Selected Stories (9781440673832) (25 page)

The girls went back, and again the little finger of Mildred's right hand disputed for middle G with the little finger of Ellen's left.

‘It can't be done,' they said. ‘It's the man who wrote it's fault.'

‘It can easily be done if you don't hold on so long, Ellen,' said Miss Haddon,

Four o‘clock struck. Mildred and Ellen went, and Rose and Enid succeeded them. They played the duet worse than Mildred, but not as badly as Ellen. At four-fifteen Margaret and Jane came. They played worse than Rose and Enid, but not as badly as Ellen. At four-thirty Dolores and Violet came. They played worse than Ellen. At four-forty-five Miss Haddon went to tea with the Principal, who explained why she desired all the pupils to learn the same duet. It was part of her new co-ordinative system. The school was taking one subject for the year, only one—Napoleon—and all the studies were to bear on that one subject. Thus—not to mention French and History—the Repetition class was learning Wordsworth's political poems, the literature class was reading extracts from ‘War and Peace', the drawing class copied something of David's, the needlework class designed Empire gowns, and the music pupils—they, of course, were practising Beethoven's ‘Eroica' Symphony, which had been begun (though not finished) in honour of the Emperor. Several of the other mistresses were at tea, and they exclaimed that they loved co-ordinating, and that it was a lovely system: it made work so much more interesting to them as well as to the girls. But Miss Haddon did not respond. There had been no co-ordination in her day, and she could not understand it. She only knew that she was growing old and teaching music worse and worse, and she wondered how soon the Principal would find this out and dismiss her.

Meanwhile, high up in heaven Beethoven sat, and all around him, ranged on smaller clouds, sat his clerks. Each made entries in a ledger, and he whose ledger was entitled ‘“Eroica” Symphony: arranged for four hands, by Carl Müller' was making the following entries:—‘3.45, Mildred and Ellen; conductor, Miss Haddon. 4.0, Rose and Enid; conductor, Miss Haddon. 4.15, Margaret and Jane; conductor, Miss Haddon. 4.30—'

Beethoven interrupted. ‘Who is this Miss Haddon,' he asked, ‘whose name recurs like the beat of a drum?'

‘She has interpreted you for many years.'

‘And her orchestra?'

‘They are maidens of the upper middle classes, who perform the “Eroica” in her presence every day and all day. The sound of it never ceases. It floats out of the window like a continual incense, and is heard up and down the street.'

‘Do they perform with insight?'

Since Beethoven is deaf, the clerk could reply, ‘With most intimate insight. There was a time when Ellen was farther from your spirit than the rest, but that has not been the case since Dolores and Violet arrived.'

‘New comrades have inspired her. I understand.'

The clerk was silent.

‘I approve,' continued Beethoven, ‘and in token of my approval I decree that Miss Haddon and her orchestra and all in their house shall this very evening hear a perfect performance of my A minor quartette.'

While the decree was being entered, and while the staff was wondering how it would be executed, a scene of even greater splendour was taking place in another part of the empyrean. There Napoleon sat, surrounded by his clerks, who were so numerous that the thrones of the outermost looked no larger than cirrocumuli clouds. They were busy entering all the references made on earth to their employer, a task for which he himself had organized them. Every few moments he asked, ‘And what is our latest phase?'

The clerk whose ledger was entitled ‘Hommages de Words-worth' answered: ‘5.0, Mildred, Ellen, Rose, Enid, Margaret and Jane, all recited the sonnet, “Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee”. Dolores and Violet attempted to recite it, but failed.'

‘The poet there celebrates my conquest of the Venetian Republic,' said the Emperor, ‘and the greatness of the theme overcame Violet and Dolores. It is natural that they should fail. And the next phase?'

Another clerk said, ‘5.15, Mildred, Ellen, Rose, Enid, Margaret, and Jane are sketching in the left front leg of Pauline Buonaparte's couch. Dolores and Violet are still learning their sonnet.'

‘It seems to me,' said Napoleon, ‘that I have heard these charming names before.'

‘They are in my ledger, too,' said a third clerk. ‘You may remember, sire, that about an hour ago they performed Beethoven's “Eroica”—'

‘Written in my honour,' concluded the Emperor. ‘I approve.'

‘5.30,' said a fourth clerk, ‘with the exception of Dolores and Violet, who have been sent to sharpen pencils, the whole company sings the “Marseillaise”.'

‘It needed but that,' cried Napoleon, rising to his feet. ‘Ces demoiselles ont un vrai elan vers la gloire.
¹
I decree in recompense that they and all their house shall participate tomorrow morning in the victory of Austerlitz.'

The decree was entered.

Evening prep. was at 7.30. The girls settled down gloomily, for they were already bored to tears by the new system. But a wonderful thing happened. A regiment of cavalry rode past the school, headed by the most spiffing band. The girls went off their heads with joy. They rose from their seats, they sang, they advanced, they danced, they pranced, they made trumpets out of paper and used the blackboard as a kettledrum. They were able to do this because Miss Haddon, who ought to have been supervising, had left the room to find a genealogical tree of Marie Louise; the history mistress had asked her particularly to take it to prep. for the girls to climb about in, but she had forgotten it. ‘I am no good at all,' thought Miss Haddon, as she stretched out her hand for the tree; it lay with some other papers under a shell which the Principal had procured from St Helena. ‘I am stupid and tired and old; I wish that I was dead.' Thus thinking, she lifted the shell mechanically to her ear; her father, who was a sailor, had often done the same to her when she was young ...

She heard the sea; at first it was the tide whispering over mud-flats or chattering against stones, or the short, crisp break of a wave on sand, or the long, echoing roar of a wave against rocks, or the sounds of the central ocean, where the waters pile themselves into mountains and part into ravines; or when fog descends and the deep rises and falls gently; or when the air is so fresh that the big waves and the little waves that live in the big waves all sing for joy, and send one another kisses of white foam. She heard them all, but in the end she heard the sea itself, and knew that it was hers for ever.

‘Miss Haddon!' said the Principal. ‘Miss Haddon! How is it you are not supervising the girls?'

Miss Haddon removed the shell from her ear, and faced her employer with a growing determination.

‘I can hear Ellen's voice though we are at the other side of the house,' she continued, ‘I half thought it was the elocution hour. Put down that paper-weight at once, please, Miss Haddon, and return to your duties.'

She took the shell from the music mistress's hand, intending to place it on its proper shelf. But the force of example caused her to raise it to her own ear. She, too, listened ...

She heard the rustling of trees in a wood. It was no wood that she had ever known, but all the people she had known were riding about in it, and calling softly to each other on horns. It was night, and they were hunting. Now and then beasts rustled, and once there was an ‘Halloo!' and a chase, but more often her friends rode quietly, and she with them, penetrating the wood in every direction and for ever.

And while she heard this with one ear, Miss Haddon was speaking as follows into the other:

‘I will not return to my duties. I have neglected them ever since I came here, and once more will make little difference. I am not musical. I have deceived the pupils and the parents and you. I am not musical, but pretended that I was to make money. What will happen to me now I do not know, but I can pretend no longer. I give notice.'

The Principal was surprised to learn that her music mistress was not musical; the sound of pianos had continued for so many years that she had assumed all was well. In ordinary circumstances she would have answered scathingly, for she was an accomplished woman, but the murmuring forest caused her to reply, ‘Oh, Miss Haddon, not now; let's talk it over tomorrow morning. Now, if you will, I want you to lie down in my sitting-room while I take preparation instead, for it always rests me to be with the girls.'

So Miss Haddon lay down, and as she dozed the soul of the sea returned to her. And the Principal, her head full of forest murmurs, went to the preparation-room, and gave her cough three times before she opened the door. All the girls were at their desks except Dolores and Violet, and them she affected not to notice. After a time she went to fetch the tree of Marie Louise, which she had forgotten, and during her absence the cavalry passed again ...

In the morning Miss Haddon said, ‘I still wish to go, but I wish I had waited to speak to you. I have had some extraordinary news. Many years ago my father saved a man from drowning. That man has just died, and he has left me a cottage by the edge of the sea, and money to live in it. I need not work any more; so if only I had waited till today I could have been more civil to you and'—she blushed a little—‘to myself.'

But the Principal shook her by both hands and kissed her. ‘I am glad that you did not wait,' she said. ‘What you said yesterday was a word of truth, a clear call through the thicket. I wish that I, too—' She stopped. ‘But the next step is to give the school a whole holiday.'

So the girls were summoned, and the Principal made a speech, and Miss Haddon another, giving everyone the address of the cottage, and inviting them to visit her at it. Then Rose was sent to the pastrycook's for ices, and Enid to the greengrocer's for fruit, and Mildred to the sweetshop for lemonade, and Jane to the livery stables for brakes, and they all drove out an immense distance into the country, and played disorganized games. Everyone hid and nobody sought; everyone batted and nobody fielded; no one knew whose side she was on, and no mistress tried to tell her; and it was even possible to play two games at once, and to be Clumps in one and Peter Pan in the other. As for the co-ordinative system, it was never mentioned, or mentioned in derision. For example, Ellen composed a song against it, which ran:
and the smaller girls sang it without stopping for three hours.

At the end of the day the Principal summoned the whole party round Miss Haddon and herself. She was ringed with happy, tired faces. The sun was setting, the dust that the day had disturbed was sinking. ‘Well, girls,' she said, laughing but just a little shy, ‘so you don't seem to value my co-ordinative system?'

‘Lauks, we don't!' ‘Not much!' and so on, replied the girls.

‘Well, I must make a confession,' the Principal continued. ‘No more do I. In fact, I hate it. But I was obliged to take it up, because that type of thing impresses the Board of Education.'

At this all the mistresses and girls laughed and cheered, and Dolores and Violet, who thought that the Board of Education was a new round game, laughed too.

 

Now it may be readily imagined that this discreditable affair did not escape the attention of Mephistopheles. At the earliest opportunity he sought the Judgement Seat, bearing an immense scroll inscribed ‘J'accuse!' Half-way up he met the angel Raphael, who asked him in his courteous manner whether he could help him in any way.

‘Not this time, thank you,' Mephistopheles replied. ‘I really have a case now.'

‘It might be better to show it to me,' suggested the archangel. ‘It would be a pity to fly so far for nothing, and you had such a disappointment over Job.'

‘Oh, that was different.'

‘And then there was Faust; the verdict there was ultimately against you, if I remember rightly.'

‘Oh, that was so different again. No, I am certain this time. I can prove the futility of genius. Great men think that they are understood, and are not; men think that they understand them, and do not.'

‘If you can prove that, you have indeed a case,' said Raphael. ‘For this universe is supposed to rest on co-ordination, all creatures co-ordinating according to their powers.'

‘Listen. Charge one: Beethoven decrees that certain females shall hear a performance of his A minor quartette. They hear—some of them a band, others a shell. Charge two: Napoleon decrees that the same shall participate in the victory of Austerlitz. Result—a legacy, followed by a school treat. Charge three: Females perform Beethoven. Being deaf, and being served by dishonest clerks, he supposes they are performing him with insight. Charge four: To impress the Board of Education, females study Napoleon. He is led to suppose that they are studying him properly. I have other points, but these will suffice. The genius and the ordinary man have never co-ordinated once since Abel was killed by Cain.'

‘And now for your case,' said Raphael, sympathetically.

‘My case?' stammered Mephistopheles. ‘Why, this is my case.'

‘Oh, innocent devil,' cried the other. ‘Oh, candid if infernal soul. Go back to the earth and walk up and down it again. For these people have co-ordinated, Mephistopheles. They have co-ordinated through the central sources of Melody and Victory.'

FEW THINGS HAVE BEEN MORE BEAUTIFUL than my notebook on the Deist Controversy as it fell downward through the waters of the Mediterranean. It dived, like a piece of black slate, but opened soon, disclosing leaves of pale green, which quivered into blue. Now it had vanished, now it was a piece of magical india-rubber stretching out to infinity, now it was a book again, but bigger than the book of all knowledge. It grew more fantastic as it reached the bottom, where a puff of sand welcomed it and obscured it from view. But it reappeared, quite sane though a little tremulous, lying decently open on its back, while unseen fingers fidgeted among its leaves.