Fair Margaret - Page 17/206

The room was plethoric with artistic objects, some good, some bad, some

atrocious, but all recalling the singer's past triumphs, and all

jumbled together, on tables, easels, pedestals, brackets and shelves

with much less taste than an average dealer in antiquities would have

shown in arranging his wares. There was not even light enough to see

them distinctly, for the terrifically heavy and expensive Genoa velvet

curtains produced a sort of dingy twilight. Moreover the Persian carpet

was so extremely thick that Margaret almost turned her ankle as she

made a step upon it.

As she knew that she must probably wait some time she looked for a

seat. There were a few light chairs here and there, but they were

occupied by various objects; on one a framed oil-painting was waiting

till a place could be found for it, on another there was a bandbox, on

a third lay some sort of garment that might be an opera-cloak or a

tea-gown, or a theatrical dress, a little silver tray with the remains

of black coffee and an empty liqueur glass stood upon a fourth chair,

and Margaret's searching eye discovered a fifth, with nothing on it,

pushed away in a corner.

She took hold of it by the back, to bring it forward a little, and the

gilt cross-bar came off in her hand. She stuck the piece on again as

well as she could, and as she did not like to disturb any of the things

she stood still, in the middle of the room, wondering vaguely whether

Madame Bonanni's visitors usually sat down, and if so, on what.

Suddenly her eyes fell upon a piano, standing behind several easels

that almost completely hid it. A piano usually has a stool, and

Margaret made her way between the easels and the little oriental

tables, and the plants, and the general confusion, towards the

keyboard. She was not disappointed; there was a stool, and she sat down

at last.

The air was oppressive and she wished herself out in the Pare Monceau,

in the May morning. The time seemed endless. By sheer force of habit

she slowly turned on the revolving stool and touched the keys; then she

struck a few chords softly, and the sound of the perfect instrument

gave her pleasure. She played something, trying to make as little noise

as possible so long as she remembered where she was, but presently she

forgot herself, her lips parted and she was singing, as people do who

sing naturally.

She sang the waltz song in the first act of Gounod's Romeo and

Juliet, and after the first few bars she had altogether forgotten that

she was not at home, with her own piano, or else standing behind her

teacher's shoulder in the Boulevard Malesherbes.