Mary Westmacott - Giant's Bread

In response to applause, she sang yet a third song. Vernon sat up, suddenly alert.

It was like a spell laid on the room – the sense of magic – of terrified enchantment. Jane’s face was thrust forward. Her eyes looked out, past beyond – seeing – frightened yet fascinated.

There was a sigh as she finished. A stout burly man with white hair en brosse pushed his way to Sebastian.

‘Ah! my good Sebastian, I have arrived. I will talk to that young lady – at once, immediately.’

Sebastian went with him across the room to Jane. Herr Radmaager took her by both hands. He looked at her earnestly.

‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Your physique is good. I should say that both the digestion and the circulation were excellent. You will give me your address and I will come and see you. Is it not so?’

Vernon thought: ‘These people are mad.’

But he noticed that Jane Harding seemed to take it as a matter of course. She wrote down her address, talked to Radmaager for a few minutes longer, then came and rejoined Joe and Vernon.

‘Sebastian is a good friend,’ she remarked. ‘He knows that Herr Radmaager is looking for a Solveig for his new opera, Peer Gynt . That is why he asked me here tonight.’

Joe got up and went to talk to Sebastian. Vernon and Jane Harding were left alone.

‘Tell me,’ said Vernon stammering a little. ‘That song you sang –’

‘Frosted snow?’

‘No, the last one. I – I heard it years ago – when I was a kid.’

‘How curious. I thought it was a family secret.’

‘A hospital nurse sang it to me when I broke my leg. I always loved it – but never thought I should hear it again.’

Jane Harding said thoughtfully:

‘I wonder now. Could that have been my Aunt Frances?’

‘Yes, that was her name. Nurse Frances. Was she your aunt? What’s happened to her?’

‘She died a good many years ago. Diphtheria, caught from a patient.’

‘Oh! I’m sorry.’ He paused, hesitated, then blundered on. ‘I’ve always remembered her. She was – she was a wonderful friend to me as a kid.’

He caught Jane’s green eyes looking at him, a steady, kindly glance, and he knew at once of whom she had reminded him the first moment he saw her. She was like Nurse Frances.

She said quietly:

‘You write music, don’t you? Sebastian told me about you.’

‘Yes – at least I try to.’

He stopped, hesitated again. He thought: ‘She’s terribly attractive. Do I like her? Why am I afraid of her?’

He felt suddenly excited and exalted. He could do things – he knew he could do things …

‘Vernon!’

Sebastian was calling him. He got up. Sebastian presented him to Radmaager. The great man was kindly and sympathetic.

‘I am interested,’ he said, ‘in what I hear about your work from my young friend here.’ He laid his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. ‘He is very astute, my young friend. In spite of his youth, he is seldom wrong. We will arrange a meeting, and you shall show me your work.’

He moved on. Vernon was left quivering with excitement. Did he really mean it? He went back to Jane. She was smiling. Vernon sat down by her. A sudden wave of depression succeeded the exhilaration. What was the good of it all? He was tied, hand and foot, to Uncle Sydney and Birmingham. You couldn’t write music unless you gave your whole time, your whole thoughts, your whole soul to it.

He felt injured – miserable – yearning for sympathy. If only Nell were here. Darling Nell who always understood.

He looked up and found Jane Harding watching him.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said.

‘I wish I were dead,’ said Vernon bitterly.

Jane raised her eyebrows slightly.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you walk up to the top of this building and jump off, you can be.’

It was hardly the answer that Vernon had expected. He looked up resentfully, but her cool, kindly glance disarmed him.

‘There’s only one thing I care about in the whole world,’ he said passionately. ‘I want to write music. I could write music. And instead of that I’m stuck in a beastly business that I hate. Grinding away day after day! It’s too sickening.’

‘Why do you do it if you don’t like it?’

‘Because I have to.’

‘I expect you want to really – otherwise you wouldn’t,’ said Jane indifferently.

‘Haven’t I told you that I want to write music more than anything else in the world?’

‘Then why don’t you do it?’

‘Because I can’t, I tell you.’

He felt exasperated with her. She didn’t seem to understand at all. Her view on life seemed to be that if you wanted to do anything, you just went and did it.

He began pouring out things. Abbots Puissants, the concert, his uncle’s offer, and then – Nell …

When he had finished, she said:

‘You do expect life to be rather a fairy story, don’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that. You want to be able to live in the house of your forefathers, and to marry the girl you love, and to grow immensely rich, and to be a great composer. I daresay you might manage to do one of those four things if you give your whole mind to it. But it’s not likely that you’ll have everything, you know. Life isn’t like a penny novelette.’

He hated her for the moment. And yet, even while he hated, he was attracted. He felt again the curious emotional atmosphere that she had created when singing. He thought to himself: ‘A magnetic field, that’s what it is.’ And then again: ‘I don’t like her. I’m afraid of her.’

A long-haired young man came up and joined them. He was a Swede, but he spoke excellent English.

‘Sebastian tells me that you will write the music of the future,’ he said to Vernon. ‘I have theories about the future. Time is only another dimension of space. You can move to and fro in time just as you can move to and fro in space. Half your dreams are only confused memories of the future. And as you can be separated from your dear ones in space, so you can be separated from them in time, and that is the greatest tragedy there is or can be.’

Since he was clearly mad, Vernon paid no attention. He was not interested in theories of space and time. But Jane Harding leaned forward.

‘To be separated in time,’ she said. ‘I never thought of that.’

Encouraged, the Swede went on. He talked of time, and of ultimate space, and of time one, and of time two. Whether Jane was interested or not, Vernon did not know. She looked straight in front of her and did not appear to be listening. The Swede went on to time three, and Vernon escaped.

He joined Joe and Sebastian. Joe was being enthusiastic on the subject of Jane Harding.

‘I think she’s wonderful. Don’t you, Vernon? She’s asked me to go and see her. I wish I could sing like that.’

‘She’s an actress, not a singer,’ said Sebastian. ‘A good sort, Jane. She’s had rather a tragic life. For five years she lived with Boris Androv, the sculptor.’

Joe glanced over in Jane’s direction with enhanced interest. Vernon felt suddenly young and crude. He could still see those enigmatical slightly mocking green eyes. He heard that amused ironical voice. ‘ You do expect life to be a fairy story, don’t you? ’ Hang it all, that hurt!

And yet he had an immense desire to see her again.

Should he ask her if he might …

No, he couldn’t …

Besides, he was so seldom in town …