Presently, Master Morley hurried in, his footfalls heavy on the wide elm boards. Hubert stopped playing and stood up.
'My excuses, Clerk Anviclass="underline" the organer kept me at the oratory. Now what have you for me today?'
'Here, master.'
At his work-desk to one side of the platform, Morley turned over the sheets of music-paper at a fair speed to start with, then more slowly. Twice he went to the nearer pianoforte and, without sitting down, played short passages. Halfway through a second study of the manuscript he spoke, in the voice that was as heavy as his tread.
'How long was this in the writing, Anvil?'
'In the writing down, master, no more than—'
'My question was ill drawn. How long in the composing?'
'It's hard for me to tell, master. Six minutes or seven.'
'It'll be that long in the playing.'
'Forgive me, master, of course it was much longer in the composing.'
Morley stared past Hubert at one of the wall-paintings. 'Anvil,' he said at last: 'I know you meant six or seven minutes in the composing. What did you mean by composing?'
'I... My mind was those minutes in going through it. Or...' Hubert hesitated, but the Prefect still stared. 'Or it was those minutes going through my mind.'
'You tell me it came to you from somewhere else.' The voice was at its harshest now.
'No—no, master, it was inside my mind already when I... looked.'
'Very well. These F naturals here.' Morley pointed with a stubby finger. 'And again near the end.'
'Oh yes.' Hubert sang a short phrase.
'Why did you have your hands in front of you then?'
'Did I so? I expect because it's the clarinet—I was...'
'What clarinet, Anvil? This is a keyboard piece.'
'Yes, master, but I heard that voice as a clarinet.'
'And the other voices too, you heard them as flutes and violas and horns and so forth?'
'No, sir. Two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons.'
'So this here is a keyboard transcription of a wind-sextet movement you haven't put on paper.'
'Yes, master.'
'Are all your keyboard pieces transcriptions of non-existent originals?'
'Oh no, master: the theme and variations was for pianoforte.'
'Indeed. Now at last to these F naturals. The key is G major, and elsewhere, here for example, we find the F sharp we expect. Well?'
'They're different places, master.'
'When I protest that the leading-note of G major is F sharp, what's your answer?'
'That where I've written F natural nothing but F natural is possible.'
Morley was silent for nearly a minute. Then he said, 'They let me know you go soon to be altered.'
'Yes, master.'
'I'm sorry to hear it. Oh, it means an eminent career for you and I wish you well. But it also means an end to your activities as composer.'
'Surely not, sir.'
'As surely as can be. Name me six pieces of any kind that a singer of the least eminence has written. You see? Consideration will show that a singer's life is too much lived with others, too remunerating in other ways than financial, simply too full to allow of composition. So I'm a little dismal, because you're by far the best pupil I've ever had. But in any case I must lose you soon as pupiclass="underline" soon I'll be able to teach you nothing more.'
'You are too gracious, master.'
Again Morley stared at the painting. 'Why is it, Anvil, do you think, that St Cecilia is the patron saint of the blind as well as of music?'
Anything Hubert might have had to say to this was never heard, because just then Lawrence came into the concert-chamber and up to the two on the platform.
'Your indulgence, master,' he said, and then, 'Clerk Anvil, my lord Abbot wishes you to come to him at once.'
'What have I done?' asked Hubert in fear, thinking of his encounter with Ned.
'Nothing ill that I know of, clerk,' said the servant, smiling slightly. 'You're to go to Rome.'
As the other two moved off, Morley sighed and nodded his head, his eyes shut.
The Eternal City Rapid pulled out of Bayswater Station, its only stop between Coverley and Rome, at 6.25 a.m., and moved slowly, through networks of points and round tight bends, across London, across the river and into the north-west corner of the county of Kent, which was still virtually coextensive with the ancient kingdom. There the track straightened itself, changing direction only in the longest and shallowest of curves, its continuously-welded rails on their cushioned sleepers moving through natural obstacles, not round them: the work of the great Harrison. The half-mile-long train—three triplex tugs, 30 passenger baruches, 38 cargo vans—accelerated steadily, but it did not attain its top speed of 195 m.p.h. until the towers of Canterbury were to be seen out of the windows on the left side. Soon came the famous moment when it emerged from the Dover cliffs and entered on to the Channel Bridge, Sopwith's masterpiece, 23 miles 644 yards of road and railtrack carried between 169 piers. Little more than half an hour's travel on the French side took the Rapid as far as Clermont, the slipping-point for Paris where it freed itself of its rearmost quarter. As mid-morning approached, tunnels became longer and more frequent, but all were left behind in a matter of seconds except the 15-odd miles of the Bognanco itself. The track ran downhill through Milan, crossed the Po on stilts 200 feet high, climbed again into Parma and moved finally towards the coastal plain. The journey ended in the Stazione S. Pietro at 1.32-nearly a quarter of an hour late. It had all impressed Hubert enough to distract him from more than one troubling or puzzling question, of which not the least was the reason for his summons to Rome. The cabin his father had hired was like several parts of a beautiful house combined into one. After the luggage had been settled, the two of them moved to a kind of parlour by the window. Here there were leather chairs with gold-braided velvet cushions, tall potted plants, lithographs of views of Rome, a row of picture-books, a locker containing a chess-set and packs of playing-cards and much else; but Hubert attended only to things on the outside. As the train went faster, nearby objects like hedges or dwellings of the people became an indifferently-coloured lengthwise blur, but he very soon learned to overlook them in favour of more distant and important things: churches, great houses, busy streets and squares, and at different times no fewer than four aircraft, mighty envelopes of gas on the long run to Africa or the Antipodes.
Breakfast was taken at a polished oval table on which the linen, china, silver and glass might have been made the previous day; the bread the Anvils ate with their hurtleberry conserve must have been baked that day, perhaps on the train itself: nothing seemed impossible. The meal was brought in (by two very polite attendants, one stern, the other timid) long after the train had reached its full speed, and Hubert noticed that, probably in consequence, the timid attendant had to take some special care when he poured the tea. The remnants being cleared away, something like a luxurious bedchamber offered itself in the form of couches shaded by silk screens, but Hubert stayed by the window to see what he had never seen before.