Sir Dominick Ferrand | Page 4

than make up to him for a phrase in one of Mr.
Locket's inexorable earlier notes, a phrase which still rankled, about his
showing no symptom of the faculty really creative. "You don't seem
able to keep a character together," this pitiless monitor had somewhere
else remarked. Peter Baron, as he sat in his corner while the train
stopped, considered, in the befogged gaslight, the bookstall standard of
literature and asked himself whose character had fallen to pieces now.
Tormenting indeed had always seemed to him such a fate as to have the
creative head without the creative hand.
It should be mentioned, however, that before he started on his mission
to Mr. Locket his attention had been briefly engaged by an incident
occurring at Jersey Villas. On leaving the house (he lived at No. 3, the
door of which stood open to a small front garden), he encountered the
lady who, a week before, had taken possession of the rooms on the
ground floor, the "parlours" of Mrs. Bundy's terminology. He had heard
her, and from his window, two or three times, had even seen her pass in
and out, and this observation had created in his mind a vague prejudice
in her favour. Such a prejudice, it was true, had been subjected to a
violent test; it had been fairly apparent that she had a light step, but it
was still less to be overlooked that she had a cottage piano. She had
furthermore a little boy and a very sweet voice, of which Peter Baron
had caught the accent, not from her singing (for she only played), but
from her gay admonitions to her child, whom she occasionally allowed
to amuse himself--under restrictions very publicly enforced--in the tiny
black patch which, as a forecourt to each house, was held, in the
humble row, to be a feature. Jersey Villas stood in pairs, semi-detached,
and Mrs. Ryves--such was the name under which the new lodger
presented herself--had been admitted to the house as confessedly
musical. Mrs. Bundy, the earnest proprietress of No. 3, who considered

her "parlours" (they were a dozen feet square), even more attractive, if
possible, than the second floor with which Baron had had to content
himself--Mrs. Bundy, who reserved the drawing-room for a casual
dressmaking business, had threshed out the subject of the new lodger in
advance with our young man, reminding him that her affection for his
own person was a proof that, other things being equal, she positively
preferred tenants who were clever.
This was the case with Mrs. Ryves; she had satisfied Mrs. Bundy that
she was not a simple strummer. Mrs. Bundy admitted to Peter Baron
that, for herself, she had a weakness for a pretty tune, and Peter could
honestly reply that his ear was equally sensitive. Everything would
depend on the "touch" of their inmate. Mrs. Ryves's piano would blight
his existence if her hand should prove heavy or her selections vulgar;
but if she played agreeable things and played them in an agreeable way
she would render him rather a service while he smoked the pipe of
"form." Mrs. Bundy, who wanted to let her rooms, guaranteed on the
part of the stranger a first-class talent, and Mrs. Ryves, who evidently
knew thoroughly what she was about, had not falsified this somewhat
rash prediction. She never played in the morning, which was Baron's
working-time, and he found himself listening with pleasure at other
hours to her discreet and melancholy strains. He really knew little about
music, and the only criticism he would have made of Mrs. Ryves's
conception of it was that she seemed devoted to the dismal. It was not,
however, that these strains were not pleasant to him; they floated up, on
the contrary, as a sort of conscious response to some of his broodings
and doubts. Harmony, therefore, would have reigned supreme had it not
been for the singularly bad taste of No. 4. Mrs. Ryves's piano was on
the free side of the house and was regarded by Mrs. Bundy as open to
no objection but that of their own gentleman, who was so reasonable.
As much, however, could not be said of the gentleman of No. 4, who
had not even Mr. Baron's excuse of being "littery"(he kept a bull-terrier
and had five hats--the street could count them), and whom, if you had
listened to Mrs. Bundy, you would have supposed to be divided from
the obnoxious instrument by walls and corridors, obstacles and
intervals, of massive structure and fabulous extent. This gentleman had
taken up an attitude which had now passed into the phase of
correspondence and compromise; but it was the opinion of the

immediate neighbourhood that he had not a leg to stand upon, and on
whatever subject the sentiment of