Evelyn Innes Part 28

"Father, I've lots of things to see to. I'm going to stop to dinner if you'll let me."

"I'm afraid, Evelyn--Agnes--"

"You need not trouble about the dinner--Agnes and I will see to that. We have made all necessary arrangements."

"Is that your carriage?... You've got a fine pair of horses. Well, one can't be Evelyn Innes for nothing. But if you're stopping to dinner, you'd better stop the night. I'm giving the 'Missa Brevis' to-morrow.

I'm giving it in honour of Monsignor Mostyn. It was he who helped me to overcome Father Gordon."

"You shall tell me all about Monsignor after dinner."

He walked about the room, unwittingly singing the _Lied_, "Winter storms wane in the winsome May," and he stopped before the harpsichord, thinking he saw her still there. And his thoughts sailed on, vagrant as clouds in a Spring breeze. She had come back, his most wonderful daughter had come back.

He turned from his wife's portrait, fearing the thought that her joy on their daughter's return might be sparer than his. But unpleasant thoughts fell from him, and happiness sang in his brain like spring-awakened water-courses, and the scent in his nostrils was of young leaves and flowers, and his very flesh was happy as the warm, loosening earth in spring. "'Winter storms,'" he sang, "'wane in the winsome May; with tender radiance sparkles the spring.' I must hear her sing that; I must hear her intercede at Wotan's feet!" His eyes filled with happy tears, and he put questions aside. She was coming to-morrow to hear his choir. And what would she think of it? A shadow pa.s.sed across his face. If he had known she was coming, he'd have taken more trouble with those altos; he'd have kept them another hour.... Then, taken with a sudden craving to see her, he went to the door and called to her.

"Evelyn."

"Yes, father."

"You are stopping to-night?"

"Yes, but I can't stop to speak with you now--I'm busy with Agnes."

She was deep in discussion with Agnes regarding the sole. Agnes thought she knew how to prepare it with bread crumbs, but both were equally uncertain how the melted b.u.t.ter was to be made. There was no cookery-book in the house, and it seemed as if the fish would have to be eaten with plain b.u.t.ter until it occurred to Agnes that she might borrow a cookery-book next door. It seemed to Evelyn that she had never seen a finer sole, so fat and firm; it really would be a pity if they did not succeed in making the melted b.u.t.ter. When Agnes came back with the book, Evelyn read out the directions, and was surprised how hard it was to understand. In the end it was Agnes who explained it to her. The chicken presented some difficulties. It was of an odd size, and Agnes was not sure whether it would take half-an-hour or three-quarters to cook.

Evelyn studied the white bird, felt the cold, clammy flesh, and inclined to forty minutes. Agnes thought that would be enough if she could get her oven hot enough. She began by raking out the flues, and Evelyn had to stand back to avoid the soot. She stood, her eyes fixed on the fire, interested in the draught and the dissolution of every piece of coal in the flame. It seemed to Evelyn that the fire was drawing beautifully, and she appealed to Agnes, who only seemed fairly satisfied. It was doing pretty well, but she had never liked that oven; one was never sure of it. Margaret used to put a piece of paper over the chicken to prevent it burning, but Agnes said there was no danger of it burning; the oven never could get hot enough for that. But the oven, as Agnes had said, was a tricky one, and when she took the chicken out to baste it, it seemed a little scorched. So Evelyn insisted on a piece of paper. Agnes said that it would delay the cooking of the chicken, and attributed the scorching to the quant.i.ty of coal which Miss Innes would keep adding. If she put any more on she would not be answerable that the chimney would not catch fire. Every seven or eight minutes the chicken was taken out to be basted. The bluey-whitey look of the flesh which Evelyn had disliked had disappeared; the chicken was acquiring a rich brown colour which she much admired, and if it had not been for Agnes, who told her the dinner would be delayed till eight o'clock, she would have had the chicken out every five minutes, so much did she enjoy pouring the rich, bubbling juice over the plump back.

"Father! Father, dinner is ready! I've got a sole and a chicken. The sole is a beauty; Agnes says she never saw a fresher one."

"And where did all these things come from?"

"I sent my coachman for them. Now sit down and let me help you. I cooked the dinner myself." Feeling that Agnes's eye was upon her, she added, "Agnes and I--I helped Agnes. We made the melted b.u.t.ter from the recipe in the cookery-book next door. I do hope it is a success."

"I see you've got champagne, too."

"But I don't know how you're to get the bottle open, miss; we've no champagne nippers."

After some conjecturing the wires were twisted off with a kitchen fork.

Evelyn kept her eyes on her father's plate, and begged to be allowed to help him again, and she delighted in filling up his gla.s.s with wine; and though she longed to ask him if he had been to hear her sing, she did not allude to herself, but induced him to talk of his victories over Father Gordon. This story of clerical jealousy and ignorance was intensely interesting to the old man, and she humoured him to the top of his bent.

"But it would all have come to nothing if it had not been for Monsignor Mostyn."

She fetched him his pipe and tobacco. "And who is Monsignor Mostyn?" she asked, dreading a long tale in which she could feel on interest at all.

She watched him filling his pipe, working the tobacco down with his little finger nail. She thought she could see he was thinking of something different, and to her great joy he said--

"Well, your Margaret is very good; better than I expected--I am speaking of the singing; of course, as acting it was superb."

"Oh, father! do tell me? So you went after all? I sent you a box and a stall, but you were in neither. In what part of the theatre were you?"

"In the upper boxes; I did not want to dress." She leaned across the table with brightening eyes. "For a dramatic soprano you sing that light music with extraordinary ease and fluency."

"Did I sing it as well as mother?"

"Oh, my dear, it was quite different. Your mother's art was in her phrasing and in the ideal appearance she presented."

"And didn't I present an ideal appearance?"

"It's like this, Evelyn. The Margaret of Gounod and his librettist is not a real person, but a sort of keepsake beauty who sings keepsake music. I a.s.sume that you don't think much of the music; brought up as you have been on the Old Masters, you couldn't. Well, the question is whether parts designed in such an intention should be played in the like intention, or if they should be made living creations of flesh and blood, worked up by the power of the actress into something as near to the Wagner ideal as possible. I admire your Margaret; it was a wonderful performance, but--"

"But what, father?"

"It made me wish to see you in Elizabeth and Brunnhilde. I was very sorry I couldn't get to London last night."

"You'd like my Elizabeth better. Margaret is the only part of the old lot that I now sing. I daresay you're right. I'll limit myself for the future to the Wagner repertoire."

"I think you'd do well. Your genius is essentially in dramatic expression. 'Carmen,' for instance, is better as Galli Marie used to play it than as you would play it. 'Carmen' is a conventional type--all art is convention of one kind or another, and each demands its own interpretation. But I hope you don't sing that horrid music."

"You don't like 'Carmen'?"

Mr. Innes shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"'Faust' is better than that. Gounod follows--at a distance, of course--but he follows the tradition of Haydn and Mozart. 'Carmen' is merely Gounod and Wagner. I hope you've not forgotten my teaching; as I've always said, music ended with Beethoven and began again with Wagner."

"Did you see Ulick Dean's article?"

"Yes, he wrote to me last night about your Elizabeth. He says there never was anything heard like it on the stage."

"Did he say that? Show me the letter. What else did he say?"

"It was only a note. I destroyed it. He just said what I told you. But he's a bit mad about that opera. He's been talking to me about it all the winter, saying that the character had never been acted; apparently it has been now. Though for my part I think Brunnhilde or Isolde would suit you better."

The mention of Isolde caused them to avoid looking at each other, and Evelyn asked her father to tell her about Ulick--how they became acquainted and how much they saw of each other. But to tell her when he made Ulick's acquaintance would be to allude to the time when Evelyn left home. So his account of their friendship was cursory and perfunctory, and he asked Evelyn suddenly if Ulick had shown her his opera.

"Grania?"

"No, not 'Grania.' He has not finished 'Grania,' but 'Connla and the Fairy Maiden.' Written," he added, "entirely on the old lines. Come into the music-room and you shall see."

He took up the lamp; Evelyn called Agnes to get another. The lamps were placed upon the harpsichord; she lighted some candles, and, just as in old times, they lost themselves in dreams and visions. This time it was in a faint Celtic haze; a vision of silver mist and distant mountain and mere. It was on the heights of Uisnech that Connla heard the fairy calling him to the Plain of Pleasure, Moy Mell, where Boadag is king.

And King Cond, seeing his son about to be taken from him, summoned Coran the priest and bade him chant his spells toward the spot whence the fairy's voice was heard. The fairy could not resist the spell of the priest, but she threw Connla an apple and for a whole month he ate nothing but that. But as he ate, it grew again, and always kept whole.

And all the while there grew within him a mighty yearning and longing after the maiden he had seen. And when the last day of the month of waiting came, Connla stood by the side of the king, his father, on the Plain of Aromin, and again he saw the maiden come towards him, and again she spoke to him--

"'Tis no lofty seat on which Connla sits among short-lived mortals awaiting fearful death, but now the folk of life, the ever-living living ones, beg and bid thee come to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, for they have learnt to know thee."

When Cond the king observed that since the maiden came Connla his son spake to none that spake to him, then Cond of the hundred fights said to him--

"Is it to thy mind what the woman says, my son?"

"'Tis hard on me; I love my folk above all things, but a great longing seizes me for the maiden."

"The waves of the ocean are not so strong as the waves of thy longing; come with me in my currah, the straight gliding, the crystal boat, and we shall soon reach the Plain of Pleasure, where Boadag is king."