Michael

furthervariations that Hermann had demanded had rung all day in his head. Now,as they neared completion, he found that they ceased their singing;their work of dictation was done; he had to this extent expressedhimself, and they haunted him no longer. At present he had but jotteddown the skeleton of bars that could be filled in afterwards, and itgave him enormous pleasure to see the roles reversed and himself out ofhis own brain, setting Falbe his task.

  But he felt much more than this. He had done something. Michael, thedumb, awkward Michael, was somehow revealed on those eight pages ofmusic. All his twenty-five years he had stood wistfully inarticulate,unable, so it had seemed to him, to show himself, to let himself out.And not till now, when he had found this means of access, did he knowhow passionately he had desired it, nor how immensely, in the processof so doing, his desire had grown. He must find out more ways, otherchannels of projecting himself. The need for that, as of a diverthrowing himself into the empty air and the laughing waters below him,suddenly took hold of him.

  He took a clean sheet of music paper, into which he placed his pages,and with a pleasurable sense of pomp wrote in the centre of it:

  VARIATIONS ON AN AIR.

  By

  Michael Comber.

  He paused a moment, then took up his pen again.

  "Dedicated to Sylvia Falbe," he wrote at the top.

  CHAPTER VII

  Michael had been so engrossingly employed since his return to London inthe autumn that the existence of other ties and other people apart fromthose immediately connected with his work had worn a very shadow-likeaspect. He had, it is true, written with some regularity to his mother,finding, somewhat to his dismay, how very slight the common groundbetween them was for purposes of correspondence. He could outline thefacts that he had been to several concerts, that he had seen much ofhis music-master, that he had been diligent at his work, but he realisedthat there was nothing in detail about those things that could possiblyinterest her, and that nothing except them really interested him. Sheon her side had little to say except to record the welfare of Petsy, toremark on the beauty of October, and tell him how many shooting partiesthey had had.

  His correspondence with his father had been less frequent, andabsolutely one-sided, since Lord Ashbridge took no notice at all of hisletters. Michael regretted this, as showing that he was still outcast,but it cannot be said to have come between him and the sunshine, for hehad begun to manufacture the sunshine within, that internal happinesswhich his environment and way of life produced, which seemed to beindependent of all that was not directly connected with it. But a letterwhich he received next morning from his mother stated, in addition tothe fact that Petsy had another of her tiresome bilious attacks (poorlamb), that his father and she thought it right that he should come downto Ashbridge for Christmas. It conveyed the sense that at this joyfulseason a truce, probably limited in duration, and, even while it lasted,of the nature of a strongly-armed neutrality, was proclaimed, but theprospect was not wholly encouraging, for Lady Ashbridge added thatshe hoped Michael would not "go on" vexing his father. What preciselyMichael was expected to do in order to fulfil that wish was not furtherstated, but he wrote dutifully enough to say that he would come down atChristmas.

  But the letter rekindled his dormant sense of there being other peoplein the world beside his immediate circle; also, indefinably, it gavehim the sense that his mother wanted him. That should be so then, andsequentially he remembered with a pang of self-reproach that he had notas much as indicated his presence in London to Aunt Barbara, or set eyeson her since their meeting in August. He knew she was in London, sincehe had seen her name in some paragraph in the papers not long before,and instantly wrote to ask her to dine with him at a near date. Heranswer was characteristic.

  "Of course I'll dine with you, my dear," she wrote; "it will bedelightful. And what has happened to you? Your letter actually conveyeda sense of cordiality. You never used to be cordial. And I wish to meetsome of your nice friends. Ask one or two, please--a prima donna of somekind and a pianist, I think. I want them weird and original--the primadonna with short hair, and the pianist with long. In Tony's new stationin life I never see anybody except the sort of people whom your fatherlikes. Are you forgiven yet, by the way?"

  Michael found himself on the grin at the thought of Aunt Barbarasuddenly encountering the two magnificent Falbes (prima donna andpianist exactly as she had desired) as representing the weird sort ofpeople whom she pictured his living among, and the result quite cameup to his expectations. As usual, Aunt Barbara was late, and came intalking rapidly about the various causes that had detained her, whichher fruitful imagination had suggested to her as she dressed. In order,perhaps, to suit herself to the circle in which she would pass theevening, she had put on (or, rather, it looked as if her maid had thrownat her) a very awful sort of tea-gown, brown and prickly-looking, andadapted to Bohemian circles. She, with the same lively imagination, hadpictured Michael in a velveteen coat and soft shirt, the pianist as verysmall, with spectacles and long hair, and the prima donna a full-blownkind of barmaid with Roman pearls. . . .

  "Yes, my dear, I know I am late," she began before she was inside thedoor, "but Og had so much to say, and there was a block at Hyde ParkCorner. My dear Michael, how smart you look!"

  She came round the corner of the screen and the Falbes burst upon her,Hermann and Sylvia standing by the fire. For the short, spectacledpianist there was this very tall, English-looking young man, upright andsoldierly, with his handsome, boyish face and well-fitting clothes. Thatwas bad enough, but infinitely worse was she who was to have been thefull-blown barmaid. Instead was this magnificent girl, nearly as tall asher brother, with her small oval face crowning the column of her neck,her eyes merry, her mouth laughing at some brotherly retort that Hermannhad just made. Aunt Barbara took her in with one second's survey--herface, her neck, her beautiful dress, her whole air of ease andgood-breeding, and gave a despairing glance at her own prickly tea-gown.For the moment, amiably accustomed as she was to laugh at herself, shedid not find it humourous.

  "Miss Sylvia Falbe, Aunt Barbara," said Michael with a little tremorin his voice; "and Mr. Hermann Falbe, Lady Barbara Jerome," he added,rather as if he expected nobody to believe it.

  Aunt Barbara made the best of it: shook hands in her jolly manner, andburst into laughter.

  "Michael, I could slay you," she said; "but before I do that I must tellyour friends all about it. This horrible nephew of mine, Miss Falbe,promised me two weird musicians, and I expected--I really can't tell youwhat I expected--but there were to be spectacles and velveteen coats andthe general air of an afternoon concert at Clapham Junction. But it isnice to be made such a fool of. I feel precisely like an elderly andsour governess who has been ordered to come down to dinner so thatthere shan't be thirteen. Give me your arm, Mr. Falbe, and take me into dinner at once, where I may drown my embarrassment in soup. Or doesMichael go in first? Go on, wretch!"

  Presently they were seated at dinner, and Aunt Barbara could not helpenlarging a little on her own discomfiture.

  "It is all your fault, Michael," she said. "You have been in London allthese weeks without letting me know anything about you or your friends,or what you were doing; so naturally I supposed you were leading someobscure kind of existence. Instead of which I find this sort of thing.My dear, what good soup! I shall see if I can't induce your cook toleave you. But bachelors always have the best of everything. Now tellme about your visit to Germany. Which was the point where weparted--Baireuth, wasn't it? I would not go to Baireuth with anybody!"

  "I went with Mr. Falbe," said Michael.

  "Ah, Mr. Falbe has not asked me yet. I may have to revise what I say,"said Aunt Barbara daringly.

  "I didn't ask Michael," said Hermann. "I got into his carriage as thetrain was moving; and my luggage was left behind."

  "I was left behind," said Sylvia, "which was worse. But I sent Hermann'sluggage."

  "So expeditiously that it arrived the day before
we left for Munich,"remarked Hermann.

  "And that's all the gratitude I get. But in the interval you lived uponLord Comber."

  "I do still in the money I earn by giving him music lessons. Mike, haveyou finished the Variations yet?"

  "Variations--what are Variations?" asked Aunt Barbara.

  "Yes, two days ago. Variations are all the things you think about on thepiano, Aunt Barbara, when you are playing a tune made by somebody else."

  "Should I like them? Will Mr. Falbe play them to me?" asked she.

  "I daresay he will if he can. But I thought you loathed music."

  "It certainly depends on who makes it," said Aunt Barbara. "I don't likeordinary music, because the person who made it doesn't matter to me.But if, so to speak, it sounds like