The recital itself was quite all that could have been expected, but underneath the enthusiastic applause there ran even a more intense fervour among those fortunate ones who were to meet the artist on the morrow.
Belknap-Jackson knew himself to be a hero. He was elaborately cool. He smiled tolerantly at intervals and undoubtedly applauded with the least hint of languid proprietorship in his manner. He was heard to speak of the artist by his first name. The Klondike woman and many of her Bohemian set were prominently among those present and sustained glances of pitying triumph from those members of the North Side set so soon to be distinguished above her.
The morrow dawned auspiciously, very cloudy with smartish drives of wind and rain. Confined to the dingy squalor of his hotel, how gladly would the artist, it was felt, seek the refined cheer of one of our best homes where he would be enlivened by an hour or so of contact with our most cultivated people. Belknap-Jackson telephoned me with increasing frequency as the hour drew near, nervously seeming to dread that I would have overlooked some detail of his refined refreshments, or that I would not have them at his house on time. He telephoned often to the Honourable George to be assured that the carriage with its escort would be prompt. He telephoned repeatedly to the driver chap, to impress upon him the importance of his mission.
His guests began to arrive even before I had decked his sideboard with what was, I have no hesitation in declaring, the most superbly dainty buffet collation that Red Gap had ever beheld. The atmosphere at once became tense with expectation.
At three o’clock the host announced from the telephone: “Vane-Basingwell has started from the Floud house.” The guests thrilled and hushed the careless chatter of new arrivals. Belknap-Jackson remained heroically at the telephone, having demanded to be put through to the hotel. He was flushed with excitement. A score of minutes later he announced with an effort to control his voice: “They have left the hotel—they are on the way.”
The guests stiffened in their seats. Some of them nervously and for no apparent reason exchanged chairs with others. Some late arrivals bustled in and were immediately awed to the same electric silence of waiting. Belknap-Jackson placed the sherry decanter where the vodka bottle had been and the vodka bottle where the sherry decanter had been. “The effect is better,” he remarked, and went to stand where he could view the driveway. The moments passed.
At such crises, which I need not say have been plentiful in my life, I have always known that I possessed an immense reserve of coolness. Seldom have I ever been so much as slightly flustered. Now I was calmness itself, and the knowledge brought me no little satisfaction as I noted the rather painful distraction of our host. The moments passed—long, heavy, silent moments. Our host ascended trippingly to an upper floor whence he could see farther down the drive. The guests held themselves in smiling readiness. Our host descended and again took up his post at a lower window.
The moments passed—stilled, leaden moments. The silence had become intolerable. Our host jiggled on his feet. Some of the quicker-minded guests made a pretence of little conversational flurries: “That second movement—oh, exquisitely rendered!... No one has ever read Chopin so divinely.... How his family must idolize him!... They say.... That exquisite concerto!... Hasn’t he the most stunning hair.... Those staccato passages left me actually limp—I’m starting Myrtle in Tuesday to take of Professor Gluckstein. She wants to take stenography, but I tell her.... Did you think the preludes were just the tiniest bit idealized.... I always say if one has one’s music, and one’s books, of course—He must be very, very fond of music!”
Such were the hushed, tentative fragments I caught.
The moments passed. Belknap-Jackson went to the telephone. “What? But they’re not here! Very strange! They should have been here half an hour ago. Send some one—yes, at once.” In the ensuing silence he repaired to the buffet and drank a glass of vodka. Quite distraught he was.