THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (6 Titles in One Edition). E. M. Delafield
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Louis, in the evening, sometimes asked her for his old favourite, Haydn, but for the most part smoked in silence during her performances, and said "Thank you, mignonne," without comment.
Stéphanie looked at the music pages from time to time, and said admiringly:
"It looks terribly hard. You must be very musical indeed, Zella, to play such difficult things."
Zella, who had sometimes felt an unacknowledged doubt as to her being really so very musical, gradually became convinced that Tante Stéphanie must be right.
She played more furiously than ever.
As the spring turned into summer and the evenings grew longer, Zella found much enjoyment in opening the window at twilight, rejecting any offer of lamp or candles, and straying into minor fragments of Bach or the first half-dozen bars of the " Moonlight Sonata." It gave her Zella revived.
" Of course anything about music appeals to me very deeply," she murmured.
" Of course," assented Mdlle. de Kervoyou, who happened to be absolutely unmusical. B But her ready acceptance of Zella's statement was perhaps indirectly responsible for Zella's next convictions as to her means of self-expression.
The Polish count was laid aside, after a final outburst of realism in which every item of his meagre supper had Been described with a minuteness that extended from the listening oil of silvery and crumbling sardines to the Bhite irregularity of a lump of salt. At which stage Zella perceived that the book was on such a scale as to Bed a lifetime's work before she could hope to complete B, and thereupon characteristically decided to wait until Be could give more time to it. m She played the piano.
All through the spring, Villetswood was haunted by fragments of Debussy, renderings of Tchaikowsky and minor passages from the works of Sibelius. Zella retained all her old facility for reading at sight, and there was little she did not attempt.
Louis, in the evening, sometimes asked her for his old favourite, Haydn, but for the most part smoked in silence during her performances, and said" Thank you, mignonne," without comment.
Stéphanie looked at the music pages from time to time, and said admiringly:
"It looks terribly hard. You must be very musical indeed, Zella, to play such difficult things."
Zella, who had sometimes felt an unacknowledged doubt as to her being really so very musical, gradually became convinced that Tante Stéphanie must be right.
She played more furiously than ever.
As the spring turned into summer and the evenings grew longer, Zella found much enjoyment in opening the window at twilight, rejecting any offer of lamp or candles, and straying into minor fragments of Bach or the first half-dozen bars of the "Moonlight Sonata." It gave her great satisfaction to note how much pleasure she derived from performances. She had found her true vocation, that form of self-expression so earnestly sought for, and which should reveal to her her own truest highest self. So absorbed was Zella in interpreting her own emotions that she seldom or never had attention to spare for any possible interpretation of the composer's meaning.
This, however, mattered the less since she was always her own best audience, with Stéphanie de Kervoyou, who listened to Zella with an admiration only second to Zella's own.
These illusions endured until the beginning of the summer, when James Lloyd-Evans came down to spend a few days at Villetswood.
Zella wondered, with a mixture of hope and trepidation, whether Tante Stéphanie would have the good sense to allude to her niece's playing, in view of the fact that James was known, by tradition at least, since he was never heard to metion the subject, to be a passionate lover of music.
Tante Stéphanie rose to the occasion.
On the evening of James's arrival she asked Zella, sitting with her in the lamplit drawing-room, whether she were not going to play.
"Shall I?" said Zella rather wearily; "I am rather tired this evening, I think."
"Pauvre petite! you should go to bed early. Play a nice little quiet berçeuse ; that ought to rest you."
Zella rose slowly and went to the piano, visualizing her own ethereal appearance in her soft white evening dress, with the lamplight shining on her hair.
"I will just play a little till they come in from the dining-room," she murmured.
She moved the music-stool rather aimlessly about and shifted a pile of music.
"Don't you think it's very hot in here this evening, Tante Stéphanie?"
"Yes, I think it is. Would you like the other window open?"
"I should, but I'm afraid it will make a draught and blow the music about. But this room does seem to me very airless. What can we do, Tante Stéphanie?"
"I can open this one wider perhaps, " placidly replied Mdle. de Kervoyou.
"What about the door?" cried Zella brightly. "Should you feel that too much?"
"No, dear, not at all."
Zella set it open, casting a quick side-glance at her it as she did so. Stéphanie was counting the stitches a tiny sock, but Zella, who generally missed her effects from sheer nervous anxiety to secure them, felt compelled a final touch of over-acting.
"I hope they won't hear the piano from the dining-room, with the door open," she said, laughing nervously. I never thought of that." Upon which even the guileless Mdlle. de Kervoyou suddenly perceived from whence had arisen her niece's sire for fresh air.
But she only remarked, after an infinitesimal pause: "Your cousin is fond of music, is he not?" If so, it appeared that James preferred it at a distance, for neither Grieg nor Chopin brought him from the dining-room; and when at last Zella, oddly nervous and disoncerted, rushed with more impetus than discretion "L'Apres-midi d'un Faune," Louis and James night have been seen emerging from the French window of the dining-room, and pacing slowly towards the farther end of the terrace.
Zella did not perceive the two black shadows until they moved deliberately across the bar of light cast through the open window, and a few seconds later she rose from the piano and threw herself into an armchair.
"Thank you, Zella dear; that was very nice," said Tante Stéphanie amiably.
"I really think I shall go to bed." "Yes, do, dear, if you are tired." The tall form of James Lloyd-Evans appeared at the window.
"Zella, are you game to mark the tennis-court with me to-morrow? It's high time to begin tennis, don't you think?"
"Perhaps it is," smiled Zella faintly. "Dear what a strain Debussy's chords are!"
She stretched her slender fingers wide.
"Do you still care for music, James?"
"Oh yes," answered her cousin vaguely, and frowning at the carpet.
Zella felt with annoyance that he did not want to pursue the subject with her.
"Zella plays to us a great deal now," observed Md de Kervoyou. "She is so fond of music."