第74章

Behind Jarman in the second floor back resided one whom Jarman had nicknamed "The Lady 'Ortensia." I believe before my arrival there had been love passages between the two; but neither of them, so I gathered, had upon closer inspection satisfied the other's standard.

Their present attitude towards each other was that of insult thinly veiled under exaggerated politeness. Miss Rosina Sellars was, in her own language, a "lady assistant," in common parlance, a barmaid at the Ludgate Hill Station refreshment room. She was a large, flabby young woman. With less powder, her complexion might by admirers have been termed creamy; as it was, it presented the appearance rather of underdone pastry. To be on all occasions "quite the lady" was her pride. There were those who held the angle of her dignity to be exaggerated. Jarman would beg her for her own sake to be more careful lest one day she should fall down backwards and hurt herself. On the other hand, her bearing was certainly calculated to check familiarity.

Even stockbrokers' clerks--young men as a class with the bump of reverence but poorly developed--would in her presence falter and grow hesitating. She had cultivated the art of not noticing to something approaching perfection. She could draw the noisiest customer a glass of beer, which he had never ordered; exchange it for three of whiskey, which he had; take his money and return him his change without ever seeing him, hearing him, or knowing he was there. It shattered the self-assertion of the youngest of commercial travellers. Her tone and manner, outside rare moments of excitement, were suggestive of an offended but forgiving iceberg. Jarman invariably passed her with his coat collar turned up to his ears, and even thus protected might have been observed to shiver. Her stare, in conjunction with her "I beg your pardon!" was a moral douche that would have rendered apologetic and explanatory Don Juan himself.

To me she was always gracious, which by contrast to her general attitude towards my sex of studied disdain, I confess flattered me.

She was good enough to observe to Mrs. Peedles, who repeated it to me, that I was the only gentleman in the house who knew how to behave himself.

The entire first floor was occupied by an Irishman and--they never minced the matter themselves, so hardly is there need for me to do so.

She was a charming little dark-eyed woman, an ex-tight-rope dancer, and always greatly offended Mrs. Peedles by claiming Miss Lucretia Barry as a sister artiste.

"Of course I don't know how it may be now," would reply Mrs. Peedles, with some slight asperity; "but in my time we ladies of the legitimate stage used to look down upon dancers and such sort. Of course, no offence to you, Mrs. O'Kelly."

Neither of them was in the least offended.

"Sure, Mrs. Peedles, ye could never have looked down upon the Signora," the O'Kelly would answer laughing. "Ye had to lie back and look up to her. Why, I've got the crick in me neck to this day!"

"Ah! my dear, and you don't know how nervous I was when glancing down I'd see his handsome face just underneath me, thinking that with one false step I might spoil it for ever," would reply the Signora.

"Me darling! I'd have died happy, just smothered in loveliness!" would return the O'Kelly; and he and the Signora would rush into each other's arms, and the sound of their kisses would quite excite the little slavey sweeping down the stairs outside.

He was a barrister attached in theory to the Western Circuit; in practice, somewhat indifferent to it, much more attached to the lower strata of Bohemia and the Signora. At the present he was earning all sufficient for the simple needs of himself and the Signora as a teacher of music and singing. His method was simple and suited admirably the locality. Unless specially requested, he never troubled his pupils with such tiresome things as scales and exercises. His plan was to discover the song the young man fancied himself singing, the particular jingle the young lady yearned to knock out of the piano, and to teach it to them. Was it "Tom Bowling?" Well and good.

Come on; follow your leader. The O'Kelly would sing the first line.

"Now then, try that. Don't be afraid. Just open yer mouth and gave it tongue. That's all right. Everything has a beginning. Sure, later on, we'll get the time and tune, maybe a little expression."

Whether the system had any merit in it, I cannot answer. Certain it was that as often as not it achieved success. Gradually--say, by the end of twelve eighteen-penny lessons--out of storm and chaos "Tom Bowling" would emerge, recognisable for all men to hear. Had the pupil any voice to start with, the O'Kelly improved it; had he none, the O'Kelly would help him to disguise the fact.

"Take it easy, now; take it easy," the O'Kelly would counsel. "Sure, it's a delicate organ, yer voice. Don't ye strain it now. Ye're at yer best when ye're just low and sweet."

So also with the blushing pianiste. At the end of a month a tune was distinctly discernible; she could hear it herself, and was happy. His repute spread.