That Unfortunate Marriage Volume I Part 9

"Quite well, thank you, Dr. Hatch," said May, looking up with her bright young smile.

"That's right! But don't mention to any member of the Faculty that I said so. There's a professional etiquette in these matters; and I shouldn't like to be quoted as having given any encouragement to rude health."

"I'll take care," returned May, falling into his humour, and a.s.suming a grave look. "And I will always bear witness for you that you gave me some _very_ nasty medicine when I had the measles, Dr. Hatch. I'm sure the other doctors would approve of that, wouldn't they?"

"Nice child," murmured Dr. Hatch. "Understands a joke. It would be as much as my practice is worth to talk in that way to some young ladies I could mention. Well, and so this is your first entrance into the gay and festive scene, eh?"

"Yes; I have never been to a regular dinner-party before. I am so glad Mr. Bransby is quite well again," said May, looking across the room at their host.

"Are you? Well, I believe you are glad. Yes; it is much to be desired that he should be quite well again." Dr. Hatch's eyes had followed the girl's, and rested on Martin Bransby with a thoughtful look. Then, after a minute's pause, he went on: "Now, as you are not quite familiar here, I'll give you a map of the country, as the French say. Do you know who that is who has just come in? No? That is Mr. Bragg. He makes millions and billions of tin-tacks every week. You've heard of him, of course?"

May nodded. "Of course you have. Couldn't live long in Oldchester without hearing of Mr. Bragg. That handsome, elderly man, now bowing to Mrs. Bransby, is Major Mitton, of the Engineers. Ever hear of _him_? Ah, well; I suppose not. He's a very good-natured, kindly gentleman, and an excellent soldier, who distinguished himself greatly in the Crimea. But no one will ever hear him say a word about that. What he _is_ proud of is his reputation as an amateur actor. I have known more reprehensible vanities. Ah, and here come the Pipers, Miss Polly and Miss Patty; and I think that makes up our number."

Dr. Hatch did not think of asking May whether she had ever heard of the Miss Pipers. The fact was she had heard of them very often. They were Oldchester celebrities quite as much as Mr. Bragg was. But their fame had not extended beyond Oldchester; whereas Bragg's tin-tacks were daily hammered into the consciousness of the civilized world.

Miss Mary and Miss Martha Piper (invariably called Polly and Patty) were old maids between fifty and sixty years old. They were not rich; they had never been handsome; they were not, even in the opinion of their most partial friends, brilliantly clever. What, then, was the cause of the distinction they undoubtedly enjoyed in Oldchester society? The cause was Miss Polly Piper's musical talent--or at least her reputation for musical talent, which, for social purposes, was the same thing. Miss Piper had once upon a time, no matter how many years ago, composed an oratorio, and offered it to the Committee of a great Musical Festival, for performance. It was not accepted--for reasons which Miss Piper was at no loss to perceive. The reader is implored not to conclude rashly that the oratorio was rejected because it failed to reach the requisite high standard. Miss Piper knew a great deal better than that. She had been accustomed to mix with the musical world from an early age. Her father, an amiable Oldchester clergyman, rector of the church in which Mr. Sebastian Bach Simpson was organist, was considered the best amateur violoncello player in the Midland Counties. When the great music meeting brought vocal and instrumental artists to Oldchester, the Reverend Reuben Piper's house was always open to several of them; and Miss Polly had poured out tea for more than one great English tenor, great German ba.s.so, and great Scandinavian soprano. So that, as she often said, she was clearly quite behind the scenes of the artistic world, and thoroughly understood its intrigues, its ambitions, and its jealousies.

Thus she was less mortified and discouraged by the rejection of her oratorio than she would have been had she supposed it due to honest disapproval. The work, which was ent.i.tled "Esther," was played and sung, however;--not indeed by the great English tenor, German ba.s.so, and Scandinavian soprano, but by very competent performers. It was performed in the large room in Oldchester, used for concerts and lectures, and called Mercers' Hall. Admission was by invitation, and the hall was quite full, which, as Miss Patty triumphantly observed, was a very gratifying tribute on the part of the town and county. Miss Polly did not conduct her own music. Ladies had not yet wielded the conductor's _baton_ in those days. But she sat in a front row, with her father on one side of her and her sister Patty on the other, and bowed her acknowledgments to the executants at the end of each piece.

It was a great day for the Piper family, and that one solitary fact (for the oratorio was never repeated) flavoured the rest of their lives with an odour of artistic glory, as one Tonquin bean will perfume a whole chest full of miscellaneous articles. Truly, the triumph was not cheap.

The rehearsals and the performance had to be paid for, and it was said at the time that the Reverend Reuben had been obliged to sell some excellent Ca.n.a.l Shares in order to meet the expenses, and had thereby diminished his income by so many pounds sterling for evermore. But at least the expenditure purchased a great deal of happiness; and that is more than can be said of most investments which the world would consider wiser. From that day forth, Miss Polly held the position of a musical authority in certain circles. Long after a younger generation had grown up, to whom that famous performance of "Esther" was as vague an historical fact as the Heptarchy, people continued to speak of Miss Polly Piper as a successful composer. The lives of the two sisters were shaped by this tradition. They went every year to London for a month during the season; and, for a longer or shorter time, to some Continental city,--Leipsic, Frankfort, or Brussels: once, even, as far as Vienna,--whence they came back bringing with them the latest _dicta_ in musical fas.h.i.+ons, just as Mrs. Clarkson, the chief Oldchester milliner, announced every year her return from Paris with a large and varied a.s.sortment of bonnets in the newest styles. It has been written that "_they_" brought back with them the newest _dicta_ on musical matters; but it must not be supposed that Miss Patty set up to interpret the law on such points. She was, as to things musical, merely her sister's echo and mouthpiece. But sincerity, that best salt for all human communications, preserved Miss Patty's subservience from any taint of humbug. However extravagant might be her estimate of Polly's artistic gifts and attainments, you could not doubt that it was genuine.

These circ.u.mstances were, broadly speaking, known to every one present.

But May was acquainted with another aspect of the legend of Miss Piper's oratorio: a seamy side which the poor good lady did not even suspect.

That famous oratorio had been a fertile source of mirth at the time to all the performers engaged in it. There were all sorts of stories current as to the amazing things Miss Piper did with her instrumentation: the impossible efforts she expected from the "wind,"

and the anomalous sounds she elicited from the "wood." These were retailed with much gus...o...b.. Jo Weatherhead, who, in virtue of a high nasal voice, and a power (common enough in those parts) of reading music at sight, had sung with the tenors through many a Festival chorus, and known many professional musicians during his sojourn in Birmingham. One favourite anecdote was of a trombone player who at rehearsal, in the very climax and stress of the overture, when he was to have come in with a powerful effect, stretched out his arm at full length, and produced the most hideous and unearthly noise ever heard; and who, on being rebuked by the conductor, handed up his part for inspection, observing, amid the unrestrained laughter of the band, that that was the nearest _he_ could come to the note Miss Piper had written for him, which was some half octave below the usual compa.s.s of his instrument. Of this, and many another similar story, Miss Piper and Miss Piper's friends knew nothing. But May, remembering them, looked at the two old ladies as they marched into the room with an interest not so wholly reverential as might have been wished.

They were both short, fat, snub-nosed little women, with wide smiling mouths, and double chins. Miss Patty was rather shorter, rather fatter, and rather more snub-nosed than her gifted sister. But the chief difference between the two, which struck one at first sight, was that whereas Miss Piper's own grey locks were disposed in a thick kind of curl, like a plethoric sausage, on each side of her face, Miss Patty wore a pale, gingerbread-coloured wig. Why, having all the wigmaker's stores to choose from, she should have chosen just that particular hue, May secretly wondered as she looked at her. But so it was. And if she had worn a blue wig, it could scarcely have been more innocent of any attempt to deceive the beholder. Both ladies wore good substantial silk gowns, and little lace caps with artificial flowers in them. But the remarkable feature in their attire was the extraordinary number of chains, beads, and bracelets with which they had festooned themselves.

And, moreover, these were of a severely mineralogical character. Round Miss Patty's fat, deeply-creased throat, May counted three necklaces:--One of coral, one of cornelian, and the third a long string of grey pebble beads which dangled nearly to her waist. Miss Polly wore--besides a variety of other nondescript adornments which rattled and jingled as she moved--a set of ornaments made apparently of red marble, cut into polygonal fragments of irregular length. Their rings too, which were numerous, seemed to be composed for the most part of building materials; and each sister wore a mosaic brooch which looked, May thought, like a bit out of the tesselated pavement of the smart new Corn Exchange in the High Street.

It did not take that young lady's quick perception long to make all the foregoing observations. Indeed, she had completed them within the minute and a half which elapsed between the Miss Pipers' arrival, and the announcement of dinner.

CHAPTER VIII.

The order of the procession to the dining-room had been pre-arranged not without some difficulty. Mrs. Bransby had pointed out to Theodore that his whim of inviting Miss Cheffington must cause a solecism somewhere in marshalling their guests.

"Constance will, of course, expect you to take her," said Mrs. Bransby, "and then what is to be done with little Miss Cheffington? I really think I had better invite two more people, and get some young man to take her in to dinner. Perhaps Mr. Rivers would come."

But Theodore utterly opposed this suggestion, and said that the simple and obvious course was for him to give his arm to Miss Cheffington, and for Dr. Hatch to escort Miss Hadlow.

"Oh, well, if you don't mind," said Mrs. Bransby, looking a little surprised. And so it was settled. But at the last moment, in arranging her table and disposing the cards with the guest's name before each cover, Mrs. Bransby found that it would be necessary, for the sake of symmetrically alternating a lady and gentleman, to divide one couple, and place them on opposite sides of the table. She decided that Dr.

Hatch and Miss Hadlow would endure this sort of divorce with equanimity; and thus it came to pa.s.s that when Theodore took his seat at table he found himself in the enviable and unexpected position of sitting between the two young ladies of the party--Constance and May.

Mr. Bransby led out Mrs. Hadlow, the hostess bringing up the rear with Canon Hadlow. Major Mitton had the honour of escorting Miss Piper, while Miss Patty fell to Mr. Bragg. There was, as is usual on such occasions, very little conversation while the soup and fish were being eaten. Miss Piper, indeed, who was const.i.tutionally loquacious, talked all the while to Major Mitton, though in a comparatively low tone of voice; but the rest of the company devoted themselves mainly to their plates; or at least said only a fragmentary sentence now and then. But by degrees the desultory talk swelled into a continuous murmur, across which bursts of laughter were wafted at intervals. May had the satisfaction she had hoped for, of being allowed to be quiet; for her neighbour on the one hand was the canon, who contented himself with smiling on her silently, whilst Theodore was greatly occupied by _his_ neighbour, Miss Hadlow.

Being seated between him and Major Mitton, she monopolized the younger gentleman's attention with the undoubting conviction that he enjoyed being monopolized.

Mr. Bragg, a heavy, melancholy-looking man, found Miss Patty Piper a congenial companion on a topic which interested him a good deal--cookery. Not that he was a _gastronome_. He had a grand French cook; but he confided to Miss Patty that he never tasted anything nowadays which he relished so much as he had relished a certain beef-steak pudding that his deceased "missis" used to make for him thirty years ago, and better. Miss Patty had, as it happened, some peculiar and special views as to the composition of a beef-steak pudding; and Mr. Bragg--borne backwards by the tide of memory to those distant days when his missis and he lodged in one room, and before he had learned the secret of trans.m.u.ting tin-tacks into luxury and French cooks--enjoyed his reminiscences in a slow, sad, ruminating way.

Presently, when the dessert was on the table, there came a little lull in the general conversation, and the husky contralto voice of Miss Piper was heard saying, "My dear Major, I tell you it was the same woman. You say you heard her at Malta fifteen years ago. Very well. That's no reason; for she might have been only sixteen or seventeen then. These Italians are so precocious."

"More like six or seven-and-twenty, Miss Piper. Bless you, she had long outgrown short frocks and pinafores in those days.

Fourteen--fifteen--yes; it must be fully fifteen years ago. It was the season that we got up the 'Honeymoon' for the garrison theatricals. I played the Duke. It has been one of my best parts ever since. And there was a scratch company of Italian opera-singers doing wretched business.

We got up a subscription for them, poor things. But fancy 'La Bianca'

still singing Rosina in the 'Barber!'"

"She looked charming, I can tell you. I don't say that her voice may not be a little worn in the upper notes----"

"I wonder there's a rag of it left," put in the Major.

"Yes; a little worn. But she knows how to sing. If one must listen to such trivial, florid music, that's the only way to sing it."

"Ah, there we shan't agree, Miss Piper! No, no; I always stand up for Rossini. I don't pretend to be a great swell at music, but I have an ear, and I like a toon. Give me a toon that I can remember and whistle, and I'll make you a present of Wagner and the other fellows, all howlings and growlings."

"Major, Major," called out Dr. Hatch from the opposite side of the table, "this is terribly obsolete doctrine! We shall have you confessing next that you like sugar in your tea, and prefer a rose to a sunflower!"

Mr. Bransby, wis.h.i.+ng to avert any unpleasant shock of opinions on such high themes, here interposed. He turned the conversation back to the Italian singer, who could be abused without ruffling anybody's _amour proper_.

"But who is this _prima donna_ you're talking of, Major?" said he.

Miss Piper struck in before Major Mitton could reply. "It's a certain Moretti:--Bianca Moretti. We heard her last summer in a minor theatre at Brussels, with a strolling Italian Opera Company. Don't you remember, Patty?"

"Moretti?" said Miss Patty, instantly breaking off in the middle of a sentence addressed to Mr. Bragg, at the sound of her sister's voice.

"The woman with the fine eyes? Oh yes. I remember her particularly, because of the awful scandal there was afterwards about her and that Englishman."

Several heads at the table were now turned towards Miss Patty, who shook her ginger-bread-coloured wig with a knowing air.

"I was just telling the Major," said Miss Piper. "We might never have known of it, if it had not been for the Italian Consul, who was a friend of ours. It was quite a sensation! A bit out of a French novel, eh?--Oh yes; quite ready, Mrs. Bransby."

The last words had reference to a telegraphic signal from the hostess, who immediately rose. Mrs. Hadlow had been looking across at her rather uneasily during the last minute or so. The fact was that the Miss Pipers were reputed in Oldchester to have a somewhat unconsidered and free way of talking. Some persons attributed this to their annual visit to the Continent: others thought it connected rather with Miss Piper's artistic experiences, which in some mysterious way were supposed to have had a tendency to make her "a little masculine." The implication would seem to be that to be "masculine" involves a lax government of the tongue. But as no Oldchester gentleman was ever known to protest against this imputation, it is not necessary to examine it here more particularly.

"When she began to talk about a French novel, my dear, there was no knowing what she might say next," said Mrs. Hadlow afterwards to Mrs.

Bransby. So the latter hurried the departure of the ladies as we have seen.

When they rose to go away, May, of course, went out last; Theodore holding the door open with his air of superior politeness.

"Who is that pretty little girl? I don't think I know her face," said Major Mitton, when the young man had resumed his seat, and the chairs were drawn closer together.

"That is Miss Miranda Cheffington."

"Cheffington? I knew a Cheffington once--a terrible black sheep. Very likely it's not the same family, though. What Cheffingtons does this young lady belong to?"

"The family of Viscount Castlecombe."

"The man I knew was a nephew of old Castlecombe. Gus Cheffington his name was, I remember now."

Theodore moved a little uneasily on his seat, and, after a moment's reflection, said gravely, "Captain Augustus Cheffington is this young lady's father; he is a friend of mine. Miss Cheffington is going to town to be presented next season by her aunt, Mrs. Dormer-Smith. She is a very thoroughbred woman. Do you know the Dormer-Smiths, Major Mitton?

They are in the best set."