Sir Dominick Ferrand | Page 7

much to do with it. Just as this
instrument served, with the gentleman at No. 4, as a theme for
discussion, so between Peter Baron and the lady of the parlours it had
become a basis of peculiar agreement, a topic, at any rate, of
conversation frequently renewed. Mrs. Ryves was so prepossessing that
Peter was sure that even if they had not had the piano he would have
found something else to thresh out with her. Fortunately however they
did have it, and he, at least, made the most of it, knowing more now
about his new friend, who when, widowed and fatigued, she held her

beautiful child in her arms, looked dimly like a modern Madonna. Mrs.
Bundy, as a letter of furnished lodgings, was characterised in general
by a familiar domestic severity in respect to picturesque young women,
but she had the highest confidence in Mrs. Ryves. She was luminous
about her being a lady, and a lady who could bring Mrs. Bundy back to
a gratified recognition of one of those manifestations of mind for which
she had an independent esteem. She was professional, but Jersey Villas
could be proud of a profession that didn't happen to be the wrong
one--they had seen something of that. Mrs. Ryves had a hundred a year
(Baron wondered how Mrs. Bundy knew this; he thought it unlikely
Mrs. Ryves had told her), and for the rest she depended on her lovely
music. Baron judged that her music, even though lovely, was a frail
dependence; it would hardly help to fill a concert-room, and he asked
himself at first whether she played country-dances at children's parties
or gave lessons to young ladies who studied above their station.
Very soon, indeed, he was sufficiently enlightened; it all went fast, for
the little boy had been almost as great a help as the piano. Sidney
haunted the doorstep of No. 3 he was eminently sociable, and had
established independent relations with Peter, a frequent feature of
which was an adventurous visit, upstairs, to picture books criticised for
not being ALL geegees and walking sticks happily more conformable.
The young man's window, too, looked out on their acquaintance;
through a starched muslin curtain it kept his neighbour before him,
made him almost more aware of her comings and goings than he felt he
had a right to be. He was capable of a shyness of curiosity about her
and of dumb little delicacies of consideration. She did give a few
lessons; they were essentially local, and he ended by knowing more or
less what she went out for and what she came in from. She had almost
no visitors, only a decent old lady or two, and, every day, poor dingy
Miss Teagle, who was also ancient and who came humbly enough to
governess the infant of the parlours. Peter Baron's window had always,
to his sense, looked out on a good deal of life, and one of the things it
had most shown him was that there is nobody so bereft of joy as not to
be able to command for twopence the services of somebody less joyous.
Mrs. Ryves was a struggler (Baron scarcely liked to think of it), but she
occupied a pinnacle for Miss Teagle, who had lived on--and from a
noble nursery--into a period of diplomas and humiliation.

Mrs. Ryves sometimes went out, like Baron himself, with manuscripts
under her arm, and, still more like Baron, she almost always came back
with them. Her vain approaches were to the music-sellers; she tried to
compose--to produce songs that would make a hit. A successful song
was an income, she confided to Peter one of the first times he took
Sidney, blase and drowsy, back to his mother. It was not on one of
these occasions, but once when he had come in on no better pretext
than that of simply wanting to (she had after all virtually invited him),
that she mentioned how only one song in a thousand was successful
and that the terrible difficulty was in getting the right words. This
rightness was just a vulgar "fluke"-- there were lots of words really
clever that were of no use at all. Peter said, laughing, that he supposed
any words he should try to produce would be sure to be too clever; yet
only three weeks after his first encounter with Mrs. Ryves he sat at his
delightful davenport (well aware that he had duties more pressing),
trying to string together rhymes idiotic enough to make his neighbour's
fortune. He was satisfied of the fineness of her musical gift--it had the
touching note. The touching note was in her person as well.
The davenport was delightful, after six months of its tottering
predecessor, and such a re-enforcement to the young