Maurice Guest (60 page)

There was a note of entreaty in his voice. As she still kept silence, he gave his whole strength to demolishing the mute opposition he felt in her.

"From now on, dear, we must make up our minds to be two very sensible people. I've an enormous amount of work to get through, in the coming months. And at Easter, I shall probably be thrown on my own resources. But I'll fight my way somehow—here, beside you. We'll live our own life. Just you and I.—Let me tell you what I propose to do,"—and here, he laid before her, in their entirety, his plans for winning over Schwarz, for gaining a foothold, and for making a modest income. "A good PRUFUNG," he concluded, "and I'll be able to get anything I want out of him. In the meantime, I've got to make a decent job next month of the trio—I'm pretty well in his black books, I can guess, for going off as I did in July. I must work as I've never done before. Each single day must be mapped out, and nothing allowed to interfere. It's an undertaking; but you'll help me, won't you, darling?—as only you can. I've let things go, far too much—I see it now. But it was impossible—frankly, I didn't care. I only wanted you. Now, it will . . . it must be different. The unrest is gone; you belong to me, and I to you. We are sure of each other."

"Oh, it's stifling! There's no air in the room."

She rose from his side, and went to the open window, where she stood with her back to him. As a result of his words, her life seemed suddenly to stretch before her, just as dry, and dusty, and commonplace, as the street she looked down on.

"I want to show you, too," he continued behind her, "that you haven't utterly thrown yourself away. I know how little I can do; but honest endeavour must count for something. I ask nothing better than to work for you, Louise—and you know it."

A wave of warm air came in at the window; the dying afternoon turned to twilight.

"Yes . . . and I? What am I to do? What room is there for me in your plans of work?"

He glanced sharply at her; but she had not moved.

"Louise, dearest! I know that what I say must sound selfish and inconsiderate. And yet I can't help it. I'm forced to ask you to wait . . . merely to wait. And for what? Good Heavens, no one realises it as I do! I have nothing to offer you, in return—but my love for you. But if you knew how strong that is—if you knew how happy I am resolved to make you! Have a little patience, darling! It will all come right in the end—if only you love me! And you do, don't you? Say once more you do."

She turned so swiftly that the tail of her dressing-gown twisted, and fell over on itself.

"Can you still ask that? Have you not had proof enough? Is there an inch of you that doesn't believe in my love for you? Oh, Maurice! . . . It's only that I'm tired to-night—and restless. I was so wretched at having to come back. And the heat has got on my nerves. I wish a great storm would come, and shake the house, and make the branches of the trees beat against the panes—do you remember? And we were so safe. The worse the storm was, the closer you held me." She sat down beside him, on the arm of the sofa. "Such a night seemed doubly wild after the long, still days that had gone before it—do you remember?—Oh, why had it all to end? Weren't we happy enough? Or did we ask too much? Why must time go just the same over happiness and unhappiness alike?" She got up again, and strayed back to the window. "Days like those will never—CAN never—come again. Even as it is, coming back has made a difference. Could you even yesterday have spoken as you do to-day? Was there any room then for common sense between us? No, we were too happy. It was enough to know we were alive."

"Be reasonable, darling. I am as sorry as you that these weeks are over; but, glorious as they were, they couldn't last for ever. And trust me; we shall know other days just as happy.—But if, because I talk like this, you imagine I don't love you a hundred times better even than yesterday—but you don't mean that! You know me better, my Rachel!"

"Yes. Perhaps you're right—you ARE right. But I am right, too."

She came back, and sat down on the sofa again, and propped her chin on her hand.

"You're tired to-night, dear—that's all. To-morrow things will look different, and you'll see the truth of what I say. At night, things get distorted——"

"No, no, one only really sees in the dark," she interrupted him.

—"but in the morning, one can smile at one's fears. Trust me, Louise, and believe in me. All our future happiness depends on how we act just now."

"Our future happiness . . . yes," she said slowly. "But what of the present?"

"Isn't it worth while sacrificing a brief present to a long future?"

She threw him a quick glance. "You talk like an orthodox Christian, Maurice," she said, and added: "The present is here: it belongs to us. The future is so unclear—who knows what it will bring us!"

"And isn't it just for that very reason that I speak as I do? If everything lay clear and straight before us, do you think I should bother about anything but you? It's the uncertainty of the whole thing that troubles me. But however vague it is, I can tell you one thing that will happen. And you know, dearest, what that is—the only ambition I have left: to make you my wife at the earliest possible moment."

She gazed at him meditatively.

"Why wouldn't you let me have my way at first?" he cried. "Why were you against it? We could have kept it a secret: no one need have known a thing about it. And I should never have asked you to go to England, or to see my people. Call it narrow, if you must, I can't help it; it's the only thing for us to do. Why won't you agree? Tell me what you have against it. Listen!" He knelt down and put his arms round her. "We have still a fortnight—that's time enough. Let us go to England to-morrow, and be married without a word to anyone—in the first registrar's office we find. Only marry me!"

"Would it make you love me more?"

She looked at him intently, turning the whole weight of her dark glance upon him.

"You!" he said. "You to ask such a thing! You with these eyes . . . and this hair! And these hands!—I love every line of them . . . You can't understand, can you, you bundle of emotions, that I should care for you as I do, and yet be able to talk soberly? It seems to you a man's way of loving—and poor at that. But if you imagine I don't love you all the more for what you have sacrificed for me—no, you didn't say that, I know, but it comes to the same thing in the end."

She made no answer; and a feeling of discouragement began to creep over him. He rose to his feet.

"A man who loves a woman as I love you," he said almost violently, "has only one wish—can have only one. I shall never rest or be thoroughly happy till you consent to marry me. That you can refuse as you do, seems to prove that you don't care for me enough."

She put her arms round his neck: her wide sleeves fell back, leaving her arms bear. "Maurice," she said gently, "why must you worry yourself?—You know if you are set on our marrying, I'll give way. But I don't want to be married—not yet. There's plenty of time. It's only a small matter now; it doesn't seem as if it could make any difference; and yet it might. The sense of being bound; of some one—no, of the law permitting us to love each other . . . no, Maurice, not yet.—Listen! I'm older and wiser than you, and I know. Happiness like this doesn't come every day. Instead of brooding and hesitating, one must seize it while it's there: it's such a slippery thing; it's gone before you know it. You can't bind it fast, and say it shall last so and so long. We have it now; don't let us talk and reason about it.—Oh, to-day, I'm nervous! Let me make a confession. As a child I had presentiments—things I foresaw came true, and on the morning of a misfortune, I've felt such a load on my chest that I could hardly breathe. Well, to-day, when I came into this room again, it seemed as if two black wings shut out the sunlight; and I was afraid. The past weeks have been so unreasonably happy—such happiness mustn't be let go. Help me to hold it; I can't do it alone. Don't try to make it fast to the future; while you do that, it's going—do you think one can draw out happiness like a thread? Oh, help me!—don't let any thing take it from us. And I will give up everything to it. Only you must always be beside me, Maurice, and love me. Don't let anything come between us! For my sake, for my sake!"

In the face of this outpouring, his own opinions seemed of little matter; his one concern was to ward off the tears that he saw were imminent. He held her to him, stroked her hair, and murmured words of comfort. But when she raised her head again, her eyelids were reddened, as though she had actually wept.

"Now I know you. Now you are my own again," she whispered. "How could I know you as you were then? I'd never seen you like that—seen you cold and sensible."

He looked down at her without speaking, in a preoccupied way.

She touched his face with her finger. "Here are lines I don't know—I see them now for the first time—lines of reason, of common sense, of all that is strange to me in you."

He caught her hand, continuing to gaze at her with the same expression of aloofness. "I need them for us both. You have none."

Her lips parted in a smile. Then this faded, and she looked at him with eyes that reminded him of an untamed animal, or of a startled child.

"Mine . . . still mine!" she said passionately.—And in the hours it took to reassure her, his primly reasoned conclusions were blown like chaff before the wind.

The next fortnight flew by; and familiar faces began to appear again. The steps and inner vestibule of the Conservatorium became a lounge for seeing acquaintances. In the cafe at the corner, the click of billiard balls was to be heard from early morning on.

Maurice looked forward to meeting his friends, with some embarrassment. It was unlikely that the events of the summer had remained a secret; for that, there was a clique in the place over-much on the alert for scandal, to which unfortunately the name of Louise Dufrayer lent itself only too readily. He could not decide what position to take up, with regard to their present intimacy; to flaunt it openly, to be pointed at as her lover, would for her sake be repugnant to him. It made him reject an idea he had revolved, of begging her to let him announce their engagement: for, in the present state of things, the word "BRAUTIGAM" had an evil sound. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that they must be more cautious than they had ever been, and give absolutely no food for talk.

One day, in the GRASSISTRASSE, he came upon a little knot of men he knew. And it was just as he supposed; the secret was a secret no longer. He saw it at once in their treatment of him. There was a spice of deference in their manner: and their looks expressed curiosity, envious surprise, even a kind of brotherly welcome. After this, Maurice changed his mind. the only course open to him was to brazen things out. He would not wait for his friends to show him what they thought; he would be beforehand with them.

A chance soon offered ofputting his intentions into practice. On entering Seyffert's one afternoon, he espied Dove, who had just returned. Dove sat alone at a small table, reading the TAGEBLATT; before him stood a cup of cocoa. When he saw Maurice, he raised the newspaper a trifle higher, so that it covered the level of his eyes. But Maurice went across the room, and touched him on the shoulder. Dove dropped his shield, and sprang up, exclaiming with surprise. Maurice sat down beside him, and, by dint of a little wheedling, put Dove at his ease. The latter was bubbling over with new experiences and future prospects. It seemed that in Peterborough, Dove's native town, the art of music was taking strides that were nothing short of marvellous. To hear Dove talk, the palm for progress must be awarded to Peterborough, over and above all the other towns of Great Britain; and he was agog with plans and expectations. During the holidays, he had held conversations with several local magnates, all of whom expressed themselves in favour of his scheme for founding a school of music, and promised him their support. Dove had returned to Leipzig in a brand-new outfit, and a hard hat; his studies were coming to an end in spring, and he began to think already of casting the skin of Bohemianism.

Maurice listened to him leniently—even drew Dove out a little. But he kept his eye on the clock. In less than half an hour, he would be with Louise; from some corner of the semidarkened room, she would spring towards him, and throw herself into his arms.

The majority of the classes were not yet assembled, when one day, a rumour rose, and spreading, ran from mouth to mouth. Those who heard it were at first incredulous; as, however, it continued to make headway, they whistled to themselves, or vented their surprise in a breathless "ACH!" Later in the day, they stood about in groups, and excitedly discussed the subject. Ten of Schwarz's most advanced pupils had left the master for the outsider named Schrievers. At the head of the list stood Furst.

The Conservatorium, royally endowed and municipally controlled, held to its time-honoured customs with tenacity. The older masters laboured to uphold tradition, and such younger ones as were progressively inclined, had not the influence to effect a change. Unattached teachers were regarded with suspicion—unless they happened to be former pupils of the institution, in which case it was assumed that they carried out its precepts. There had naturally always been plenty of others as well; but these were comparatively powerless: they could give their pupils neither imposing certificates, nor gala public performances, such as the PRUFUNGEN, and, for the most part, they flourished unknown. This was previous to the arrival of Schrievers. It was now about a year and a half ago that his settling in Leipzig had caused a flutter in musical circles. Then, however, he had been forgotten, or at least remembered only at intervals, when it was heard that he had caught another fish, in the shape of a renegade pupil.

Schrievers was a burly, red-bearded man, still well under middle age, and possessed of plenty of push and self-confidence. It soon transpired that he was an out-and-out champion of modern ideas in music; for, from the first, he was connected with a leading paper, in which he made his views known. He had a trenchant pen, and, with unfailing consistency, criticised the musical conditions of Leipzig adversely. The progressive LISZTVEREIN, of which he was soon the leading spirit, alone escaped; the opera, bereft of Nikisch, and the Gewandhaus, under its gentle and aged conductor, were treated by him with biting sarcasm. But his chief butt was the Conservatorium, and its ancient methods. He asserted that not a jot of the curriculum had been altered for fifty years; and its speedy downfall was the sole result to be expected and hoped for. The fact that, at this time, some seven hundred odd students were enrolled on its books went far to discredit this pious hope; but, nevertheless, Schrievers harped always on the same string; and just as perpetual dropping wears a stone, so his continued diatribes ate into emotional and sensitive natures. He began to attract a following, and, simultaneously, to make himself known as a pupil of Liszt. This brought him a fresh batch of enemies. Even a small German town is seldom without its Liszt-pupil, and in Leipzig several were settled, none of whom had ever heard of Martin Schrievers. They refused to admit him to their jealous clique. In their opinion, he belonged to that goodly class of persons, who, having by hook or by crook, contrived to spend an hour in the Abbe of Weimar's presence, afterwards abused the sacred narre of pupil. He was hated by these chosen few with more vigour than by the conservative pedagogues, who, naturally enough, saw the ruin of art in all he did.