deal in order to prepare himself for the occasion, and he
had neither the time nor the inclination for hours of practice. However, when
the Head said: “I know I can—um, yes—rely upon you, Mr. Speed,”
Speed knew that there was no way out of it. Besides, he was feeling his way
in the school with marvellous ease and accuracy, and each new duty undertaken
by special request increased and improved his prestige.
After a few days’ trial he found it was rather pleasant to climb the
ladder to the organ-loft amid the rich cool dusk of the chapel, switch on the
buzzing motor that operated the electric power, and play, not only Chopin’s
Funeral March but anything else he liked. Often he would merely improvise,
beginning with a simple theme announced on single notes, and broadening and
loudening into climax. Always as he played he could see the shafts of
sunlight falling amidst the dusty pews, the many-coloured glitter of the
stained-glass in the oriel window, and in an opaque haze in the distance the
white cavern of the chapel entrance beyond which all was light and sunshine.
The whole effect, serene and tranquillising, hardly stirred him to any
distinctly religious emotion, but it set up in him acutely that emotional
sensitiveness to things secret and unseen, that insurgent consciousness,
clear as the sky, yet impossible to translate into words, of deep wells of
meaning beneath all the froth and commotion of his five passionate
senses.
There was a mirror just above the level of his eyes as he sat at the
keyboard, a mirror by means of which he could keep a casual eye on the pulpit
and choir-stalls and the one or two front pews. And one golden afternoon as
he was playing the adagio movement out of Beethoven’s “Sonata
Pathétique,” a stray side-glance into the mirror showed him that he had an
audience—of one. She was sitting at the end of the front pew of all,
nearest the lectern; she was listening, very simply and unspectacularly.
Speed’s first impulse was to stop; his second to switch off from the “Sonata
Pathétique” into something more blatantly dramatic. He had, with the first
kindling warmth of the sensation of seeing her, a passionate longing to touch
somehow her emotions, or, if he could not do that, to stir her
sentimentality, at any rate; he would have played the most saccharine
picture-palace trash, with vox humana and tremolo stops
combined, if he had thought that by doing so he could fill her eyes. Third
thoughts, however, better than either the second or first, told him that he
had better finish the adagio movement of the Sonata before betraying
the fact that he knew she was present. He did so accordingly, playing rather
well; then, when the last echoes had died away, he swung his legs over the
bench and addressed her. He said, in a conversational tone that sounded
rather incongruous in its surroundings: “Good afternoon, Miss Ervine!”
She looked up, evidently startled, and answered, with a half-smile: “Oh,
good afternoon, Mr. Speed.”
He went on: “I hope I haven’t bored you. Is there anything in particular
you’d like me to play to you?”
She walked out of the pew and along the tiled arena between the
choir-stalls to a point where she stood gazing directly up at him. The organ
was on the south side of the choir, perched rather precipitously in an
overhead chamber that looked down on to the rest of the chapel rather as a
bay-window looks on to a street. To Speed, as he saw her, the situation
seemed somewhat like the balcony scene with the positions of Romeo and Juliet
reversed. And never, he thought, had she looked so beautiful as she did then,
with her head poised at an upward angle as if in mute and delicate appeal,
and her arms limply at her side, motionless and inconspicuous, as though all
the meaning and significance of her were flung upwards into the single
soaring glance of her eyes. A shaft of sunlight, filtered through the
had neither the time nor the inclination for hours of practice. However, when
the Head said: “I know I can—um, yes—rely upon you, Mr. Speed,”
Speed knew that there was no way out of it. Besides, he was feeling his way
in the school with marvellous ease and accuracy, and each new duty undertaken
by special request increased and improved his prestige.
After a few days’ trial he found it was rather pleasant to climb the
ladder to the organ-loft amid the rich cool dusk of the chapel, switch on the
buzzing motor that operated the electric power, and play, not only Chopin’s
Funeral March but anything else he liked. Often he would merely improvise,
beginning with a simple theme announced on single notes, and broadening and
loudening into climax. Always as he played he could see the shafts of
sunlight falling amidst the dusty pews, the many-coloured glitter of the
stained-glass in the oriel window, and in an opaque haze in the distance the
white cavern of the chapel entrance beyond which all was light and sunshine.
The whole effect, serene and tranquillising, hardly stirred him to any
distinctly religious emotion, but it set up in him acutely that emotional
sensitiveness to things secret and unseen, that insurgent consciousness,
clear as the sky, yet impossible to translate into words, of deep wells of
meaning beneath all the froth and commotion of his five passionate
senses.
There was a mirror just above the level of his eyes as he sat at the
keyboard, a mirror by means of which he could keep a casual eye on the pulpit
and choir-stalls and the one or two front pews. And one golden afternoon as
he was playing the adagio movement out of Beethoven’s “Sonata
Pathétique,” a stray side-glance into the mirror showed him that he had an
audience—of one. She was sitting at the end of the front pew of all,
nearest the lectern; she was listening, very simply and unspectacularly.
Speed’s first impulse was to stop; his second to switch off from the “Sonata
Pathétique” into something more blatantly dramatic. He had, with the first
kindling warmth of the sensation of seeing her, a passionate longing to touch
somehow her emotions, or, if he could not do that, to stir her
sentimentality, at any rate; he would have played the most saccharine
picture-palace trash, with vox humana and tremolo stops
combined, if he had thought that by doing so he could fill her eyes. Third
thoughts, however, better than either the second or first, told him that he
had better finish the adagio movement of the Sonata before betraying
the fact that he knew she was present. He did so accordingly, playing rather
well; then, when the last echoes had died away, he swung his legs over the
bench and addressed her. He said, in a conversational tone that sounded
rather incongruous in its surroundings: “Good afternoon, Miss Ervine!”
She looked up, evidently startled, and answered, with a half-smile: “Oh,
good afternoon, Mr. Speed.”
He went on: “I hope I haven’t bored you. Is there anything in particular
you’d like me to play to you?”
She walked out of the pew and along the tiled arena between the
choir-stalls to a point where she stood gazing directly up at him. The organ
was on the south side of the choir, perched rather precipitously in an
overhead chamber that looked down on to the rest of the chapel rather as a
bay-window looks on to a street. To Speed, as he saw her, the situation
seemed somewhat like the balcony scene with the positions of Romeo and Juliet
reversed. And never, he thought, had she looked so beautiful as she did then,
with her head poised at an upward angle as if in mute and delicate appeal,
and her arms limply at her side, motionless and inconspicuous, as though all
the meaning and significance of her were flung upwards into the single
soaring glance of her eyes. A shaft of sunlight, filtered through the
Similar Books
