Gourdon, Mother. Gilesâs name is Gordon.â
âNevertheless it is said it was the birthplace of the Gordons. Have you ever been there, mâsieu?â
âNo. But I shall goâ
âA wonderful view. But pardon, of course, I forgotâ
So she also had heard of me.
âWe were out sailing Mother, and got caught in the storm.â
âWell, it is over now. In an hour you will be able to start back.â
Later we went into the back room, and Armand, the brother, came in; and then two more men. All the men were a bit surly, Mère Roget polite with a hint of reserve. I wondered if they were pro-Grognard or merely anti anyone who threatened to replace Jacques. I would have liked to go, but couldnât leave without Alix.
There was a piano in this room, and someone started strumming on it, while the place filled up. Itâs always more difficult to pick out things when there are a lot of people in a room. A fisherman with the agreeable name of Roquefort began to sing the choruses, and several of the others joined in. Alix was in the kitchen talking to Mère Roget, and I felt rather out of it.
Eventually the pianist gave up and noisily refused to do any more. He slumped over to a table near by and I could hear him gulping his wine.
They were a queer bunch, more mixed than one expects to find even in a French café. Two people at the next table were discussing the effects of inhaling chloride of ethyl. They were the first cultured voices Iâd heard except Alixâs.
Alix said: â you play yourself, donât you, Giles?â
Sheâd come in unnoticed in the din and had evidently been watching me.
âI used to know âBluebells of Scotland,â â I said shortly.
I might have guessed that that wouldnât register.
âWould you play something now?â
âGood God, no!â
âPlease. To please me.â
âItâs high time we went. Itâll take us two hours to get back.â
âNever mind. Just a little tune. Do you know anything French?â Some of the others were listening.
I said: âYouâre embarrassing me very much, Alix. I havenât touched a piano for three years. Well go now and say goodbye to Mère Roget.â
She put her hand on mine. â Please, dear Giles.â
It was a bit silly to get hot and indignant, but I couldnât help it. The last thing I wanted was to be made conspicuous.
âHell!â I said, and got up and groped round to the piano. Somebody clapped politely.
Iâm not a good pianist by any respectable standardsâpartly because when I was ten I found I could play any tune I could whistle without learning the notes. But in the old days Iâd been able to make a show among friends.
Now I wasnât among friends. I sat on the chair in embarrassment and couldnât think what to play. Quite a lot of the people had stopped talking.
I thought of a thing my mother had played and that Iâd learned from her, a short thing by Liszt which ends up with a whole pianoful of octaves and is generally the sort of showy piece that fits a bad temper.
Anyway I went crashing into this, desperately out of practice and playing a piano for the first time without seeing it. But perhaps annoyance helped and I got through the whole thing with only about six mis-hits.
When it was over quite a lot of people clapped and I heard them say: â Tres bien!â and âBravo!â and â Ãcoutez le donc !â
I wiped my hands down the sides of Armandâs alpaca coat and tried â Gardens in the Rain.â Debussy is a good starter in most company, if the company isnât chichi, and he went over well here. I dropped three bars in the middle, but nobody seemed to mind. Everyone had stopped talking.
âGo on, please,â said Alix, whoâd got round to the piano.
Then I suddenly thought of those Provencal songs Iâd learned here twelve or thirteen
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