Alice Lauder/Part 1/Chapter 3

IT happened about five o’clock of a hot Sunday afternoon that all the passengers were nearly dying out of pure boredom. They had eaten one hot dinner at the unnatural hour of three o’clock p.m., and it was morally and physically impossible to eat anything else for twenty-four hours at least. They could not go for a walk; they could not ask anyone in to tea; they had not even the prospect of a game of cards to cheer their spirits. In this vacuum it occurred to the good captain to try and secure “a little music,” in the last resort. The piano had been drawn out of the music-saloon on the outer deck, and fastened in a comfortable angle against the mast, for the convenience of the early service; and it was generally felt that at such a time as this even the Old Hundredth played by a child of five years old would have a cheering and ennobling effect. But there was no enterprise in the languid circle. In vain the captain went ​from one to another in his courteous way; no one would break the spell of dulness which seemed to have settled down more heavily than a London fog on the ship’s company that lovely tropical evening. At last Lady May took pity on the captain’s entreaties, and after as many preliminaries as if she were beginning a lawsuit, she settled herself at the piano, took off an endless number of bracelets and bangles , and carefully transacted the performance of “Strangers Yet.” Her voice was a thin, reedy soprano, carefully trained, yet which seemed, somehow, to be of exactly the same whitey-brown complexion as her face; and when she had finished, though the audience were profuse in their thanks, no one went so far as to ask her to continue. Even Arthur Campbell, who stood leaning over the ship’s side, looking down on the smooth, glassy roll of the Indian Ocean, maintained a judicial silence. He was curiously sensitive to music in some forms, and, when once the spell began to work, he enjoyed it with all the infatuation of the opium-eater for his visionary delight; but the right word was not to be found apparently in Lady May’s electro-plated notes, and he seemed to find more music in the majestic rush of the vessel through the onyx-coloured water, as her black precipitous bows slowly swayed to ​the horizon, and the two clouds of spray that she dashed aside from her path sank and softly melted away in her wake, like a streak of white daisies in some green summer-suited pasture.

There was a pause in the murmurs of polite thanksgiving, a pause of expectancy; and, turning his head lazily without moving from his place, he saw the captain escorting another performer to the piano with the pleased but anxious demeanour of an impresario introducing a new star. By his side Alice Lauder moved slowly and almost reluctantly, and it occurred to Campbell, as he looked at her, that he had never really seen the new passenger before; and, in fact, the same idea struck more than one of the little circle. She had for once discarded the time-honoured black silk, and wore her one festal Sabbath gown of white flannel, which, though badly cut and worse fitted, still fell into solid picturesque folds, and by its cream-coloured mass threw a sort of reflected brightness round her face. She had taken off her hat, and, holding it in her hand, moved with a mechanical step, almost like a blind person, her eyes fixed on the horizon with an absent expression, yet bright with a consciousness of power that lighted up her face into sudden and transitory beauty.

​In figure and complexion she belonged to the true Australian type—thin, flexible, and tanned to the transparent brown tint which is only acquired by long intimacy with the strong sunshine and dry air of the most stimulating climate in the world. She was not tall, but her throat and shoulders were beautifully moulded, and gave promise of vocal power. Many Australian girls gain from the very defects of their physique—its narrowness and unsubstantial outlines—a certain airy, floating charm of movement all their own; but Alice Lauder had by no means attained to this state of grace. She walked with an awkward school-boy slouch, and, except when seated at the piano, always appeared to have more hands and feet than were required for her own immediate use. Her yellow-brown hair was badly arranged round a high Spanish comb at the top of her head, and was always coming down, without even the apology of being curly. Her eyes were blue, a deep auroral blue, and shone like silver when she was excited; they were so expressive that one almost excused the rest of her features from showing more than the usual pleasant commonplace of youth and health. In time, when thought and experience should leave their unalterable stamp on those soft and malleable out​lines, she might be a striking or interesting-looking woman; at present she was merely a sunburnt, badly-dressed, awkward and unfinished colonial girl.

She sat down at the piano, still with the same absent, sleep-walking expression, and the passengers visibly brightened up a little. The stout matron leaned her head to one side, closed her eyes, and committed her soul to Providence, as she had observed the manner of musical people to be while undergoing this course of treatment, and calmly awaited the worst.

The funny man rushed forward to turn over the leaves, but, finding there was no music for him to operate on, retired, visibly discomfited. Then she smiled and waited for a moment, with her fingers lightly touching the keys, as gently as if she were pressing the hand of a friend. The piano was a new one fortunately, and it recognized and responded to her touch with instant loyalty and comprehension. She played a few harmonious chords, then suddenly flew into some wild Hungarian dance music. Sunday though it was, and heavy as were their souls with dinner and ennui, the passengers felt suddenly exhilarated. The mad delicious foreign melody circled over their heads, danced over the rigging, joined hands with the fleeting waves, ​and at last seemed to die away on the horizon in one long sigh of delight and exhaustion. Then the music changed into a beautiful solemn elegy that harmonized with the fading tropical day and the magnificent rush of the ship over the “houseless ocean’s heaving field;” and then, by a gradual transition, Alice led the way into one of Schubert’s most beautiful, most unearthly inspirations. First she played the deep chords which announce the approach of death to the young and thoughtless girl,—

Then the pathetic wailing entreaty of the girl,—“Ich bin so jung! geh lieber! und ruhre mich nicht an!” And again sinking lower and lower in pleading,—“und ruhre mich nicht an!” Then the deep solemn reassurance of the liberator,—“Bin freund! und komme nicht zu strafen!” and at last the two melodies, interlocked and woven together by the consummate art of the composer, rising and falling, with inextricable joy and regret, fleeting between earth and heaven, till the music fades into a mysterious palpitating whisper, as if some eager wings were beating against a cage and struggling to be free—and then once more Death speaks in solemn consolation,—​

When she had finished, Alice sat perfectly still, but with a look of visionary happiness in her eyes. She knew she had played her part well—perhaps more than well. Her father was a thorough pianist, though not quite a musician, trained up in the straitest sect of the German classic school of thirty years ago. He had taught her most patiently from the time that she could play the notes with baby fingers, and day by day he gave her all that he could impart of polish and technique. She was the hope of his life, and as she grew up he recognized with joy that she had something larger than the faculty for mechanical skill, inherited with his own long flexible fingers and musician’s temperament. But within the last year or two a larger ambition had dawned upon him; he believed that his daughter could be made into a great singer, and, recognizing that he could not deal with the training of her voice, he had at last scraped up enough money to send her home. So Alice Lauder was going out into the Old World to seek her fortune—though even the promise of being thrice Lady Mayoress of London would have ​fallen far short of her dreams of success. She had a curious shyness about singing to people, and especially to strangers, and no one on board the “Suez” even suspected this talent hidden under her shabby dresses and unfinished manner.

Now she sat perfectly still, her lips slightly parted, and the look of restrained strength and power still lighting up her face. The passengers were really enchanted. They had been carried far away from the narrow deck and the dull Sunday evening on the wings of music, and they fervently blessed and thanked the musician for this hour of pleasure. Only Lady May was heard to observe, “Not the first time she has played in public, or I am much mistaken.” Arthur Campbell, to whom this remark was addressed, merely shook his head in silence. Perhaps he intended to agree with the condemnatory observation, perhaps he merely wished to lose nothing of the stream of melody which had been flowing over this Sunday evening Sahara. But Alice played no more that evening, and was presently seen walking up and down the deck, and listening with evident appreciation to the conversation of the funny man, who had surpassed himself that day in the festal glory of his enormously-checked waistcoat and the spottiness of his cobalt-blue necktie.

​After this little concert it may be supposed that Miss Lauder was not allowed to hide her talent under a bushel. But she showed herself a true artist as far as caprice went. Sometimes she would refuse to play, however humbly entreated; at others she seemed to be possessed by a spirit of music, and every able-bodied inhabitant of the vessel, as far as duty permitted, would gather round the piano and listen like a three-years’ child to her wild Bohemian waltzes and heartbreaking Scandinavian laments. Even the stewards would come to the top of the stairs and listen, and the second-class passengers looked wistfully forward from their appointed limit. And the artist was by no means insensible to her audience. She would often turn aside from all the solemnities of Handel or Beethoven to play some wailing negro melody which she knew the sailors loved, or “The Auld House at Hame,” which always made the captain feel weepy; or even “Home, Sweet Home,” with variations, for Mrs. Wigs, who listened to the variations with a reverence which Rubinstein himself would not have inspired.

Arthur Campbell was a most regular attendant at these recitations, listening to—one might almost say imbibing—every note, but never speaking to the musician; till one morning he ​came up to her, as she sat near the piano, idly turning over a book of music, and asked her if she ever played duets with the violin.

“Yes, sometimes,” she said, looking at him with a straight penetrating glance, which seemed to suit oddly with her girlish and haphazard manner and appearance. “Why, do you play?”

“Oh, I fumble away at it a bit. I have rather a good fiddle, which was given to me long ago by a man I used to know, and I would sell my soul to play on it properly. Would you like to see it?”

When he brought the case Alice opened it and fondly took up the violin with the touch of an expert.

“No, I don’t play myself, but my father is something of a fiddler, and I know lots of music. Shall we try some of these early sonatas of Mozart’s? Something simple, I think, would be best.”

Her manner plainly said that the simplest pieces would, in all probability, be most adapted to his execution. Nevertheless, Campbell played fairly well, and really had a soul for music. Like most amateurs, he only wanted practice—what an only!—and the duet was so far a success that it required to be repeated almost every morning—whenever the young musician happened to be in the mood for a lesson or a rehearsal.