Alice Lauder/Part 2/Chapter 10

THE professor spent some days very pleasantly at Green Street, in close companionship with his pupil, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the long walks and talks and endless excursions into music which they took together—“strumming over his old compositions all day long,” as Clare put it, with all the jealousy of a mute inglorious amateur. Everything was fresh and delightful to him, and he enjoyed the new scenery, the new air, and the ever-youthful sunshine with all the enthusiasm of a boy on a holiday. But the claims of friendship called him away to the neighbouring capital, where a friend of his youth, Adolf Smalz by name, had established himself in a good mercantile position. Smalz was a man of the world, though he did kiss his friend on both cheeks when they met in full view of the railway station public, and he was a leading member of the leading club, of which, according to the hospitable colonial fashion, the professor was immediately made an ​honorary member, and presented with the freedom of the billiard table and the smoking-room, as it were. This was a new field of study to the artist, whose club life had been somewhat neglected. He belonged to one or two literary and artistic societies in London, but the easy-going, brotherly, sporting atmosphere of the colonial club was entirely new to him, and he found it extremely fascinating, for the time being. It was very pleasant to sit at breakfast by the open window, framed in a crimson Bougainvillea as high as the house, eating rock oysters just gathered from the rocks below, and drinking coffee composed by the club chef (a celebrity honourably known all over the colonies), while the amethyst water of the harbour spread out in a fan-shaped estuary for miles before him, and the purple islands that barred its entrance seemed anchored in the paler azure of the misty horizon; and the brown-faced athletic young fellows around him talked incessantly (in what appeared to him an unintelligible jargon) of their ponies and races and various games. This week happened to be the time of one of those colonial carnivals which so frequently lighten the lot of the exile in these waters—a week given over to races, dances, polo, and every sort of athletic game which could be played either with or with​out a horse. The club was running over with “representatives” from every part of the colony, each team also being provided with a bodyguard of devoted adherents and supporters. The young men were all very kind and friendly to the professor (who felt immensely flattered by their patronage), and they “took him in hand” without delay, and endeavoured to initiate him into the various mysteries of polo, the totalizator, progressive euchre, poker, and Calcutta sweeps. Perhaps they attempted too much at once, for some of the good-looking athletic young fellows might often be observed looking more in sorrow than in anger on their pupil, while he made havoc of their dearest technical terms—perhaps inquiring (“just as we thought he did begin to understand something”) as to “who kicked the goal” at polo, or blandly asking “And who won the race to-day?” when a detachment in hunting boots and straw hats came into breakfast from an early morning run with the harriers over the grassy volcanic hills that shut in the town to the northward.

One of these boys, an innocent-looking, curly-haired youth, known among his intimates as Rat Robinson, took the professor more especially under his protection (always addressing him for some unknown reason as Mynheer), and struggled ​earnestly to overcome the deficiencies of the musician’s early education.

Mr. Robinson was also something of a musician; that is to say, he could sing a comic song, and was famous for his version of “Drink, puppy, drink,” particularly as to the “whoop” of the chorus, which he rendered with great vivacity and power. On the strength of this bond of union, and yielding to his uncontrollable propensity to introduce everybody to everybody else, Mr. Robinson took complete command of “Mynheer” at the smoking concert which formed a fitting and harmonious close to the gaieties of the week; and before the end of the evening the professor found himself in possession of a long list of new acquaintances, and of an equally new repertoire of sporting songs. The concert went off extremely well. The professor had played everybody’s accompaniments with his usual unfailing courtesy and tact, and had even yielded to the persuasion of the audience so far as to sing some German student-songs in his fine baritone, finishing with “Funicoli, Funicola,” amid great applause. The smoke was growing thicker and bluer every moment; the talk of the men about polo, ponies’ legs, and every possible variation on the great motif of “The Horse,” became more and more intense and animated. ​The curly-haired one darted about in the smoke like a trout in running water, incessantly talking and introducing people in terms of continually-rising panegyric. He seemed to think that life would not be worth having unless every single person in the crowded room was made acquainted with every other; and more especially unless they were one and all, jointly and severally, presented to his friend “Mynheer” with all due formality. Meantime the good professor sat dreamily at the piano, occasionally playing a chord or two, and listening in his absent-minded way to the conversation of two men at table near him, who were discussing with great intensity some points connected with the character of a “little widow” who was continually mentioned; but whether this term was applied to a lady of their acquaintance, a pony, or was merely a technical term of one of their games, he was quite unable to determine. There was a pause in the proceedings, and he was gradually forgetting all his surroundings in a dream of a gavotte in E flat, when the curly-haired one suddenly appeared through the mist of smoke (thick as in a battlefield), dragging a new arrival forward by the button-holes. “Oh, Mynheer!” he exclaimed in a tone of exultation, “allow me to introduce you to a great friend of ​mine, an eminent polo player, and a first-rate, all-round man. He can play the fiddle too, like a house on fire. I am sure you will get on splendidly, Campbell. This is our distinguished visitor, Mynheer von Piper. He is the greatest musician at present in the Southern hemisphere, and he is a great friend of mine.” The professor smiled and shook hands with the newcomer, who observed in a friendly tone, “My name is Campbell, sir, and I know you are Professor Piper. Our friend has forgotten to give our names, but I have often heard of you.”

“Ah, Mr. Campbell? Yes, I have heard Miss Lauder speak of you. So?—And you are a musician too?”

“Oh, no, sir, I cannot lay claim to that. But I am awfully fond of it. I heard you playing upstairs last night, and I came to the door to listen. I cannot keep away from music any more than a cat can keep from cream.”

“Well, let us have some cream, by all means. What would you like?”

“I should like the ballet music from ‘Rosamunde,’” said Campbell.

“Well, if our friends here will bear with us for a little,” and the delicate aërial music floated over the smoke, without apparently disturbing any of the talkers.

​“This is a beautiful country,” the professor said at last, pausing with his long spider fingers resting on the keys, “I wish I could put my impression of its beauty into music. What a change it is from the everlasting grind in foggy London!”

“Yes, and you might find some grand themes in our Maori legends. You ought to do something in that line. They are a grand race of people in some ways, and what a tragedy it is to see them fading away, blighted by the mere touch of our civilization!”

“Yes, I like the appearance of this ancient race. The calm dignity of their manner, and their self-possession is splendid.”

“You should see some of the real, genuine Maori chiefs of the older day. Some time ago I went right up the country into the interior, to see an old chief of the vieille roche, who has never ‘come in,’ as they call it, to our civilization. Such a ride it was, up the wildest, roughest bit of country I have ever seen! I was on a real good old stock-horse, and he never funked it once, though I did pretty often. Most of the time I seemed to be standing on his head going down the ravines, when I was not sitting on his tail going up.”

“That would be a little difficult to describe with a full orchestra,” said the professor, “but ​perhaps we might do it with the strings alone. Triplets in the treble, I think, and a sort of syncopated movement in the bass.” So he improvised a little sketch, lightly touched in, and very piano. “Yes, yes. Do go on.”

“Well, at last we reached the place where this old chap lived, a sort of raised plateau in the middle of the ranges. He was sitting by himself, like a warrior in his tent—a splendid-looking specimen of a Maori—when we went up to see him. There were some Government swells with our party, and they tried to get round the old man, but he was not to be squared. At last they told him (through the interpreter) that they had come to see him at a great trouble to themselves, and that they expected he would return their visit at their parliament, and see their chiefs. He drew himself up even more haughtily than before, and coldly remarked, ‘If the English Rangatiras (chiefs) wish to see me they can come here.’ We went back feeling thoroughly snubbed by the old soldier.”

“Yes—ah! so—” said the professor, “I am much interested in this native race. My friend, Miss Lauder, has told me—You know her, I think?”

“Yes, very well. You have, of course, been to see her since your arrival?”

​“Oh yes, indeed. She is coming home with me—to England, I mean.”

“With you?”

“Yes, she is engaged to me. She promised me five years ago, but her health broke down, and I waited. Now I have come to claim her. I hope that we shall get away next mail.”

“So soon? Well—I wish her joy! I am rather surprised.”

“Yes, but do not be afraid; I shall take great care of her. She is very dear to me.”

Campbell turned away rather abruptly, and said good-night. As he left the room one of the eminent polo players observed, “Seems a bit seedy, doesn’t he? We shall want all our strength to-morrow for the final tussle.” “It is all this confounded concert,” answered the next man in a grumbling tone, for he was captain of the local team in which Campbell was playing. “I cannot think what you fellows want this racket for. I do not care for music myself, and if this sort of thing goes on, you will all be used up before we can play a stroke.”