"Isn"t he awful?" said Jenny, laughing.
"I say," cried Maurice. "Look here!"
Across the white cake was written in pink icing: "Sacred to the Memory of a Good Appet.i.te."
"Rotten!" said Cunningham. "Castleton, of course."
"Of course," said Maurice. "And now we haven"t got any candles."
"Let"s light the gas instead," Castleton suggested.
"You are mad," said Jenny.
Tea went on with wild laughter, with clinking of saucers and spoons, with desperate carving of the birthday cake, with solemn jokes from Castleton, with lightning caricatures from Ronnie Walker.
Once Jenny whispered to Maurice:
"Why did you say I shouldn"t like Fuz? I think he"s nice. You know, funny; but very nice."
"I"m glad," Maurice whispered back. "I like you to like my friends."
After tea they all wandered round the studio in commentary of its contents.
"Maurice!" said Castleton, stopping before the wax model of Aphrodite.
"You don"t feed your pets regularly enough. This lady"s outrageously thin."
"Isn"t he shocking?" said Maudie. "What would you do with him?"
"He"s a nut," said Madge.
"Isn"t he?" said Elsie and Gladys in chorus. These two very seldom penetrated beyond the exclamatory interrogative.
"A nut, you think?" said Castleton. "A Brasilero of the old breed with waxed pistachios and cocoanut-matted locks?"
"Oh, dry up," said Maurice. "I want the girls to look at this dancing girl."
"No one couldn"t stand in that p[)]s[=i]sh," said Jenny. "Could they, Lilli?"
"Not very easily," the latter agreed.
"Really?" asked Maurice, somewhat piqued.
"Of course they could," Maudie contradicted.
"Certainly," said Irene, highly contemptuous.
"I say they couldn"t then," Jenny persisted.
"She"d be a rotten dancer if she couldn"t."
"I don"t think so," Jenny said frigidly.
The girls unanimously attempted to get into the position conceived by Maurice; but in the end they all had to agree that Jenny and Lilli were right. The pose was impossible.
"Is that your mother?" asked Madge, pointing to Mona Lisa.
"Don"t be silly, Madge Wilson," Jenny corrected. "It"s a picture, and I _don"t_ think much of her," she continued. "What a terrible mouth! Her hands is nice, though--very nice. And what"s all those rocks at the back--low tide at Clacton, I should think."
"But don"t you like her marvelous smile?" asked Maurice.
"I don"t call that a smile."
"I knew those flute-players annoyed her," said Castleton. "Down with creative criticism. She"s nothing but a lady with a bad temper."
"Of course she is," said Jenny.
"Would you smile, Jenny, if Ronnie here painted you with a gramophone behind a curtain?"
"No, I shouldn"t."
"Catch the fleeting petulance, and you become as famous as Leonardo, my Ronnie."
Philip IV was voted a little love with rather too big a head, and the Prince of Orange was a dear. Botticelli"s Venus was not alluded to. The acquaintanceship was not considered ripe enough to justify any comment in that direction; although later on Jenny, her eyes pectinated with mirth and flashing wickedly, sang, pointing to the embarra.s.sed G.o.ddess: "She sells seash.e.l.ls on the seash.o.r.e." Primavera concluded the tour of inspection, and by some Primavera herself was thought to be not unlike Jenny.
"She"s more like one of those angels with candles at Berlin," said Ronnie Walker.
"Anyway," said Maurice, with a note of satisfaction, "she"s a Botticelli."
"Well, now you"ve all settled my position in life," said Jenny, "what"s Irene?"
But somehow it was not so interesting to discover Irene"s prototype, and her similarity to the ideal of any single old master was left undecided.
Now came the singing of c.o.o.n songs with ridiculous words and haunting refrains, while dusk descended upon London. Maudie was at the piano, where a candle flickered on each side of the music and lit up the size of her nose. When all the favorites of the moment had been sung, older and now almost forgotten successes were rescued from the dust of obscurity.
"We _are_ among the "has beens,"" said Jenny. "Why, I remember that at the Islington panto when I went to see you, Lilli, and that"s donkey"s years ago. We"ve properly gone back to the year dot."
Gradually, however, the jolly dead tunes produced a sentimental effect upon the party, commemorating as they did many bygone enjoyments. The sense of fleeting time, evoked by the revival of discarded melodies, began to temper their spirits. They sang the choruses more softly, as if the undated tunes had become fragile with age and demanded a gentler treatment. Perhaps in the gathering gloom each girl saw herself once more in short frocks. Perhaps Lilli Vergoe distinguished the smiling ghost of old ambition. Certainly Jenny thought of Mr. Vergoe and Madame Aldavini and the Four Jumping Beans.
Maudie Chapman suddenly jumped up:
"Somebody else"s turn."
Maurice looked at Cunningham.
"Won"t you play some Chopin, old chap?"
"All right," said Cunningham, a dark, very thin young man with a high, narrow face, seating himself at the piano. The girls composed themselves to listen idly. Maurice drew Jenny over to an arm-chair by the window.
The studio grew darker. The notes of the piano with the rapid execution of the player seemed phosph.o.r.escent in the candle-light. The fire glowed crimson and dull. The atmosphere was wreathed with the smoke of many cigarettes. The emotions of the audience were swayed by dreams that, sustained by music, floated about the heavy air in a pervading melancholy, inexpressibly sensuous. It was such an hour as only music can attempt to portray. Here was youth in meditation untrammeled by the energy of action. Age, wrought upon by music, may know regret, but only youth can see aspiration almost incarnate. Jenny, buried in the arm-chair, with Maurice"s caressing hand upon her cheeks, thought it was all glorious, thought that Cunningham played gloriously, that the river with a blurred light was glorious, that love was glorious. She had a novel wish to bring May to such a party, and wondered if May would enjoy the experience. Time as an abstraction did not mean much to Jenny; but as the plangent harmonies wrung the heart of the very night with unattainable desires, she felt again the vague fear of age that used to distress her before she met her lover. She caught his hand, clasping it tightly, twisting his fingers in a pa.s.sionate clutch as if he were fading from her life into the shadows all around. She began to feel, so sharply the music rent her imagination, a pleasure in the idea of instant death, not because she disliked the living world, but because she feared something that might spoil the perfection of love: they were too happy. She knew the primitive emotion of joy in absolute quiescence, the relief of Daphne avoiding responsibility. Why could not she and Maurice stop still in an ecstasy and live like the statues opposite glimmering faintly? Then, with a sudden ardor, life overpowered the enchantment of repose; and she, leaping to meet the impulse of action, conscious only of darkness and melody, spurred, perhaps, by one loud and solitary chord, pulled Maurice down to her arms and kissed him wildly, almost despairingly. The music went on from ballad to waltz, from waltz to polonaise. Sometimes matches were lit for cigarettes, matches that were typical of all the life in that room, a little flame in the sound of music.