Turf or Stone (18 page)

As soon as it was beginning to get light, the friends parted, Lewis returning to Salus, Easter going off to the stables.

Lewis stopped and looked back at the cottage.

‘Two hundred pounds!’ he exclaimed, amazed.

He went over his shabby friend’s appearance, his way of living, his unpopularity, even Matt’s curtness the night before.

‘My word, I’d like to know more about him!’

He caught sight of Easter for a moment, striding along the edge of the quarry, arms swinging, easy and graceful.

Lewis had lost most of his former geniality and
warm-
heartedness 
in petty calculation, but now for a brief space he wished he knew more about Easter as a man. He walked on, puzzled and, for some reason, vaguely sorry.

The day turned out stormy and cold. Rain fell in lashing showers, dead leaves whirled. Women kept running in and out of their doors, fetching and putting out washing which, in the fine intervals, blew from the lines till Pendoig seemed to be in the midst of a white gala. The sharp, heavy flapping of sheets was heard on every side.

Easter rode by Vey’s cottage. He saw Ann outside, standing on the muddy path, disentangling a long
roller-towel
from a clothes’ prop. Her fine brown hair was all over her face, her hands and half-bare arms were red and soapy.

‘A bad washing day,’ shouted Easter.

‘Yes,’ she screamed, as a wet shirt flapped in her face.

In the middle of the morning, when Easter was preparing to take himself off to The Gallustree, the boy who worked for Matt rode into the yard on his low, red bicycle. He held the shiny handlebars in the middle and wore his cap back to front. He was a fair, thick-skinned youth of twenty-one, short, cheerful, with wide shoulders, a skinny waist and a bull neck.

‘Hullo, Easter.’

Easter answered in some fashion.

‘Old Kilminster come off yesterday.’

‘He did! Where?’

‘Rigg’s Pitch. Mare went down clean – slipped on them flints. He went over her head: ’twas funny.’

‘Hurt?’

‘Nah… right as rain. Scraped his hand a bit. The mare stood still like she was saying “Anything wrong?” I
laughed, but it do make you afraid.’

‘The roads are awful. Well, so long, Cyril… keep your eye on this ’un. Off her feed.’

‘So long,’ said Cyril, and began to whistle.

Phoebe was having a music lesson.

It was past four, getting dusk, and her master had just lighted a lamp. His old house looked out on a churchyard; the branches of the tall, silver birches brushed the window. The heavy curtains were undrawn. The room was long. In one corner an electric stove gave out a dry exhausting heat. The furniture comprised an armchair, a couple of music stands, a low-fronted chest of drawers on which lay a violin, and the Blüthner Grand, at which Phoebe was sitting. The board floor was bare.

The master stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. She stopped. The piano hummed like a choir of supernatural voices ascending to heaven. She took her foot off the pedal and there was dead silence.

‘I knew you couldn’t,’ said the master. He had a thick, Jew voice. ‘I told you you couldn’t play Chopin and,
what’s more, you never will.’

‘Why not?’ cried Phoebe passionately.

‘You are too serious! It wasn’t badly
done
, you understand… but Chopin… he is laughing all – the – time. I’ve told you fifty times and – you – will – not – listen, you are so headstrong. Now you’ve had your way, you’ve failed, you see you – cannot – play – Chopin. Remember that: you – cannot – play – Chopin. Say it after me: one, two, three. I – cannot – play – Chopin.’ She was silent.

‘Ah, you’re obstinate…’ said the Jew balefully. He was a withered little man with a dark skin and a tangle of unshorn grey curls. He spluttered when he talked, wore canvas trousers, and frequently soliloquised. The
townspeople
thought him almost disreputable, but Phoebe’s grandmother knew what she was doing when she sent Phoebe to him. He had quarrelled with the organist of Saint Mary’s Church, whom he had utterly routed in a battle of correspondence through the
Clystowe Times
, and when he wished to be particularly unpleasant or harsh, imitated the organist’s hiccuppy way of talking and walked about the room on his toes, twisting his hands and blowing through his teeth.

‘I will play Chopin,’ said Phoebe suddenly. She had grown even more obstinate.

‘Ah…!’ he made an impatient gesture.

‘Now get up. Listen to me.’

He sat down to the piano.

‘I know I cannot play the piano; I am a violinist. But I can do better than that. Now listen.’

He pursed his irascible mouth and began. His hands were brown and supple with rather large joints and short,
flawless nails. It was true that he did not seem to be able to play very well, but with all his faults he contrived to get at the quick of what he was playing. His method was unfinished, strong, domineering. Under his hands the music took on a kind of mournful, subtle humour.

He turned to her.

‘You see?’

Phoebe nodded unwillingly.

‘But how can you
prove
he was laughing?’ she asked triumphantly a moment later. The Jew was used to the expression on her face at that moment. He jumped up exasperated.

‘Miss Kilminster, you are like a little child, asking “Why does two and two make four?” I cannot prove it; there’s no need. I know! In theory you can prove anything. We, too, have our grammar, our multiplication table, but there is a time when all that is past – we enter a new region where there’s no
proof
, only understanding – sympathy?’

He added the last word doubtfully as though he were aware of its poverty, then resumed as he saw she was about to speak.

‘Bah!’ he burst out violently, ‘there are no words. You may know your grammar. Good. You can sit down and write out verbs. But you cannot write a living book…’

She waited until the tirade was over, her clear, somewhat melancholy eyes fixed on the Jew’s animated face. He always threw her mind into a chaos. Then he suddenly became tranquil and, touching the back of her hand with his forefinger, spoke a few words which she remembered.

‘You are obstinate. That is a good thing to be. But think
sometimes, “There – are – some – things – I – cannot – do” and you will go farther. You will not waste so much time. Because you have not all natures you cannot be all things; because you cannot be good, bad, selfish, self-denying, religious, blasphemous and so on, you cannot
do
all things.’

‘I can be all those things.’

‘For a little while; not consistently.’

‘Then I may have a mood when I can play Chopin.’

He shrugged his shoulders: ‘Perhaps; I think not. You are not cynical. It isn’t your direction. There – are – some – things – you – cannot – do! And plenty of very good ones that you can. Stick to those. Remember. What a lecture! There is Leyden.’

Someone was knocking at the door. Phoebe gathered up her music and put on her gloves. The Jew was dragging the curtain across the window.

‘I’ve given you too long,’ said he briskly; in a totally different, more everyday, and less arrestingly sincere tone. ‘Hurry up. Come in, Leyden.’

There entered a tall spectacled boy of nineteen in a blue, tight-waisted overcoat. He was carrying a violin case and looking at the ground as though overcome by shyness. He brought with him a faint odour of eucalyptus.

‘Please, Mr Cohen, I want to ask you a favour. Will you give me my lesson another time.’ He was a Dutch boy, speaking English correctly, but in a stiff, toneless voice. He was blushing; the Jew looked at him in amusement, for it was the first time Leyden had ever asserted himself in that room.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you an hour tonight – nine to ten.’

‘Thank you so much – I am greatly obliged.’

He stood, painfully embarrassed by a belated idea. Ought he to have greeted Phoebe? They had spoken several times. He felt he had been rude. The old man was looking at him sardonically…. With a great effort he opened the door for her. It was difficult to speak with Mr Cohen listening, so obviously listening.

‘You are going home, Miss Kilminster?’

‘Yes. Goodbye,’ she said, confused.

‘May I walk with you?’

‘Oh, yes, of course!’

Mr Cohen was positively laughing.

‘Goodbye,’ they all cried at once. Leyden shut the door with a bang. He had to open it again to free a corner of his coat. He stood with Phoebe at the head of the bare, draughty stairs which wound down into darkness between cold, blue walls. She gave him a shy glance, arranged her glove, and led the way. Leyden watched her fair plaits swing against her shoulders.

When they were outside he gently took possession of her music case.

‘I shouldn’t like to live in a churchyard,’ she began as they descended the steps. These were no more than nervous words meaning nothing, for she loved the elegant town-house, and its row of sedate neighbours, which looked across the green turf to the church.

‘Oh yes, I would like to live here. It seems to me to be beautiful and nobody is buried here now.’

It was slightly misty. She raised her eyes to the tall spire going up, up into the sky, still smouldering from a fiery sunset. They walked in silence for some minutes,
Leyden carrying the music case. Her face was happy. How did she guess the boy had put off his music lesson in order to walk with her? She knew it. And so did the master, but luckily Leyden was not aware of this, or he would have smarted with humiliation.

It was not far to Phoebe’s home. He realised that he must speak at once.

‘So you are going to Paris, Miss Kilminster?’

‘Yes; after Christmas; my grandmother is taking me.’

‘You have left school?’

‘Oh yes. We – my grandmother and I – don’t believe in schools for old people.’

‘Oh… oh,’ Leyden laughed. His cheeks were rosy from the cold and his spectacles were dim. Phoebe noticed that the mist had already damped his thick rough hair. He wore no hat.

‘But you tell –
told
me that you do not speak French very well. What will you do?’

‘I shall say “yes” or “no”.’

‘And suppose that you wish to buy something?’

‘I shall draw a little picture of it.’

‘Bravo,’ exclaimed he, laughing again. They were very near the grandmother’s house.

‘You would do better to carry a dictionary, mademoiselle.
Regardez
!’

On his open hand, extended towards her, lay two tiny red volumes, smaller than a match box. ‘Look at them,’ he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. ‘They are for you.’

Phoebe was so startled, so acutely embarrassed, and so delighted, that she was absolutely dumb. Look what began to happen when you were seventeen!

‘
Oh monsieur c’est trop! Vous êtes vraiment trop bon
,’ was all she could utter in her confusion, while Leyden dropped the music case and one dictionary.

‘Thank you very much,’ Phoebe continued enthusiastically.

‘It is nothing. It makes me very pleased.’

Then he handed her both dictionaries, and made her a bow. Their two bright laughing faces were curiously childish and expectant. They were soon at the
grandmother’s
steps. Phoebe took her case and turned on the bottom step to say goodbye. He had laid one hand in its woollen glove on the narrow iron railing, and so, he looked up at her.

‘
Au revoir
, Miss Kilminster. I shall see you perhaps, next Monday?’

‘Yes…’ she replied uncertainly, ‘yes, yes. Goodbye,’ and she ran up the stairs trembling.

‘Thank you,’ she called again as she opened the door. Leyden smiled and walked away with a manly stride.

Phoebe rushed upstairs to her room, tore off her hat with some of Dorothy’s impetuosity and flung herself into a chair, her elbows on the windowsill. The garden below was full of dead leaves. There was a bare fig tree, and one frosty red rosebud hanging heavily from the bush.

‘He is too young,’ she thought wildly, and all the time she was smiling a lovely, absent smile. Her expression suddenly changed, but before it was clearly defined her eye fell on the clock. It was nearly five, and she would be late for tea. She went to the mirror, took off her coat, and combed the top of her head. There she stood in a narrow dark dress, a tall figure which promised grace.

Phoebe’s grandmother was sixty-seven years old. She was the widow of a Cardiff doctor who had had a large practice, worked indefatigably, and managed to leave her very comfortably off. Her father had been a Welsh farmer, yet love of luxury and delight in all beautiful things was born in her. From her, Phoebe inherited her lovely voice, though it would never be as fine as the grandmother’s had been in its prime.

The doctor, who was passionately devoted to music, had trained his wife to sing. In his youth he taught in a Sunday school, and at a picnic party of his pupils he noticed a newcomer, a little wild girl in a red frock, who was dancing and shouting like a creature possessed. He watched her; presently she joined in a singing round game, always making more noise than all the others put together. He pointed at her: ‘You, little girl in red, stop shouting and sing properly.’

Afterwards he caught hold of her as she was running past him.

‘What is your name?’ he asked, looking at her earnestly.

‘Eirian Thomas.’

‘Well, Eirian, how old are you?’

‘Twelve.’

She was a small child. He had not guessed she was so old.

‘Listen to me. Eirian, and stand still while I speak to you. There’s plenty of time for play. You can sing very well, so do not shout so much. Go and learn a song.’

She ran off laughing.

The young doctor noted her comings and goings until she was fifteen years old. One day he went quite a long way to her father’s farm on purpose to ask her if she would sing in a competition next day. He thought she had grown more serious; she was studying, a table was littered with her books.

He was surprised when she actually turned up at the competition. She was just the same fascinating, laughing girl, always moving, her curly hair standing out all round her head.

The accompanist did not take her seriously. He refused to play for her.

‘Go away. You can’t sing,’ said he with a frown.

‘I’ll play for you,’ said the doctor.

She sang four bars of an old religious song and then broke down in tears. The competition was won; she possessed a rare contralto.

The doctor began to teach her, but there came an interlude in their relationship, a long interlude, when the doctor was forgotten, and the voice unused. This bit of romantic history, both fantastic and pathetic, did not lead to marriage, and when it was over, remained absolutely secret and unguessed by people who knew her really well. She never alluded to it. It developed her cultured tastes and deepened her naturally quick observation. She became a singularly loving and sympathetic woman whose marked virtues of charity and human kindliness were tinged by impatience. At the age of twenty-four she married her doctor. He taught her much besides singing. After her marriage she refused to give concerts and could hardly be prevailed upon to use her voice in public at all. To a very
few she was known as the Welsh Nightingale. When the doctor died she gave it up altogether. At her present age she was still a vital impulsive person who was happy in her own company. Phoebe was the only grandchild in whom she took any interest. Even she had no idea of Eirian’s astonishing past. Her only confidant died with the doctor.

When Phoebe entered the drawing room she found her grandmother entertaining a visitor. This was a lady verging on middle age, wearing a fur coat which was pushed back from her shoulders, and talking in a plaintive voice while she held her tea cup close to her face.

‘All those monstrous bungalows on our beautiful road,’ she was saying as if concluding a long speech: ‘a group of splendid old elms are to come down next. There’s no end to it.’

Eirian nodded and gazed at the woman’s arched eyelids, and dolefully drooping mouth. Phoebe advanced, shook hands, and taking some bread and butter, sat down on a stool.

When the visitor had gone, Eirian opened the glass door leading into the garden and called the dog. There was a smell of dead leaves mingling with wood burning on the hearth. The room was papered in dull old gold, the carpet was like soft golden moss, the furniture, of which there was little, was solid and old. There were no pictures and few ornaments save a large Buddha, the size of a small child, in gilded wood sitting tranquilly on a chest.