“I didn’t know you were. For goodness sake, why didn’t they have your name on the prospectus?”
“They didn’t know I was coming, and I’m not here to perform. I came as a student, like anybody else.”
“Come off it!” said Meurice, laughing, and tapped the guitar-case. “You think you’re the sort of girl who can take her harp to a party without anybody asking her to play? Not while I’m around!” He laid an arm familiarly about her shoulders, and turned her to face the company. “Don’t you know who we’ve got here? Just about the greatest ballad-singer this side of the Atlantic, that’s who. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to present to you none other than the great Liri Palmer.”
CHAPTER II
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EDWARD ARUNDALE made his speech of welcome in the small drawing-room before dinner, against the sombre splendour of black, white and heavy gilt décor that might have been specially designed to render him more impressive. He expressed his pleasure at having so intelligent and enthusiastic a company beneath the roof of his college, outlined the origin and history of the Follymead foundation, wished them a very pleasant and productive week-end, and deeply regretted that he himself wouldn’t be able to enjoy the whole of it with them, since to-morrow afternoon he had to leave to fulfil two speaking engagements in Birmingham, and would not be back until Sunday evening. After this evening, therefore, he would be handing over direction of the course to his deputy, Henry Marshall, – Mr. Marshall, who was young, anxious and only too well aware of being on trial, smiled nervously – and Professor Roderick Penrose, whose name and reputation were certainly known to everyone interested in folk-music. Mr. Arundale wouldn’t claim that folk-music was the professor’s subject; he would prefer to describe it as his passion and if he held some unusual and controversial opinions on it, the discussion during the week-end would be all the livelier.
Professor Penrose, who was seventy-five, bursting with energy, and just beginning to take full advantage of the privileges of age, notably its irresponsibility and licence, grinned happily, fluffed up his clown’s-tufts of grey hair with eager fingers, and licked his lips in anticipation. He couldn’t wait to get his carnivorous teeth into all the sacred cows of the cult.
Then they trooped in to dinner in the neo-Gothic vaulted hall, still hung with Cothercott tapestries and lit by great torches (electric now) jutting from the gold and scarlet walls. Audrey Arundale, dazzlingly fair in her plain black dress, sat beside her husband, looked beautiful, kept a careful watch on the conversation, and said and did all the right things at all the right moments. That is what the wives of the Edward Arundales are for, though they may also, incidentally, be loved helplessly and utterly, as Audrey was loved.
She was fifteen years his junior, and looked even younger. He had never grown tired of looking at her, never lost the power to feel again the knife-thrust of astonishment, anguish and delight that possession of her beauty gave him. He still hated to leave her even for a day.
“I wish you were coming with me,” he said impulsively in her ear. The young people were getting into their stride, you could gauge the potential success of a course by the crescendo of noise at their first meal together. He smiled at her quickly and reassuringly. “No, I know you can’t, of course. I wouldn’t take you away from this, I know how much you’re going to enjoy it.”
“It’s just that I really began it,” she said apologetically. Her voice had something of the quality of her eyes, hesitant and faintly anxious, as though even after twenty years of backing him up loyally, first as the revered head of Bannerets and now here, she was still in doubt of her own powers, and still constantly braced to please. “I’ve really got to see it through, after getting Professor Penrose and all those others into it, haven’t I?”
“Of course, my dear, I know. But I shall miss you. Never mind,” he said, letting his hand rest for a moment on hers, “let’s enjoy this first concert together, anyhow. It looks as if you’re going to have a success on your hands, by all the signs.”
The noise by then was almost deafening but there were those who observed that Lucien Galt wasn’t contributing much to it, and neither was Liri Palmer.
“To-morrow,” said Professor Penrose, rubbing his hands, “will be time enough to begin haggling about all the usual questions, such as definition and standards, what’s permissible and what isn’t, who has it right and who has it wrong. To-night we’re going to enjoy ourselves. We have here with us a number of recognised artists in the field, whose judgement of their material ought to command respect. Let’s ask them, not to tell us, but to show us. We’ll get them to sing their favourites, songs they take as beyond question or reproach. And then we’ll examine the results together, and see what we find.”
“Now you got me scared,” said Peter Crewe plaintively, and got a mild laugh from under Dickie Meurice’s nose; but his time was coming.
“Mr. Crewe, you are probably the safest person around here. We shall see! Don’t let me cast any shadows. I’m retiring into the audience as of now.” The professor, a born chameleon, was taking on colouring, from his American artist without even realising it. “Here and now I hand over this session to an expert at putting people through hoops. Mr. Meurice, take over.”
Mr. Meurice rose like a trout to a fly, and took over gleefully. The professor retired to a quiet corner beside the warden and his wife, and sat on the small of his back, legs crossed, looking at his specimens between his skidding glasses and his shaggy brows, and grinning wolfishly.
“There’s really no need of any introductions at all tonight,” said Dicke Meurice, beaming. “If you people down there didn’t know all about all these people up here, you wouldn’t be here at all. All they need me for is to name them in order, and you could tell me everything I could tell you about them. Maybe more! I dare say there’s something even I could learn, this weekend. So let’s not waste time listening to me, but get on to the music. Ladies first! Celia, will you lead the way? You all know Celia Whitwood, the girl with the harp. It makes a change from guitars, doesn’t it?”
It got a ripple of delight from his fans, but it was a very gentle joke for Dickie Meurice. “I thought he’d be cruder,” Tossa confided in a whisper.
“He probably will,” returned Dominic as softly, “before he’s done. Just feeling his way. He’s no fool. This needs a different approach from a disc-jockey session.”
Celia Whitwood settled her instrument comfortably, and sang “Two Fond Hearts” and “By the Sea-Shore,” both in Welsh, translating the words for those who did not know them. She had a small, shy voice, and at first was uncertain of the acoustics in the great yellow drawing-room, but by the end of the first song she had the feel of the space about her, and was using it confidently. She followed with “The Jute-Mill Song,” and made her harp do the mill noises for her. Peter Crewe sang “Times are Getting Hard.” “I’m Going Away” and “The Streets of Laredo”; Andrew Callum contributed two Tyne-side colliery songs and “The Bonny Earl of Moray” from across the border. And Dickie Meurice continued bland, bright and considerate, as though his judgement, too, was on trial.
“All playing safe,” remarked Tossa disapprovingly.
The Rossignol twins began with a ballad-like thriller, grim and dramatic, “Le Roi a fait battre tambour.” They were twenty, flame-headed, of rather girlish prettiness but more than male toughness and impudence, and decidedly disturbing to watch, for one of them was left-handed, and one right, and they amused themselves by trading on this mirror-image appearance to such an extent that it had now become second nature. They followed with a lullaby in a dialect so thick it was plain they felt sure not even Professor Penrose would understand a word of it. “Quarrel with that!” said their innocent smiles. Then they consulted each other by means of two flicks of the eyebrows, cast a wicked glance at the professor, and broke into the honeyed, courtly melody of the fifteen-century “L’Amour de Moi.” They sang it like angels, with melting harmonies as gracious as the flowers they sang about. The professor nodded his ancient head and continued to smile.