"His brow was sad, his eye beneath,"
goes on Sarah victoriously, her whole soul in the safe fulfilment of her task. She gets through to the end of the second verse as successfully as she did to the end of the first, and then pauses to draw breath.
The vicar exchanges a triumphant glance with Miss Peyton.
"In happy homes they saw the light,"
continues Sarah. And then—then! something horrible happens. A sound, very terrible to the vicar, smites upon his ear,—a sound that fills his clerical bosom with dismay. Sarah's voice—the voice of his chief prop—has proved false. It has given way; it has cracked upon a high note; and the solo of the evening has proved a dead failure.
Talk of failing for a million; talk of Isandula or Majuba Hill; talk of Mr. Parnell and the Coercion Bill! But was ever defeat so disastrous as this? The vicar, but for his sex, and the publicity of the thing, could thankfully have given way to tears. Miss Peyton flushes to her temples and feels as if she herself has been guilty of the miserable fiasco.
Of course it is hushed up. The piano comes out quite strong again, under Mrs. Redmond's bony fingers; the defaulter is gently pushed into the background, and a chorus introduced. Nevertheless, after the breakdown, things somehow seem to go wrong. The other singers are disheartened, and will not do their best; while Sarah, who is dissolved in tears in the cloak-room, and who has another song on the programme, obstinately refuses to try her powers again.
The vicar is in despair, although he walks about valiantly among the audience, trying, most unsuccessfully, to appear unconcerned; whilst the coughing and sneezing, that generally distinguish every place where silence is the thing most to be desired, seem now on the increase, to an alarming degree, and threaten to drown Lady Mary's second effort.
"Who is that blowing his nose?" demands the poor vicar, testily, looking daggers in the direction of the sound. Clarissa, who is the nearest to him as he makes this observation, just saves herself from laughing aloud.
"Things have taken a bad turn," says the vicar, regarding her reproachfully. "I am afraid my first attempt will only be remembered as a wretched failure; and that girl has another song, and she will not venture again, and there is no one to take her place."