Miss Weston’s performance was curiously disappointing. I was confirmed in 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. Some cardinal defects in her technique and interpretation showed themselves with disconcerting frankness last evening. On the whole, had I not known that Miss Weston at her best is quite skilful in her playing of Chopin and Liszt, I should have wondered last evening what had led the organizers of the concert to include her in a programme which included such names as Signor——, the tenor, and Mme.——, the prima donna. She played a Chopin polonaise as if it were a cake-walk, and her Liszt’s Sposalizio was not even note-perfect. Perhaps Miss Weston was feeling unwell, in which case it would be unfair to criticize her too severely, but the truth is, in twenty years’ musical experience I have never heard such poor playing at a concert purporting to be first-rate....
The article was signed by one of London’s chief musical critics....
Catherine dropped the newspaper on to the floor with the remainder of the criticism unread. She did not even know if that was the worst that was printed about her. The writer was a man for whom she had a great respect: he had never been among the enthusiasts who prophesied for her a world-wide reputation, yet till now his criticisms had always been mildly encouraging, particularly when it was borne in mind that his newspaper, a journal of independent views, permitted him to be mercilessly sarcastic at the expense of all musical aspirants whom he thought to be aiming too high. And now he had turned against her. It was all the harder to bear because he had not employed sarcasm: there was throughout his criticism a kind of sorrowful kindness, as if he sincerely pitied her.
When she thought that Verreker might read the article (would, in fact, in all probability) she felt ashamed, disgraced. Then, as she realized that a few more criticisms of that kind from the leading critics would damn her reputation, lose her her engagements and fling her back into the common rut, she was overwhelmed with the horror that the future might hold for her. She tossed and fretted in an agony of shame and mortification, cursing blindly at the ill-luck that was falling upon her on all sides. At last, unable to bear the torture of her thoughts any longer, she sprang out of bed with the zest of a tiger and put on a dressing-gown. She did not notice the difficulty she was having to stand upright: she had tapped hidden sources of energy within her which, though not extensive, were sufficient to sustain her for the present. She opened the door and went on to the landing. It was terribly cold there: the open fanlight window let in an icy draught from the north. Her feet were bare, but she did not appear to notice it on the thick stair-carpet. She began to descend, holding on to the stair-rail tightly. At the foot she stood still for a minute, as if waiting for supplies of energy, and then walked into the drawing-room. The fire, lit apparently with damp wood picked up from the Forest, had gone out and the room was very chilly. She walked unerringly to the music-cabinet and, kneeling on the floor, began to search in feverish haste. At last, seemingly, she discovered the object of her quest, a single thin piece of music in a yellow paper cover. With a strangely difficult movement she rose to her feet again and half walked, half staggered the short intervening distance to the piano-stool. It took her quite a minute to open out the music at the first page and place it in front of her on the rest. Instinctively she placed her bare feet on the cold brass of the pedals, and drew them away as quickly as if the metal had been white-hot. The shock restored to her a part of her lost energy. She began to move her fingers desultorily over the keys. At first the music was simple and she managed pretty well. But on the third page it developed octave arpeggio eccentricities in the left hand, and against these the fury of her determination burst in vain. She was handicapped, too, by not having the use of the pedals. For several moments her fingers moved, struggling vainly against chords and runs which her eyes could scarcely read and her memory but vaguely suggest. A terrible battle it was—a truly Homeric contest: her own tigerish determination against all the difficulties that a master-technician could invent.... But you would never have guessed that it was Liszt’s Sposalizio....
On the fourth page her spirit broke, and she fell forward sobbing, with her head and hair on the keys. And there some moments later, Florrie, entering with a jug of milk in her hand, found her, still sobbing uncontrollably....
§ 2
Florrie, now thoroughly alarmed, and sincerely anxious to make amends for her previous truculence, got her back to bed somehow and sent for a doctor. Dr. McPherson motored from Bockley to see her, and found her temperature somewhat dangerously high. From Florrie he learned how Catherine had come in the day before, after half-wading through the snow and slush from the tram terminus. She had caught a chill. Knowing that she was something of a celebrity and in receipt of a considerable salary, he did not tell her how her own foolishness had been the cause of it. He announced his intention of sending a nurse to look after her, left detailed instructions with Florrie as to how to act until the nurse came, and said that he would himself come again later in the evening. Downstairs Florrie told him how she had found her mistress in the drawing-room, sobbing in front of the piano.
“Yes, yes,” he muttered impatiently, “of course—that is all what one might expect.... You should not have left her....”
And he drove off in his car down the winding gravel lane that led to the High Road. Florrie was offended. After all, it was through obeying her mistress that she had been compelled to leave her. She was aware that she was being treated unjustly, and it gave her an air of conscious martyrdom....
She went back to Catherine’s bedroom. The breakfast things, untouched and forgotten, had to be cleared away. The coffee was nearly cold, but she warmed it up on the gas ring in the kitchen and drank it herself. Some of the cold and leathery buttered toast she ate herself; the rest she threw into the snow-covered garden for the birds.... Every time she passed the bed she glanced pityingly at the huddled figure and the mass of flame-coloured hair that straggled over the pillow. Her expression said plainly enough: I have been ill-treated and misunderstood, but I bear no malice. You shall see what an unselfish creature I am.... And another of her reflections was expressed some time later when she was talking to Minnie Walker, one of the barmaids at the High Wood Hotel. “She ’as got nice ’air,” she told Minnie. “Pity ’er fice ain’t so nice ... but I wish I got ’er ‘air, I do, reely....”