As usual, I was in charge of the piano, playing accompaniments for anyone who would contribute a song and filling in myself with snatches of music hall ditties, or florid pianoforte arrangements of the most popular tunes of the day.
I had even successfully accompanied Lionel Holland, who had rather a nice voice, and had managed with great skill and tact to put him in high good humour with his performance. I was nervously conscious that it was necessary for my own dignity to make the evening pass off smoothly.
My little friend was then pressed to sing, and I hastened to join in the request. Though she had an exceedingly pretty voice she was one of those people who become vocally helpless if in any way under the influence of alcohol. Her voice sounded weak and tremulous; she was unable to keep to the right key, and, feeling that she was making an exhibition of herself, lost her temper more and more at every bar. In an absolute panic I did everything I could in order that her song should pass off successfully, but to no purpose. She forgot her words, and I ventured to prompt her, which seemed to irritate her the more. To make matters worse the others laughed.
Suddenly she stopped and laughed too, an unpleasant laugh with little mirth in it.
“He’s a nice pianist, isn’t he? He’d be more at home blacking the lodger’s boots, instead of pretending to be a gentleman on his mother’s hard earned savings.”
She herself was a plumber’s daughter, but in her case that was not to the point.
With commendable presence of mind I pretended not to hear, and commenced to play something loudly on the piano.
She was, however, transported with rage at her own failure and determined to make somebody pay.
She shut the lid of the piano down violently, and I only just managed to save my hands from being crushed. To such a female, in such a condition, it is not a long way to hysterics.
“Get back to the lodgers!” she screamed. “What do you mean by coming here and pretending to be a gentleman? You ought to be horsewhipped. You——” Here followed a string of epithets intensely humiliating to have to listen to under the circumstances. The other ladies present proceeded to take her part and to treat her as a highly injured female. They crowded round her as she lay sobbing and gurgling and swearing on the sofa, and deluged her with sympathy.