The Lion's Share by Arnold Bennett (booksvooks TXT) 📕

"Why did you cry this afternoon, Musa?"

Musa made no reply.

Audrey was lighting the big lamp in the Moncreiff-Ingate studio. It made exactly the same moon as it had made on the night in the previous autumn when Audrey had first seen it. She had brought Musa to the studio because she did not care to take him to his own lodgings. (As a fact, nobody that she knew, except Musa, had ever seen Musa's lodgings.) This was almost the first moment they had had to themselves since the visit of the little American doctor from the Rue Servandoni. The rumour of Musa's misfortune had spread through the Quarter like the smell of a fire, and various persons of both sexes had called to inspect, to sympathise, and to take tea, which Audrey was continually making throughout the late afternoon. Musa had had an egg for his tea, and more than one girl had helped to spread the yolk and the white on pieces of bread-and-butter, for the victim of destiny had his right arm in a sling. Audrey had let them do it, as a mother patronisingly lets her friends amuse her baby.

In the end they had all gone; Tommy had enigmatically looked in and gone, and Miss Ingate had gone to dine at the favourite restaurant of the hour in the Rue Leopold Robert. Audrey had refused to go, asserting that which was not true; namely, that she had had an enormous tea, including far too many _petits fours_. Miss Ingate in departing had given a glance at her sketch (fixed on the easel), and another at Audrey, and another at Musa, all equally ironic and kindly.

Musa also had declined dinner, but he had done nothing to indicate that he meant to leave. He sat mournful and passive in a basket chair, his sling making a patch of white in the gloom. The truth was that he suffered from a disability not uncommon among certain natures: he did not know how to go. He could arrive with ease, but he was no expert at vanishing. Audrey was troubled. As suited her age and condition, she was apt to feel the responsibility of the whole universe. She knew that she was responsible for Musa's accident, and now she was beginning to be aware that she was responsible for his future as well. She was sure that he needed encouragement and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under his chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell over everyone within earshot. But actually she saw him listless and vanquished in the basket chair, and she perceived that only a strongly influential and determined woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster. No man could do it. His tears had shaken her. She was willing to make allowances for a foreigner, but she had never seen a man cry before, and the spectacle was very disturbing. It inspired her with a fear that even she could not be the salvation of Musa.

"I demanded something of you," she said, after lowering the wick of the lamp to exactly the right point, and staring at it for a greater length of time than was necessary or even seemly. She spoke French, and as she listened to her French accent she heard that it was good.

"I am done for!" came the mournful voice of Musa out of the obscurity behind the lamp.

"What! You are done for? But you know what the doctor said. He said no bone was broken. Only a little strain, and the pain from your----" Admirable though her French accent was, she could not think of the French word for "funny-bone." Indeed she had never learnt it. So she said it in English. Musa knew not what she meant, and thus a slight chasm was opened between them which neither could bridge. She finished: "In one week you are going to be able to play again."

Musa shook his head.

Relieved as she was to discover that Musa had cried because he was done for, and not because he was hurt, she was still worried by his want of elasticity, of resiliency. Nevertheless she was agreeably worried. The doctor had disappointed her by his light optimism, but he could not smile away Musa's moral indisposition. The large vagueness of the studio, the very faint twilight still showing through the great window, the silence and intimacy, the sounds of the French language, the gleam of the white sling, all combined to permeate her with delicious melancholy. And not for everlasting bliss would she have had Musa strong, obstinate, and certain of success.

"A week!" he murmured. "It is for ever. A week of practice lost is eternally lost. And on Wednesday one had invited me to play at Foa's. And I cannot."

"Foa? Who is Foa?"

"What! You do not know Foa? In order to succeed it is necessary, it is essential, to play at Foa's. That alone gives the _cachet_. Dauphin told me last week. He arranged it. After having played at Foa's all is possible. Dauphin was about to abandon me when he met Foa. Now I am ruined. This afternoon after the tennis I was going to Durand's to get the new Caprice of Roussel--he is an intimate friend of Foa. I should have studied it in five days. They would have been ravished by the attention .... But why talk I thus? No, I could not have played Caprice to please them. I am cursed. I will never again touch the violin, I swear it. What am I? Do I not live on the money _lent_ to me regularly by Mademoiselle Thompkins and Mademoiselle Nickall?"

"You don't, Musa?" Audrey burst out in English.

"Yes, yes!" said Musa violently. "But last month, from Mademoiselle Nickall--nothing! She is in London; she forgets. It is better like that. Soon I shall be playing in the Opera orchestra, fourth desk, one hundred francs a month. That will be the end. There can be no other."

Instead of admiring the secret charity of Tommy and Nick, which she had never suspected, Audrey was very annoyed by it. She detested it and resented it. And especially the charity of Miss Thompkins. She considered that from a woman with eyes and innuendoes like Tommy's charity amounted to a sneer.

"It is extremely unsatisfactory," she said, dropping on to Miss Ingate's sofa.

Not another word was spoken. Audrey tapped her foot. Musa creaked in the basket chair. He avoided her eyes, but occasionally she glared at him like a schoolmistress. Then her gaze softened--he looked so ill, so helpless, so hopeless. She wanted to light a cigarette for him, but she was somehow bound to the sofa. She wanted him to go--she hated the prospect of his going. He could not possibly go, alone, to his solitary room. Who would tend him, soothe him, put him to bed? He was an infant....

Then, after a long while, Miss Ingate entered sharply. Audrey coughed and sprang up.

"Oh!" ejaculated Miss Ingate.

"I--I think I shall just change my boots," said Audrey, smoothing out the short white skirt. And she disappeared into the dressing-room that gave on to the studio.

As soon as she was gone, Miss Ingate went close up to Musa's chair. He had not moved.

She said, smiling, with the corners of her mouth well down:

"Do you see that door, young man?"

And she indicated the door.

When Audrey came back into the studio.

"Audrey," cried Miss Ingate shrilly. "What you been doing to Musa? As soon as you went out he up vehy quickly and ran away."

At this information Audrey was more obviously troubled and dashed than Miss Ingate had ever seen her, in Paris. She made no answer at all. Fortunately, lying on the table in front of the mirror was a letter for Miss Ingate which had arrived by the evening post. Audrey went for it, pretending to search, and then handed it over with a casual gesture.

"It looks as if it was from Nick," she murmured.

Miss Ingate, as she was putting on her spectacles, remarked:

"I hope you weren't hurt--me not coming with you and Musa in the taxi from the gardens this afternoon, dear."

"Me? Oh no!"

"It wasn't that I was so vehy interested in my sketch. But to my mind there's nothing more ridiculous than several women all looking after one man. Miss Thompkins thought so, too."

"Oh! Did she?... What does Nick say?"

Miss Ingate had put the letter flat on the table in the full glare of the lamp, and was leaning over it, her grey hair brilliantly illuminated. Audrey kept in the shadow and in the distance. Miss Ingate had a habit of reading to herself under her breath. She read slowly, and turned pages over with a deliberate movement.

"Well," said Miss Ingate twisting her head sideways so as to see Audrey standing like a ghost afar off. "Well, she _has_ been going it! She's broken a window in Oxford Street with a hammer; she had one night in the cells for that. And she'd have had to go to prison altogether only some unknown body paid the fine for her. She says: 'There are some mean persons in the world, and he was one. I feel sure it was a man, and an American, too. The owners of the shops are going to bring a law action against me for the value of the plate-glass. It is such fun. And our leaders are splendid and so in earnest. They say we are doing a great historical work, and we are. The London correspondent of the _New York Times_ interviewed me because I am American. I did not want to be interviewed, but our instructions are--never to avoid publicity. There is to be no more window breaking for the present. Something new is being arranged. The hammer is so heavy, and sometimes the first blow does not break the window. The situation is _very_ serious, and the Government is at its wits' end. This we _know_. We have our agents everywhere. All the most thoughtful people are strongly in favour of votes for women; but of course some of them are afraid of our methods. This only shows that they have not learnt the lessons of history. I wonder that you and dear Mrs. Moncreiff do not come and help. Many women ask after you, and everybody at Kingsway is very curious to know Mrs. Moncreiff. Since Mrs. Burke's death, Betty has taken rooms in this house, but perhaps Tommy has told you this already. If so, excuse. Betty's health is very bad since they let her out last. With regard to the rent, will you pay the next quarter direct to the concierge yourselves? It will save so much trouble. I must tell you----'"

Slowly Audrey moved up to the table and leaned over the letter by Miss Ingate's side.

"So you see!" said Miss Ingate. "Well, we must show it to Tommy in the morning. 'Not learnt the lessons of history,' eh? I know who's been talking to Nick. _I_ know as well as if I could hear them speaking."

"Do you think we ought to go to London?" Audrey demanded bluntly.

"Well," Miss Ingate answered, with impartial irony on her long upper lip. "I don't know. Of course I played the organ all the way down Regent Street. I feel very strongly about votes for women, and once when I was helping in the night and day vigil at the House of Commons and some Ministers came out smoking their _cigahs_ and asked us how