Priscilla and Charybdis: A Story of Alternatives

by Frank Frankfort Moore

But although Morley Quorn saw him out of the corner of his eye, and longed to do for him all that Harapha looked forward to do for Samson, still he managed to pull himself together and make a distinct impression by his low note at the finish. He held on to that low note, and every one knew that he meant it to be a sort of challenge to that fellow Kelton. But Mr. Kelton, feeling the same thing, was more offensive than before, for he joined in the applause that greeted the singing of the aria; only he ceased clapping his hands long before the rest of the audience had ceased clapping theirs, and then he glanced around with a look of pained enquiry in his eyes, as if he were the conductor of an orchestra asking his kettledrums what they meant by continuing their noise after he had given the signal that the thing was over.

He made a little motion with his hands when an encore was insisted on, as though he felt that such an absence of discrimination made him quite hopeless of such an audience.

Mr. Morley Quorn, however, took his call, but not too easily, and when Mr. Tutt struck the first notes of “The Wolf” there were loud tokens of approval heard on all sides; for Morley’s treatment of the panoramic effects of this song was well known to Framsby. While the horrors of the situation were being dealt with vocally, Kelton was wise enough to contain himself, and the basso went off the platform with an air of triumph.

Rosa looked into Priscilla’s face and smiled; but Priscilla did not return her smile. She could not think that the fact of Morley Quorn’s having come brilliantly out of the ordeal in any way exculpated Mr. Kelton for that sneering laugh of his.

But Mr. Kelton had not yet exhausted his resources of irritation, for when Mr. Mozart Tutt sat down to the piano to play the “Moonlight Sonata,” instead of joining heartily in the greeting that the conductor received, as any one with any sense would have done, in order to give the audience to understand that, however he might differ from Mr. Tutt on certain points in playing an accompaniment, he was still generous enough to recognize the man’s merit when displayed in other channels—instead of doing this, with emphasis, he yawned ostentatiously, tilting back his chair, with his hand over his mouth. Then he began to talk to the man beside him, and a little later he smiled down upon Priscilla in the third row and signalled something to her, afterwards lying back and laughing up to the ceiling, and, on recovering himself, assuming a bored look, and taking out his watch and putting it to his ear as if to satisfy his doubts as to the accuracy of its registration of an inexpressibly dull five minutes.

Mrs. Caffyn was not a very observant woman, but she made up her mind that she would never again write a letter of entreaty to Mr. Kelton concerning her concert. Even though the patronage of the Bowlby-Suthersts were reserved, still she would not bore him again.

The tenor’s two songs had no place in the first part of the programme, and he did not resume his seat on the platform after the interval between the parts. He always took care that his entrance was made at the effective moment—when the audience had become warmed up, but not weary; and of course Priscilla had to leave her place in the body of the hall to await his moment in the little room where tea was brewed upon the occasion of some festivity involving the brewing of tea and the distribution of buns. Here she sat with Mr. Kelton and a couple of “soprani,” as they were styled in the programme, whom Mr. Kelton made laugh by his clever imitation of Mr. Morley Quorn’s “Wolf.” He was under the impression, he said, that no concert direction was in so bad a way but that they could keep “The Wolf” from the door. But then Framsby was a funny place altogether. Fancy “Honour and Arms,” “The Wolf,” and that blessed “Moonlight Sonata” all in one evening! There was no other town known to him where so old-fashioned a programme would be tolerated.

Then he cleared his throat, and ran up the scale once or twice as he had heard artists do while waiting for their turn.

“Are you in good voice, Mr. Kelton?” enquired Priscilla. “Your song is the next.”

He smiled.