Evelyn Innes Part 29

King Cond and all his court saw Connla spring into the boat, and he and the fairy maiden glided over the bright sea, towards the setting sun, away and away, and they were seen no more, nor did anyone know where they went to.

"My dear father, ma.n.u.script, and at sight, words and music!"

"Come--begin."

"Give me the chord."

He looked at her in astonishment.

"Won't you give me the keynote?"

"In the key of E flat," he answered sternly.

She began. "Is that right?"

"Yes, that's right. You see that you can still sing at sight. I don't suppose you find many prima donnas who can."

With her arm on his shoulder they sat together, playing and singing the music with which Ulick had interpreted the tale of "Connla and the Fairy Maiden."

"You see," he said, "he has invented a new system of orchestration; as a matter of fact, we worked it out together, but that's neither here nor there. In some respects it is not unlike Wagner; the vocal music is mostly recitative, but now and then there is nearly an air, and yet it isn't new, for it is how it would have been written about 1500. You see," he said, turning over the pages of the full score, "each character is allotted a different set of instruments as accompaniment; in this way you get astonis.h.i.+ng colour contrasts. For instance, the priest is accompanied by a chest of six viols; _i.e._, two trebles, two tenors, two ba.s.ses. King Cond is accompanied by a set of six cromornes, like the viols of various sizes. The Fairy Maiden has a set of six flutes or recorders, the smallest of which is eight inches long, the biggest quite six feet. Connla is accompanied by a group of oboes; and another character is allotted three lutes with an arch lute, another a pair of virginals, another a regal, another a set of six sackbuts and trumpets.

See how all the instruments are used in the overture and in the dances, of which there are plenty, Pavans, Galliards, Allemaines. But look here, this is most important: even in the instrumental pieces the instruments are not to be mixed, as in modern orchestra, but used in groups, always distinct, like patches of colour in impressionist pictures."

"I like this," and she hummed through the fairy's luring of Connla to embark with her. "But I could not give an opinion of the orchestration without hearing it, it is all so new."

"We haven't succeeded yet in getting together sufficient old instruments to provide an orchestra."

"But, father, do you think such orchestration realisable in modern music? I see very little Wagner in it; it is more like Caccini or Monteverde. There can be very little real life in a parody."

"No, but it isn't parody, that's just what it isn't, for it is natural to him to write in this style. What he writes in the modern style is as common as anyone else. This is his natural language." In support of the validity of his argument that a return to the original sources of an art is possible without loss of originality, he instanced the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The most beautiful pictures, and the most original pictures Millais had ever painted were those that he painted while he was attempting to revive the methods of Van Eyck, and the language of Shakespeare was much more archaic than that of any of his contemporaries. "But explanations are useless. I tried to explain to Father Gordon that Palestrina was one of the greatest of musicians, but he never understood. Monsignor Mostyn and I understood each other at once. I said Palestrina, he said Vittoria--I don't know which suggested the immense advantage that a revival of the true music of the Catholic would be in making converts to Rome. You don't like Ulick's music; there's nothing more to be said."

"But I do like it, father. How impatient you are! And because I don't understand an entire aestheticism in five minutes, which you and Ulick Dean have been cooking for the last three years, I am a fool, quite as stupid as Father Gordon."

Mr. Innes laughed, and when he put his arm round her and kissed her she was happy again. The hours went lightly by as if enchanted, and it was midnight when he closed the harpsichord and they went upstairs. Neither spoke; they were thinking of the old times which apparently had come back to them. On the landing she said--

"We've had a nice evening after all. Good-night, father. I know my room."

"Good-night," he said. "You'll find all your things; nothing has been changed."

Agnes had laid one of her old nightgowns on the bed, and there was her _prie-dieu_, and on the chest of drawers the score of Tristan which Owen had given her six years ago. She had come back to sing it. How extraordinary it all was! She seemed to have drifted like a piece of seaweed; she lived in the present though it sank beneath her like a wave. The past she saw dimly, the future not at all; and sitting by her window she was moved by vague impulses towards infinity. She grew aware of her own littleness and the vastness overhead--that great unending enigma represented to her understanding by a tint of blue washed over by a milky tint. Owen had told her that there were twenty million suns in the milky way, and that around every one numerous planets revolved. This earth was but a small planet, and its sun a third-rate sun. On this speck of earth a being had awakened to a consciousness of the glittering riddle above his head, but he would die in the same ignorance of its meaning as a rabbit. The secret of the celestial plan she would never know. One day she would slip out of consciousness of it; life would never beckon her again; but the vast plan which she now perceived would continue to revolve, progressing towards an end which no man, though the world were to continue for a hundred million years, would ever know.

Her brain seemed to melt in the moonlight, and from the enigma of the skies her thoughts turned to the enigma of her own individuality. She was aware that she lived. She was aware that some things were right, that some things were wrong. She was aware of the strange fortune that had lured her, that had chosen her out of millions. What did it mean? It must mean something, just as those stars must mean something--but what?

Opposite to her window there was an open s.p.a.ce; it was full of mist and moonlight; the lights of a distant street looked across it. She too had said, "'Tis hard upon me, I love my folk above all things, but a great longing seizes me." That story is the story of human life. What is human life but a longing for something beyond us, for something we shall not attain? Again she wondered what her end must be. She must end somehow, and was it not strange that she could no more answer that simple question than she could the sublime question which the moon and stars propounded.... That breathless, glittering peace, was it not wonderful?

It seemed to beckon and allure, and her soul yearned for that peace as Connla's had for the maiden. Death only could give that peace. Did the Fairy Maiden mean death? Did the plains of the Ever Living, which the Fairy Maiden had promised Connla on the condition of his following her, lie behind those specks of light?

But what end should she choose for herself if the choice were left to her--to come back to Dulwich and live with her father? She might do that--but when her father died? Then she hoped that she might die. But she might outlive him for thirty years--Evelyn Innes, an old woman, talking to the few friends who came to see her, of the days when Wagner was triumphant, of her reading of "Isolde." Some such end as that would be hers. Or she might end as Lady Asher. She might, but she did not think she would. Owen seemed to think more of marriage now than he used to. He had always said they would be married when she retired from the stage. But why should she retire from the stage? If he had wanted to marry her he should have asked her at first. She did not know what she was going to do. No one knew what they were going to do. They simply went on living. That moonlight was melting her brain away. She drew down the blinds, and she fell asleep thinking of her father's choir and the beautiful "Missa Brevis" which she was going to hear to-morrow.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As they went to church, he told her about Monsignor Mostyn. Evelyn remembered that the very day she went away, he had had an appointment with the prelate, and while trying to recall the words he had used at the time--how Monsignor believed that a revival of Palestrina would advance the Catholic cause in England--she heard her father say that no one except Monsignor could have succeeded in so difficult an enterprise as the reformation of church music in England.

The organ is a Protestant instrument, and in organ music the London churches do very well; the Protestant congregations are, musically, more enlightened; the flattest degradation is found among the English Catholics, and he instanced the Oratory as an extraordinary disgrace to a civilised country, relating how he had heard the great Ma.s.s of Pope Marcellus given there by an operatic choir of twenty singers. In the West-end are apathy and fas.h.i.+onable vulgarity, and it was at St.

Joseph's, Southwark, that the Church had had restored to her all her own beautiful music. Monsignor had begun by coming forward with a subscription of one thousand pounds a year, and by such _largesse_ he had confounded the intractable Jesuits and vanquished Father Gordon. The poor man who had predicted ruin now viewed the magnificent congregation with a sullen face. "He has a nice voice, too, that's the strange part of it; I could have taught him, but he is too proud to admit he was wrong." However, _bon gre mal gre_, Father Gordon had had to submit to Monsignor. When Monsignor makes up his mind, things have to be done. If a thousand pounds had not been enough, he would have given two thousand pounds; Monsignor was rich, but he was also tactful, and did not rely entirely on his money. He had come to St. Joseph's with the Pope's written request in his hand that St. Joseph's should attempt a revival of the truly Catholic music, if sufficient money could be obtained for the choir. So there was no gainsaying, the Jesuits had had to submit, for if they had again objected to the expense, Monsignor would come forward with a subscription of two thousand a year. He could not have afforded to pay so much for more than a limited number of years, "but he and I felt that it was only necessary to start the thing for it to succeed."

Mr. Innes told his daughter of Monsignor's social influence; Monsignor had the command of any amount of money. There is always the money, the difficulty is to obtain the will that can direct the money. Monsignor was the will. He was all-powerful in Rome. He spent his winters and springs in Rome, and no one thought of going to Rome without calling on him. It was through him that the Pope kept in touch with the English Catholics. He had a confessional at St. Joseph's, and he was _au mieux_ with the Jesuits. It was the influence of Monsignor that had given Palestrina his present vogue. But a revival of Palestrina was in the air; through him the inevitable reaction against Wagner was making itself felt. Monsignor had made all the rich Catholics understand that it was their duty to support the unique experiment which some poor Jesuits in Southwark were making, and the fact that he had come forward with a subscription of one thousand a year enabled him to ask his friends for their money. He had told Mr. Innes that a dinner party which did not produce a subscriber he looked upon as a dinner wasted.

Monsignor knew how to carry a thing through; his influence was extraordinary; he could get people to do what he wanted.

Evelyn and her father had so much to say that it did not seem as if they ever would find time to say it in. There was the story to tell of the construction of the vast choir and the difficulties he had experienced in teaching his singers to read at sight, for, as she knew, contrapuntal music cannot be sung except by singers who can sing unaccompanied. The trebles and the altos were of course the great difficulty; the boys often burst into tears; they said they preferred to die rather than endure his discipline. He was often sorry for them, for he knew that the perfect singing of this contrapuntal music was almost impossible except by _castrati_. But he was able to communicate his enthusiasm; he told them stories of how the ancient choirs used to sing Palestrina's ma.s.ses without a rehearsal, how the ancient choirs used to compete one against the other, singing music they had never seen against men in the opposite organ loft whom they did not even know. He was full of such stories; they served to fire the boys' enthusiasm, and to change dislike into an inspiration. He had hypnotised them into a love of Palestrina, and when they went home their parents had told him that the boys were always talking about the ancient music, and that they sat up at night reading motets. He had told them that they would abandon all foolish pastimes for Palestrina, and they had in a measure; instead of batting and bowling, their ambition became sight singing. Once a spirit of emulation is inspired, great things are accomplished. There had been some beautiful singing at St. Joseph's. Three months ago he believed that his choir would have compared with some of the sixteenth century choirs. Mr.

Innes told an instructive story of how he had lost a most extraordinary treble, the best he had ever had. No, he had not lost his voice; a casual word had done the mischief. The boy had happened to tell his mother that Mr. Innes had said that he would give up cricket for Palestrina, and she, being a fool, had laughed at him. Her laughter had ruined the boy; he had refused to sing any more; he had become a dissipated young rascal, up to every mischief. Unfortunately, before he left he had influenced other boys; many had to be sent away as useless; and it was only now that his choir was beginning to recover from this egregious calamity. But though the difficulty of the trebles and the altos was always the difficulty of his choir, it no longer seemed insuperable. With the large amount of money at his disposal, he could afford to pay almost any amount of money for a good treble or alto, so every boy in London who showed signs of a voice was brought to him. But in three or four years a boy's voice breaks, and the task of finding another to take his place has to be undertaken. Very often this is impossible; there are times when there are no voices. The present time was such a one, and he fumed at the foolish woman whose casual word had broken up his choir three months ago, bemoaning that such a calamity should have happened just before Monsignor's return from Rome. It was for that reason he was giving the "Missa Brevis," a small work easily done. He declared he would give fifty pounds to recall his choir of three months ago, just for Evelyn and Monsignor to hear it. Evelyn easily believed that he would, and as they parted inside the church she said--

"I wish I could take the place of the naughty boy."

A look of hope came into his eyes, but it died away in an instant, and she watched his despondent back as he went towards the choir loft.

The influence of Monsignor had worked great changes at St. Joseph's--the very atmosphere of the church was different, the sensation was one of culture and refinement, instead of that acrid poverty. From the altar rail to the middle of the aisle the church was crowded--in the free as well as in the paying parts. From the altar rails to the middle of the aisle there were chairs for the ease of the subscribers, and for those who were willing to pay a fee of two s.h.i.+llings. In front of each chair was a comfortable kneeling place, and slender, gloved hands held prayer-books bound in morocco, and under fas.h.i.+onable hats, filled with bright beads and shadowy feathers, veiled faces were bent in dainty prayer. Among these Evelyn picked out a number of her friends. There were Lady Ascott, who missed no musical entertainment of whatever kind, even when it took place in church, and Lady Gremaldin, who thought she was listening to Wagner when she was thinking of the tenor whom she would take away to supper in her brougham after the performance....

Evelyn caught sight of a painter or two and a man of letters who used to come to her father's concerts. Suddenly she saw Ulick standing close by her; he had not seen her, and was looking for a seat. Catching sight of her, he came and sat in the chair next to hers. Almost at the same moment the acolytes led the procession from the sacristy. They were followed by the sub-deacon, the deacon and the priest who was to sing the Ma.s.s. When the Ma.s.s began the choir broke forth, singing the Introit.

The practice of singing in church proceeds from the idea that, in the exaltation of prayer, the soul, having reached the last limit obtainable by mere words, demands an extended expression, and finds it in song. The earliest form of music, the plain chant or Gregorian, is sung in unison, for it was intended to be sung by the whole congregation, but as only a few in every congregation are musicians, the idea of a choir could not fail to suggest itself; and, once the idea of a choir accepted, part writing followed, and the vocal ma.s.ses of the sixteenth century were the result. Then the art of religious music had gone as far as it could, and the next step, the introduction of an accompanying instrument, was decadence.

The "Missa Brevis" is one of the most exquisite of the master's minor works. It is written for four voices, and with the large choir at his command, Mr. Innes was able to put eight to ten voices on a part; and hearing voices darting, voices soaring, voices floating, weaving an audible embroidery, Evelyn felt the vanity of accompaniment instruments.

Upon the ancient chant the new harmonies blossomed like roses on an old gnarled stem, and when on the ninth bar of the "Kyrie" the tenors softly separated from the sustained chord of the other parts, the effect was as of magic. Evelyn lifted her eyes and saw her dear father conducting with calm skill.

She had heard the Ma.s.s in Rome, and remembered the beautiful phrase which opens the "Kyrie" and which is the essence of the first part of that movement. But the altos had not the true alto quality; they were trebles singing in the lower register of their voices. Leaning towards her, Ulick whispered, "The altos are not quite in tune." She had heard nothing wrong, but, seeing that he was convinced, she resolved to submit the matter to her father's decision. She had every confidence in the accuracy of her ear; but last night her father had said that the modern musical ear was not nearly so fine as the ancient, trained to the exact intervals of the monochord, instead of the coa.r.s.e approximation of the keyboard.

She remembered that when she had heard the Ma.s.s in Rome there was a moment when she had longed for the sweet concord of a pure third. Now, when it came at the end of the first note of the ba.s.ses, Ulick said, "It is as sharp as that of an ordinary piano." It had not seemed so to her, and she wondered if her ear had deteriorated, if the corrupting influence of modern chromatic music had been too strong, if she had lost her ear in the Wagner drama. The coa.r.s.e intonation was more obvious in the "Christe Eleison," sung by four solo voices, than in the "Kyrie,"

sung by the full choir; and she did catch a slight equivocation, and the discovery tended to make her doubt Ulick's a.s.sertion that the altos were wrong in the "Kyrie," for, if she heard right in one place, why did she not hear right in another? The leading treble had a hard, unsympathetic voice, which did not suit the florid pa.s.sages occurring three times on the second syllable of the word Eleison. He hammered them instead of singing them tenderly, with just the sense of a caress in the voice.

But outside of such extreme criticism, in the audience of the ordinary musical ear, the beautiful "Missa Brevis" was as well given as it could be given in modern times, and Evelyn was, of course, anxious to see the great prelate to whose energetic influence the revival of this music was owing, the man who had helped to make her dear father's life a satisfaction to him. It was just slipping into disappointment when the prelate had come to save it. This was why Evelyn was so interested in him--why she was already attracted toward him. It was for this reason she was sitting in one of the front chairs, near to where Monsignor would have to pa.s.s on his way to the pulpit. He was to preach that Sunday at St. Joseph's.... He pa.s.sed close to her, and she had a clear view of his thin, hard, handsome face, dark in colour and severe as a piece of mediaeval wood carving; a head small and narrow across the temples, as if it had been squeezed. The eyes were bright brown, and fixed; the nose long and straight, with clear-cut nostrils. She noticed the thin, mobile mouth and the swift look in the keen eyes--in that look he seemed to gather an exact notion of the congregation he was about to address.

Already Evelyn trembled inwardly. The silence was quick with possibility; anything might happen--he might even publicly reprove her from the pulpit, and to strengthen her nerves against this influence, she compared the present tension to that which gathered her audience together as one man when the moment approached for her to come on the stage. All were listening, as if she were going to sing; it remained to be seen if the effect of his preaching equalled that of her singing. She was curious to see.

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." In introducing this text he declared it to be one of the most beautiful and hopeful in Scripture. Was it the sweet, clear voice that lured the different minds and led them, as it were, in leash? Or was it that slow, deliberate, persuasive manner? Or was it the benedictive and essentially Christian creed which he preached that disengaged the weight from every soul, allowing each to breathe an easier and sweeter breath? To one and all it seemed as if they were listening to the voice of their own souls, rather than that of a living man whom they did not know, and who did not know them. The preacher's voice and words were as the voices they heard speaking from the bottom of their souls in moments of strange collectedness. And as if aware of the spiritual life he had awakened, the preacher leaned over the pulpit and paused, as if watching the effect of his will upon the congregation.

The hush trembled into intensity when he said, "Yes, and not only in heaven, but on earth as well, there shall be joy when a sinner repents.

This can be verified, not in public places where men seek wealth, fame and pleasure--there, there shall be only scorn and sneers--but in the sanctuary of every heart; there is no one, I take it, who has not at some moment repented." Instantly Evelyn remembered Florence. Had her repentance there been a joy or a pain? She had not persevered. At that moment she heard the preacher ask if the most painful moments of our lives were the result of our having followed the doctrine of Jesus or the doctrine of the world? He instanced the gambler and the libertine, who willingly confess themselves unhappy, but who, he asked, ever heard of the good man saying he was unhappy? The tedium of life the good man never knows. Men have been known to regret the money they spent on themselves, but who has ever regretted the money he has spent in charity? But even success cannot save the gambler and libertine from the tedium of existence, and when the preacher said, "These men dare not be alone," Evelyn thought of Owen, and of her constant efforts to keep him amused, distracted; and when the preacher said it was impossible for the sinner to abstract himself, to enter into his consciousness without hearing it reprove him, Evelyn thought of herself. The preacher made no distinctions; all men, he said, when they are sincere with themselves, are aware of the difference between good and evil living. When they listen the voice is always audible; even those who purposely close their ears often hear it. For this voice cannot be wholly silenced; it can be stifled for a while, but it can be no more abolished than the sound of the sea from the sh.e.l.l. "As a sh.e.l.l, man is murmurous with morality."

Of the rest of the sermon Evelyn heard very little.... It was the phrase that if we look into our lives we shall find that our most painful moments are due to our having followed the doctrine of the world instead of the doctrine of Christ that touched Evelyn. It seemed to explain things in herself which she had never understood. It told her why she was not happy. ... Happy she had never been, and she had never understood why. Because she had been leading a life that was opposed to what she deemed to be essentially right. How very simple, and yet she had never quite apprehended it before; she had striven to close her ears, but she had never succeeded. Why? Because that whisper can be no more abolished than the murmur of the sea from the sh.e.l.l. How true! That murmur had never died out of her ears; she had been able to stifle it for a while--she had never been able to abolish it--and what convincing proof this was of the existence of G.o.d!

Disprove it you couldn't, for it was part of one's senses--the very evidence on which the materialists rely to prove that beyond this world there is nothing. Yet what a flagrant contradiction her conduct was to the murmur of spiritual existence. And that was why she was not happy.

That was why she would never be happy till she reformed.... But the preacher spoke as if it were easy for all who wished it to change their lives. How was she to change her life? Her life was settled and determined for her ever since the day she went away with Owen. If she sent Owen away again the same thing would happen; she would take him back. She could not remain on the stage without a lover; she would take another before a month was out. It was no use for her to deceive herself! That is what she would do. To sing Isolde and live a chaste life, she did not believe it to be possible--and she sat helpless, hearing vaguely the Credo, her attention so distracted that she was only half aware of its beauty. She noticed that the "Et incarnatus est" was inadequately rendered, but that she expected. It would require the strange, immortal voices she had heard in Rome. But the vigour with which the ba.s.ses led the "Et resurrexit" was such that the other parts could not choose but follow. She felt thankful to them; they dissipated her painful personal reverie. Yes, the ba.s.ses were the best part of the choir; among them she recognised two of her father's oldest pupils; she had known them as boys singing alto--beautiful voices they had been, and were not less beautiful now. But if she desired to reform her life, how was she to begin? She knew what the priest would tell her. He would say, send away your lover; but to send him away in the plenitude of her success would be odious. He was unhappy; he was ill; he needed her sorely. His mother's health was a great anxiety to him, and if, on the top of all, she were to announce that she intended leaving him, he would break down altogether. She owed everything to him. No, not even for the sake of her immortal soul would she do anything that would give him pain. But he had been anxious to marry her for some time. Would she make him a good wife? She was fond of him; she would do anything for him. She had travelled hundreds of miles to see him when he was ill, and the other night she could not sleep because she feared he was unhappy about his mother's health. She would marry him if he asked her. On that point she was certain. Refuse Owen? Not for anything that could be offered her; nothing would change her from that. Nothing! Her resolve was taken.

No, it was not taken; it was there in her heart.

And at the moment when the Elevation bell rang she decided not only to accept Owen if he asked her, but to use all her influence to induce him to ask her. This seemed to her equivalent to a resolution to reform her life, and, happier in mind, she bowed her head, and as a very unworthy Catholic, but still a Catholic, and feeling no longer as an alien and an outcast, she a.s.sisted at the mystery of the Ma.s.s. She even ventured to offer up a vague prayer, and when the dread interval was over, she remembered that her father had spoken to her of the second "Agnus Dei"

as an especially beautiful number. It was for five voices; exquisitely prayerful it seemed to her. With devout insistence the theme is reiterated by the two soprani, then the voices are woven together, and the simile that rose up in her mind was the pious image of fingers interlaced in prayer.