But this invitation the tenor felt it to be his duty to decline. He was no musician. He could not play a passage from the musical score to save his life, and of this fact Mr. Tutt was well aware.
“I don’t ask very much—only that you should give me a little support,” said Mr. Kelton with a suggestion of long-suffering in his voice. “I take it that the accompaniment to a song—a tenor song—should be played as if it were nothing more than a background, so to speak, and the vocalization supplies the colour. I don’t wish to discourage you, Mr. Tutt; you play quite well sometimes—quite well enough for the people about here; but we must have light and shade, Mr. Tutt. Now let us try again.”
If Mr. Kelton sang with expression, Mr. Tutt played with expressions—he was almost audible at the door. But still he attacked the air with spirit. He was a very competent man; he had composed a Magnificat which Miss Caffyn, the Rector’s daughter, said took a deal of beating, like a dusty carpet.
Down went Mr. Kelton’s page of music once more, after he had strained up to a very shaky G, and up jumped Mr. Mozart Tutt, before the vocalist had time to formulate his latest complaint.
“I’ve done my best, and if that isn’t good enough for Mr. Kelton he would do well to play his own accompaniment, or get some one to play it who will submit to his insults,” said the musician.
He walked with dignity to the door leading off the platform, and was enthusiastically greeted by the five “bassi.” Mr. Tucknott, flute and all, ran away; he was fearful lest some people should associate him with the intrepid step taken by Mr. Tutt.
It was the Rector’s wife who took command of the situation. She knew that the singing of Mr. Kelton increased to an appreciable extent the attractiveness of the concert, inasmuch as the Honourable Mrs. Bowlby-Sutherst had a passion for listening to tenor music, and Mrs. Bowlby-Sutherst lived at the Hall, and, her husband being patron of the living, she duly patronized the people who lived by it. It would never do, Mrs. Caffyn, the Rector’s wife, perceived, to induce the patroness to attend the concert and then find that there was no tenor solo. That was why she approached Mr. Kelton with a smile that was meant to suggest a great deal, and that certainly assured Mr. Kelton that the Church was on his side.
“We mustn’t be too hard on poor Mr. Tutt,” she said soothingly.
“I’m not,” cried the tenor quickly. “But it’s a little too bad that a man in my position should be subjected to the caprice of such a person. I have a great mind to throw up the whole business.”
He had turned a cold shoulder to the lady, as if he meant to leave the platform that very instant.
“Oh, no, Mr. Kelton, you would never desert us in such a fashion; it would not be like you to do so,” said Mrs. Cafifyn. “Mrs. Bowlby-Sutherst is, I know, coming to our concert solely to hear you sing ‘In the Land of Sleep.’ ”
“I cannot help that, Mrs. Cafifyn. I do not expect a great deal when I come to sing at a country concert, but I look for common civility, Mrs. Cafifyn—common civility.”
“We are all so sorry. I would not for anything that this—this little difference should arise. You will make allowance for the strain upon poor Mr. Tutt—I know you will.”
“Not unless he apologizes—I have a certain amount of self-respect, Mrs. Caffyn. I have no idea of allowing a person in the position of Mr. Tutt to presume——”
“Oh, mother, I have just been talking to Priscilla, and she says she will be delighted to play the accompaniment to ‘The Land of Sleep,’ ” said Rosa Caffyn, who came up hastily to the platform at that moment. She was a girl who was alluded to in a friendly spirit as healthy—in an unhealthy spirit as blowsy. She had a good eye, critics of beauty affirmed, and a straightforward voice, Mr. Tutt had more than once announced to the schoolmistress.
“How sweet of Priscilla!” cried Mrs. Caffyn. “Oh, Mr. Kelton, you will, I know, be pleased with Priscilla’s playing—Miss Wadhurst, you know,” she added in an explanatory tone.
Mr. Kelton pursed out his lips slightly, assuming the air of a man who is being bandaged by the people in the motor that has knocked him down—an air of aggrieved submission.
“An amateur?” he said. “I am not familiar with the name as a professional.”
“Oh, yes—strictly amateur,” replied Miss Caffyn, who played golf and other things, and so knew all about the distinctions between performers.
“I’m not accustomed to be accompanied by amateurs,” said the tenor, who was a bank clerk in the county town, “but I don’t mind giving her a trial. Where is she?”
He put on his pince-nez and looked patronizingly around.
“Here she comes,” said Rosa, beckoning to some one who was seated in the body of the school-house—a young woman with a good deal that might be called striking about her, besides her hair, which was rather marvellous, and made one think of a painter of the early Venetian school—there was too much of brown in it to allow of its ever being called golden, and too much of gold to admit of its being called coppery. People who knew where they stood compromised the matter by calling it marvellous. But whatever it was it suited her, though a girl or two had said positively that Priscilla Wadhurst would be nothing without her hair. They were wrong: she would still have been Priscilla—with a difference.
“It is so sweet of you, Priscilla,” began Mrs. Caffyn.
“Oh, no,” said Priscilla; “I am not good enough—not nearly good enough.”
She cast down her eyes for a tremulous moment, and then raised them coyly to Mr. Kelton’s face; and she saw by the way he looked at her that he thought she would do.
“You will not find that I am such a terrible person after all, Miss—Miss——”
“Wadhurst,” said Rosa. “I should have introduced you. Miss Wadhurst—Mr. Kelton.”
“I heard you last year,” murmured Miss Wadhurst. “I am not likely to forget it. I am not nearly good enough to be your accompanist, Mr. Kelton; but if you will make allowances——”
“Don’t be afraid,” said he with a condescending wave of the left hand—the right was engaged at the point of his moustache. “You will find me anything but the dreadful person you might imagine me to be. All that I ask is to have my instructions carried out to the letter. I am sure that I shall have no trouble with you, Miss Wadhurst.”
“I can only do my best, Mr. Kelton,” said Priscilla, sitting down at the piano.
“What a nice girl she is! and plays so prettily too,” murmured Mrs. Cafifyn, resuming her seat and addressing the lady next to her, a Mrs. Musgrave.
“Pity she made such a fool of herself!” said Mrs. Musgrave, who, being a large subscriber to the Church and other charities, availed herself of the privilege of speaking out when she pleased; and it pleased her to speak rather more frequently than she pleased by speaking.
“Ah, yes, yes—a sad story—very sad!” assented the Rector’s wife with a pleasant sigh.
And then Miss Wadhurst struck the first chords of “In the Land of Sleep” in no spirit of compromise. She played the accompaniment a great deal better than Mr. Tutt had played it—Mr. Tutt said so, and he knew. Mr. Kelton affirmed it, though he knew nothing about it. Miss Wadhurst knew a good deal about a piano, and within the past half-hour she had acquired more than an elementary knowledge of the vanity of an amateur tenor. She knew that she was at the piano not to do anything more artistic than to feed the vanity of the vocalist, and she found herself giving him a very generous meal. She never allowed the instrument to assert itself, and she wilfully rejected several chances that the music offered her of showing him what