yearearlier, with the advertisement of the "Pianisto" mechanical player. Hewas a judge of advertisements, and the "Pianisto" literature pleased himin a high degree. He justifiably reckoned that he could distinguishbetween honest and dishonest advertising. He made a deep study of thequestion of mechanical players, and deliberately came to the conclusionthat the "Pianisto" was the best. It was also the most costly; but oneof the conveniences of having six thousand pounds a year is that youneed not deny yourself the best mechanical player because it happens tobe the most costly. He bought a "Pianisto," and incidentally he boughta superb grand piano, and exiled the old cottage piano to the nursery.

  The "Pianisto" was the best, partly because, like the vacuum-cleaner, itcould be operated by electricity, and partly because, by means ofcertain curved lines on the unrolling paper, and of certain gun-metallevers and clutches, it enabled the operator to put his secret ardentsoul into the music. Assuredly it had given Edward Henry a taste formusic. The whole world of musical compositions was his to conquer, andhe conquered it at the rate of about two great masters a month. FromHandel to Richard Strauss, even from Palestrina to Debussy, theachievements of genius lay at his mercy. He criticised them with afreedom that was entirely unprejudiced by tradition. Beethoven was nomore to him than Arthur Sullivan; indeed, was rather less. The works ofhis choice were the "Tannhaeuser" overture, a potpourri of Verdi's"Aida," Chopin's Study in Thirds--which ravish
ed him--and a selectionfrom "The Merry Widow," which also ravished him. So that on the wholeit may be said that he had a very good natural taste.

  He at once liked Chopin's Funeral March. He entered profoundly into thespirit of it. With the gun-metal levers he produced in a marvellousfashion the long tragic roll of the drums, and by the manipulation of aclutch he distilled into the chant at the graveside a melancholysweetness that rent the heart. The later crescendi were overwhelming.And as he played there, with the bright blaze of the chandelier on hisfair hair and beard, and the blue cigar-smoke in his nostrils, and theeffluence of the gilded radiator behind him, and the intimacy of thedrawn window curtains and the closed and curtained door folding him infrom the world, and the agony of the music grieving his artistic soul tothe core--as he played there, he grew gradually happier and happier, andthe zest of existence seemed to return. It was not only that he feltthe elemental, unfathomable satisfaction of a male who is sheltered insolitude from a pack of women that have got on his nerves; there wasalso the more piquant assurance that he was behaving in a very sprightlymanner. How long was it since he had accomplished anything worthy ofhis ancient reputation as a "card," as "the" card of the Five Towns? Hecould not say; but now he knew that he was being a card again. Thewhole town would smile and forgive and admire if it learnt that--

  Nellie invaded the room. She had resumed the affray.

  "Denry!" she reproached him, in an uncontrolled voice. "I'm ashamed ofyou! I really am!" She was no longer doing the dignified. The maskwas off, and the unmistakable lineaments of the outraged motherappeared. That she should address him as "Denry" proved the intensityof her agitation. Years ago, when he had been made an alderman, hiswife and his mother had decided that "Denry" was no longer a suitablename for him, and had abandoned it in favour of "Edward Henry."

  He ceased playing.

  "Why?" he protested, with a ridiculous air of innocence. "I'm onlyplaying Chopin. Can't I play Chopin?"

  He was rather surprised and impressed that she had recognised the piecefor what it was. But of course she did, as a fact, know something aboutmusic, he remembered, though she never touched the "Pianisto."

  "I think it's a pity you can't choose some other evening for yourfuneral marches!" she exclaimed.

  "If that's it," said Edward Henry like lightning, "why did you stick meout you weren't afraid of hydrophobia?"

  "I'll thank you to come up-stairs," she replied with warmth.

  "Oh, all right, my dear! All right!" he cooed.

  And they went up-stairs in a rather solemn procession.