“I am glad we have won the day,” said Mr. Phipson, the proposer of this motion, to a friend, as the meeting broke up; “but we have certainly experienced the truth of Mary’s remark that this Jack creates nothing but discord in real life, whatever he may do in music.”
Jack at first refused to have anything further to do with the Antient Orpheus; but as it was evident that his refusal would harm nobody except himself, he yielded to the entreaties of Mary Sutherland, and consented to make use of the opportunity she had, through Mr. Phipson, procured for him. As the negotiation proceeded; and at last, one comfortless wet spring morning, Jack got out of an omnibus in Piccadilly, and walked through the mud to St. James’s Hall, where, in the gloomy rooms beneath the orchestra, he found a crowd of about eighty men, chatting, hugging themselves, and stamping because of the cold, stooping over black bags and boxes containing musical instruments, or reluctantly unwinding woolen mufflers and unbuttoning great coats. He passed them into a lower room, where he found three gentlemen standing in courtly attitudes before a young lady wrapped in furs, with a small head, light brown hair, and a pale face, rather toil worn. She received them with that natural air of a princess in her own right which is so ineffectually striven for by the ordinary princess in other people’s rights. As she spoke to the gentlemen in French, occasionally helping them to understand her by a few words of broken English, she smiled occasionally, apparently more from kindness than natural gaiety, for her features always relapsed into an expression of patient but not unhappy endurance. Near her sat an old foreign lady, brown skinned, tall, and very grim.
Jack advanced a few steps into the room; glanced at the gentlemen, and took a long look at the younger lady, who, like the rest, had had her attention arrested by his impressive ugliness. He scrutinized her so openly that she turned away displeased, and a little embarrassed. Two of the gentlemen stared at him stiffly. The third came forward, and said with polite severity, “What is your business here, sir?”
Jack looked at him for a moment, wrinkling his face hideously. “I am Jack,” he said, in the brassiest tone of his powerful voice. “Who are you?”
“Oh!” said the gentleman, relaxing a little. “I beg your pardon. I had not the pleasure of knowing you by sight, Mr Jack. My name is Manlius, at your service.” Mr Manlius was the conductor of the Antient Orpheus orchestra. He was a learned musician, generally respected because he had given instruction to members of the Royal family, and, when conducting, never allowed his orchestra to forget the restraint due to the presence of ladies and gentlemen in the sofa stalls.
Jack bowed. Mr Manlius considered whether he should introduce the composer to the young lady. Whilst he hesitated, a trampling overhead was succeeded by the sounding of a note first on the pianoforte and then on the oboe, instantly followed by the din of an indescribable discord of fifths from innumerable strings, varied by irrelevant chromatic scales from the wood wind, and a doleful timing of slides from the brass. Jack’s eyes gleamed. Troubling himself no further about Mr Manlius, he went out through a door leading to the stalls, where he found a knot of old gentlemen disputing. One of them immediately whispered something to the others; and they continued their discussion a in a lower tone. Jack looked at the orchestra for a few minutes, and then returned to the room he had left, where the elder lady was insisting in French that the pianoforte fantasia should be rehearsed before anything else, as she was not going to wait in the cold all day. Mr Manlius assured her that he had anticipated her suggestion, and should act upon it as a matter of course.
“It is oll the* same thinks,” said the young lady in English. Then in French. “Even if you begin with the fantasia, Monsieur, I shall assuredly wait to hear for the first time your famous band perform in this ancient hall.”
Manlius bowed. When he straightened himself again, he found Jack standing at his elbow. “Allow me to present to you Monsieur Jack,” he said.
“It is for Monsieur Jacques to allow,” she replied. The poor artist is honored by the presence of the illustrious English composer.”
Jack nodded gravely as acknowledging that the young woman expressed herself becomingly. Manlius grinned covertly, and proposed that they should go up on the orchestra, as the band was apt to get out of humor when too much time was wasted. She rose at once, and ascended the steps on the arm of the conductor. She was received with an encouraging clapping of hands and tapping of fiddle backs. Jack followed with the elder lady, who sat down on the top stair, and began to knit.
“If you wish to conduct the rehearsal,” said Manlius politely to Jack, “you are, of course, quite welcome to do so.”
“Thank you,” said Jack. “I will.” Manlius, who had hardly expected him to accept the offer, retired to the pianoforte, and prepared to turn over the leaves for the player.
“I think I can play it from memory,” she said to him, “unless Monsieur Jacques puts it all out of my head. Judging by his face, it is certain that he is not very patien — Ah ! Did I not say so?”
Jack had rapped the desk sharply with his stick, and was looking balefully at the men, who did not seem in any hurry to attend to him. He put down the stick, stepped from the desk, and stooped to the conductor’s ear.
I mentioned,” he said, “that some of the parts ought to be given to the men to study before rehearsal. Has that been done?”
Manlius smiled. “My dear sir,” he said, “I need hardly tell you that players of such standing as the members of the Antient Orpheus orchestra do not care to have suggestions of that kind offered to them. You have no cause to be uneasy. They can play anything — absolutely anything, at sight.”
Jack looked black, and returned to his desk without a word. He gave one more rap with his stick, and began. The players were attentive, but many of them tried not to look so.
For a few bars, Jack conducted under some restraint, apparently striving to repress a tendency to extravagant gesticulation. Then, as certain combinations and progressions sounded strange and farfetched, slight bursts Of laughter were heard. Suddenly the first clarinetist, with an exclamation of impatience, put down his instrument.
“Well?” shouted Jack. The music ceased.
“I can’t play that.” said the clarinetist shortly.
“Can you play it?” said Jack, with suppressed rage, to the second clarinetist.
“No,” said he. “Nobody could play it.”
“That passage has been played; and it must be played. It has been played by a common soldier.”
“If a common soldier even attempted it, much less played it,” said the first clarinetist, with some contemptuous indignation at what he considered an evident falsehood, “he must have been drunk.” There was general titter at this.
Jack visibly wrestled