“Oh, good gracious!” Gwendolen Holt ejaculated in an alarmed whisper to her neighbor Mr. Merriman.
“Poor dear Lady Henge,” murmured Lady Tramley, leaning back in her delicate thinness, and fixing sad eyes upon her musical friend.
“Awfully bad, is it?” Mr. Merriman inquired.
“Awfully,” said Gwendolen.
“Well, it’s all one to me,” said Mr. Merriman jocosely.
“I paint the soul of man, as influenced by the forces of nature,” still delivering explanatory comments, Lady Henge had seated herself at the piano. “My symphonic poem—‘Thalassa,’ shall I give you that?” and from a careful adjustment of the piano-stool, she looked up at Camelia, who had followed her.
Sir Arthur, on his solitary sofa, showed some dismay at the imminence of his mother’s performance. Perior, who had heard Lady Henge play, fixed enduring eyes on the cornice. Camelia dropped into the vacant seat beside him.
“Hold your breath, Alceste,” she murmured, her smiling eyes still gently observant of Lady Henge, who, after a majestic turn up and down the key-board, had paused in a menacing attitude, one hand lifted in a heavily pouncing position.
“She’ll have our heads under water in a minute. Ah! here comes the splash!” The very walls quivered as that fierce hand fell. A volcanic, incoherent volume of sound hurtled forth upon the stillness. From thenceforward they might have been sitting amidst the clamorous concussions of a thunder-storm, Lady Henge, high priestess of terrified humanity, making valiant warfare with the angry gods. The wind, or rather the effect of the wind upon the shrinking mind of man, shrieked in long sweeps down the key-board—Lady Henge’s execution with the flat of her hand being boldly impressionistic; the waves beat out their stormy rhythm in crashing chords of very feeble construction, but in noisiness immensely effective, leaping, bounding, shouldering, swallowing one another with a splendid inconsequence as to time or key. A chaos of stammering phrases cried out fitfully above the steady bellowing of the bass.
Physically the composition was most certainly exhausting. Lady Henge’s fine, flushed profile, bent with brooding intensity above the key-board, evinced a panting effort to cope with the mighty requirements of her creation.