§ 2
It was on a sleepy Sunday afternoon in June, whilst Amelia was teaching at the Sunday School and Mrs. Lazenby out visiting a spinster lady of her acquaintance, that Catherine had the sudden impulse to commence the long struggle uphill again whence she had come. The last of Madame Varegny’s electric massage treatments had been given and paid for: her arm was practically well again: in every other respect than the financial one the outlook was distinctly hopeful. Outside in Cubitt Lane the ice-cream seller and whelk vendor were going their rounds; a few gramophones and pianos had begun their Sabbath inanities. But as yet the atmosphere was somnolent: you could almost hear (in your imagination, at any rate) the snorings and breathings of all the hundreds of tired folks in Cubitt Lane and Duke Street, in placid contentment sleeping off the effects of a massive Sunday dinner....
Catherine sat down in front of the eighteen-guinea English masterpiece. Mrs. Lazenby had put a covering of red plush on the top of the instrument and crowned that with a number of shells with black spikes, and a lithograph of New Brighton Tower and Promenade in a plush frame of an aggressively green hue. Catherine removed these impedimenta and opened the lid. She decided to practise for exactly one hour. Later on she might have to do two, three, four, five or even more hours per day, but for a start one hour would be ample. She would learn now the extent to which her technique had suffered during her long period of enforced idleness. She would be able to compute the time it would take to recover her lost skill, and could put new hope into her soul by thinking that at last—at last—the tide of her destiny was on the turn....
Rather nervously she began to play....
She started an easy Chopin Ballade.... Her memory served her fairly well, and since the music contained no severe test of technique her hands did not disgrace her. Yet within thirty seconds she stopped playing: she clasped her hands in front of her knees and gazed over the top of the instrument at the caterpillary design on the wallpaper. And in that moment the truth flashed upon her incontrovertibly: it came not altogether as a surprise, for with strange divination she had guessed it long before. And it was simply this: she would never again earn a penny by playing a piano in public: more than that, her failure was complete, obvious and devastatingly convincing: she would never again be able to delude herself with false hopes and distant ambitions. Something in the manner of her playing of the first few bars made her think with astonishing calmness: I cannot play any more.... She wanted to laugh: it seemed such a ridiculous confession.... She looked down at her hands and thought: How do I know that after long practice these may not be of use again? She could not answer.... And yet she knew that she had lost something, something she could not properly describe, but something vital and impossible to replace. Technique, undoubtedly, and memory, and the miraculous flexibility of her ten fingers. And also some subtle and secret capability that in former days had helped her along, something which in a strangely intuitive way she felt to be compounded largely of courage ... courage.... Oh, it was all as incomprehensible as a dream: she felt that she might wake any minute and find herself once again supreme mistress of her hands.... And then, more sanely, she told herself: I cannot play any more ... Finally, as if in querulous petulance at her own reluctance to accept the truth: I really can’t play now, can I? ... Then she began to remember things that Verreker had said of her playing. She remembered a scrap from a review criticism: “the opinion I have held ever since I first heard Miss Weston, that she is a skilful player of considerable talent who will, however, never reach the front rank of her profession.”
Now that she knew the truth as the truth, she knew also that this was what she had been fearing and expecting for weeks and months, that she had been during that time slowly and imperceptibly accustoming herself to the idea now confronting her, and that for a long time the maintenance of her old dreams and ambitions had been a stupendous self-deception. And she knew also, by a subtle and curious instinct, something which to herself she admitted was amazing and mysterious. She was not going to be very disappointed. Or, if she were, her disappointment, like her former hopes, would be counterfeit.... She was angry with herself for accepting the situation so coolly, angry at the callousness of her soul. But nevertheless, the truth stood unassailable: she was not going to be very disappointed. Not disappointed? she argued, in terrific revolt against herself—not disappointed when the last ideal she possessed had joined its fellows on the scrap-heap, not disappointed when nothing remained to shield her from the gutter whence she sprang? Not disappointed to hear the news of her own spiritual extinction? ... And something within her replied, very quietly: No; what I said was perfectly true. I am not going to be very disappointed.
I was dreading all those hours and hours of practice, she admitted, a little ashamed. And the thought occurred to her: I don’t believe I should have the pluck to face an audience. I had once—but not now. Or perhaps it was never pluck that I had—perhaps it was something else that I have lost.... Well, the game’s played out. It would have meant a terrible lot of work to make myself a pianist again. I shan’t need to do all that now. Oh, I have lost ... courage and ... enthusiasm ... for all big things.... I am getting old ... and tired ... and that’s why I am not going to be very disappointed....
Amelia and Mrs. Lazenby might be returning any moment. The crowd of noisy children pouring out of the Council school across the road (it was used by a religious organization on Sunday) proclaimed the hour to be four o’clock.... Catherine began to replace the red plush cloth and the shells with black spikes and the lithograph of New Brighton Tower and Promenade....
At ten minutes past the hour Amelia came in, cross and sullen. Catherine heard her slam the hymn book and Bible on the wicker table in the hall. Evidently her spirit was more than usually in revolt this afternoon....
“Amy!” Catherine called, opening the door and looking down the passage.
A rather sulky voice replied: “What is it?”
“Will you come and have tea with me this afternoon?” Catherine called back cheerfully. The fact was, she wanted somebody to talk to, particularly somebody who was discontented, so that by this she could measure her own rapidly growing contentment.
“Righto,” called Amelia, rather less sulkily.
As soon as Amelia entered Catherine’s room she started upon a recital of her various woes, chief of which appeared to be the possession of an unfeeling and narrow-minded parent. Catherine listened apathetically, and all the time with conscious superiority she was thinking: This is youth. I was like this when I was her age. Funny how we grow out of our grievances....
... “It’s too bad,” Amelia was saying. “Only last week Mr. Hobbs asked me to go out to the pictures, and I had to refuse because it wasn’t a Saturday.”
“Who is Mr. Hobbs?”
“The salesman in our department ... and he don’t offer to spend his money on anybody too often, either.”
“Careful with his money, eh?”
“Careful?—stingy, I should call it.... Takes you in the sixpenny parts at the pictures and if you wants any chocolates he goes up to the girl at the counter and says: ‘I’ll have a quarter of mixed——’”
Amelia laughed scornfully. “Only it’s too bad,” she went on, resuming her original theme, “to be compelled to say no when he does ask you out with him!”
Catherine smiled. She was not of this world. She did not go out to “pictures” with salesmen from West-end departmental stores.... Yet with a sudden impulse she said:
“You know, I shall have to be looking about for a job very soon. My arm, you see: I’m doubtful of it being really well for quite a long time. And, of course, I can’t afford to—to go on like this.... Any jobs going at your place?”
Amelia pondered.
“I heard they wanted a girl in the song department.... That’s next to where I am—I’m in the gramophone line.... You know lots about music, don’t you?”
“Oh—fair amount.”
“Well, you might get it. I’ll see what Mr. Hobbs says. Better come up with me on Tuesday morning.”
“Right, I will.... I’m pretty sure the job will suit me....”
“I daresay it will ... and you’ll learn what a lot I have to put up with. There’s heaps of pictures and theatres and things I’d like to go to up that part of the town, only I can’t because of mother. She says——”
And as Catherine listened to Amelia’s woes and began the preparations for tea, she actually started to experience in a tired, restricted kind of way a certain species of happiness! After all, the struggle was over. And the struggle had wearied her, wearied her more than she had herself realized until this very moment.... No, she reflected, as she spooned the tea out of the caddy into the teapot—no: I am not going to be very disappointed.... But she was just faintly, remotely, almost imperceptibly disappointed at not being disappointed....