Part 19 (1/2)

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”Wrapped in incense gloom, In drifting clouds and golden light; Once I was shod with fire, and trod Beethoven's path through storm and night: It is too late now to resume My monologue with G.o.d.”

”I don't wonder Chopin had his piano carried out into the fields!” she commented. ”I don't believe he could have composed in the house. You hear the wind blowing through his pieces, and see the ta.s.sels of the laburnum-tree he was sitting under swaying about in it.”

The concert was an annual gaiety which most of the people in the neighbourhood attended, and was generally much above the average of village performances. North-country folk are musical, and this district of the Pennines had produced many voices that pa.s.sed on to cathedral choirs. Instrumental music, also, was appreciated and understood, and before the war there had been quite a good little orchestra in the parish. When Mr. Fleming drew up his programme, he knew the audience for whom he was catering, and did not fill it entirely with c.o.o.n songs and ragtimes. Diana, to whom the affair loomed as the main event of the holidays, discussed at the Vicarage the eternally feminine question of dress.

”No one ever comes very smart,” Mrs. Fleming a.s.sured her.

”But one likes to see the performers in something pretty,” pleaded Diana. ”It makes it so much more festive, doesn't it?”

”Mother, you intend to go in evening-dress, don't you?” said Meg.

Mrs. Fleming had intended nothing of the sort, but urged on by the girls, she took a review of her wardrobe. She shook her head over the result.

”I haven't anything at all except that grey silk, and it's as old as the hills. Why, I got it for my sister's wedding, when Roger was a baby!”

”But fas.h.i.+ons come round again,” said Diana, who, with Meg and Elsie, had been allowed to watch what came out of the big ottoman in the spare bedroom. ”Why, this dress is the very image of the picture of one in that magazine Mother sent me from Paris! It only wants the sleeves shortened and some lace put in, and the neck turned down to make it lower, and then a fichu put round. Here's the very thing! I'd fix it for you if you'd let me. I'd adore to do it.”

No one knew exactly how Diana managed to work matters, but for this occasion she took over Mrs. Fleming's toilet, and that astonished lady resigned herself into her hands. She was a natty little person, with exquisite taste, and by the aid of some really good lace, which the ottoman yielded, she managed to transform the grey silk dress into a very creditable imitation of the Parisian fas.h.i.+on-plate. She even dared to venture a step further without offending.

”I often help Mother fix her hair when she's going out, and she calls me her little _coiffeuse_. I'm crazy to try yours, if I may.”

”'In for a penny, in for a pound,' I suppose, you young witch!”

acquiesced Mrs. Fleming, letting her enthusiastic guest have her way.

So on the evening of the concert Diana shut herself up in her hostess's bedroom with a pair of crimping-irons and some curling-tongs. She covered up the result with a light gauze veil.

”Don't let them see you till you get to the concert,” she implored, helping her friend to put on her cloak. ”I want them to get a real surprise. I guess it will make them sit up!”

The parish hall was quite full that evening, and the platform was prettily and appropriately decorated with flags and plants in pots.

There was a sprinkling of local gentry on the front benches, and Miss Todd, who had returned after the holidays, and was entertaining some visitors at the Abbey, brought her whole house-party. The villagers had turned up in full force, thoroughly prepared to enjoy themselves. The Fleming family sat at the end of the second row, and watched as the audience filed in.

”Where's Mother?” asked Elsie.

”She's in the performers' room, talking to Miss Watson,” vouchsafed Diana, chuckling softly to herself.

Then the concert began. There was a madrigal by the choir, and a glee for four male voices, and a duet for soprano and mezzo, and then came the item for which Diana was waiting:

The Moonlight Sonata, ....... _Beethoven_.

MRS. CARISBROOK FLEMING.

The curtain at the back of the platform was drawn aside, and a lady entered--a lady who was palpably nervous, but oh, so pretty! Her brown eyes shone like two stars, and her cheeks were the colour of the knot of carnation ribbon that fastened the lace fichu of her dress. Her lovely bronze hair was parted on one side, and rippled lightly over her forehead; it looked the very perfection of glossy fluffiness. She wore a moonstone pendant set in dull silver that matched the s.h.i.+mmering grey of her dress. The piano had been drawn to the front of the platform, and she took her place. Then the magic music began. Diana knew her friend could play well, but she had never heard her reach this pitch before.

The audience listened as if spell-bound, and, when the last note died away, broke into a storm of applause. There was no question about their enthusiasm, and an encore was inevitable. They stamped heartily, indeed, for a second encore, but Mrs. Fleming refused to return to the platform, and sent on the next performer instead. The ”Ballade in A flat”, in the second part of the programme, was an almost greater success, and produced shouts of ”Brava!” from the back of the hall. Pendlemere people could appreciate good music, and showed their approval with north-country heartiness.

The Fleming family sat during the performance gazing as if they could scarcely believe the evidence of their own eyes and ears. Diana had calculated upon giving them a surprise, and she had certainly done so.

Apparently it was a very pleasant one, to judge from the expression on their faces.