he laughed. And he tied the angel.
Coming downstairs after changing he went into the icy cold parlour, and took his music and a small handbag. With this he retreated again to the back kitchen. He was still in trousers and shirt and slippers: but now it was a clean white shirt, and his best black trousers, and new pink and white braces. He sat under the gas-jet of the back kitchen, looking through his music. Then he opened the bag, in which were sections of a flute and a piccolo. He took out the flute, and adjusted it. As he sat he was physically aware of the sounds of the night: the bubbling of water in the boiler, the faint sound of the gas, the sudden crying of the baby in the next room, then noises outside, distant boys shouting, distant rags of carols, fragments of voices of men. The whole country was roused and excited.
The little room was hot. Aaron rose and opened a square ventilator over the copper, letting in a stream of cold air, which was grateful to him. Then he cocked his eye over the sheet of music spread out on the table before him. He tried his flute. And then at last, with the odd gesture of a diver taking a plunge, he swung his head and began to play. A stream of music, soft and rich and fluid, came out of the flute. He played beautifully. He moved his head and his raised bare arms with slight, intense movements, as the delicate music poured out. It was sixteenth-century Christmas melody, very limpid and delicate.
The pure, mindless, exquisite motion and fluidity of the music delighted him with a strange exasperation. There was something tense, exasperated to the point of intolerable anger, in his good-humored breast, as he played the finely-spun peace-music. The more exquisite the music, the more perfectly he produced it, in sheer bliss; and at the same time, the more intense was the maddened exasperation within him.
Millicent appeared in the room. She fidgetted at the sink. The music was a bugbear to her, because it prevented her from saying what was on her own mind. At length it ended, her father was turning over the various books and sheets. She looked at him quickly, seizing her opportunity.
"Are you going out, Father?" she said.
"Eh?"
"Are you going out?" She twisted nervously.
"What do you want to know for?"
He made no other answer, and turned again to the music. His eye went down a sheet—then over it again—then more closely over it again.
"Are you?" persisted the child, balancing on one foot.
He looked at her, and his eyes were angry under knitted brows.
"What are you bothering about?" he said.
"I'm not bothering—I only wanted to know if you were going out," she pouted, quivering to cry.
"I expect I am," he said quietly.
She recovered at once, but still with timidity asked:
"We haven't got any candles for the Christmas tree—shall you buy some, because mother isn't going out?"
"Candles!" he repeated, settling his music and taking up the piccolo.
"Yes—shall you buy us some, Father? Shall you?"
"Candles!" he repeated, putting the piccolo to his mouth and blowing a few piercing, preparatory notes.
"Yes, little Christmas-tree candles—blue ones and red ones, in boxes—Shall you, Father?"
"We'll see—if I see any—"
"But shall you?" she insisted desperately. She wisely mistrusted his vagueness.
But he was looking unheeding at the music. Then suddenly the piccolo broke forth, wild, shrill, brilliant. He was playing Mozart. The child's face went pale with anger at the sound. She turned, and went out, closing both doors behind her to shut out the noise.
The shrill, rapid movement of the piccolo music seemed to possess the air, it was useless to try to shut it out. The man went on playing to himself, measured and insistent. In the frosty evening the sound carried. People passing down the street hesitated, listening. The neighbours knew it was Aaron practising his piccolo. He was esteemed a good player: was in request at concerts and dances, also at swell balls. So the vivid piping sound tickled the darkness.
He played on till about seven o'clock; he did not want to go out too soon, in spite of the early closing of the public houses. He never went with the stream, but made a side current of his own. His wife said he was contrary. When he went into the middle room to put on his collar and tie, the two little girls were having their hair brushed, the baby was in bed, there was a hot smell of mince-pies baking in the oven.
"You won't forget our candles, will you, Father?" asked Millicent, with assurance now.
"I'll see," he answered.
His wife watched him as he put on his overcoat and hat. He was well-dressed, handsome-looking. She felt there was a curious glamour about him. It made her feel bitter. He had an unfair advantage—he was free to go off, while she must stay at home with the children.
"There's no knowing what time you'll be home," she said.
"I shan't be late," he answered.
"It's easy to say so," she retorted, with some contempt. He took his stick, and turned towards the door.
"Bring the children some candles for their tree, and don't be so selfish," she said.
"All right," he said, going out.
"Don't say All right if you never mean to do it," she cried, with sudden anger, following him to the door.
His figure stood large and shadowy in the darkness.
"How many do you want?" he said.
"A dozen," she said. "And holders too, if you can get them," she added, with barren bitterness.
"Yes—all right," he turned and melted into the darkness. She went indoors, worn with a strange and bitter flame.
He crossed the fields towards the little town, which once more fumed its lights under the night. The country ran away, rising on his right hand. It was no longer a great bank of darkness. Lights twinkled freely here and there, though forlornly, now that the war-time restrictions were removed. It was no glitter of pre-war nights, pit-heads glittering far-off with electricity. Neither was it the black gulf of the war darkness: instead, this forlorn sporadic twinkling.
Everybody seemed to be out of doors. The hollow dark countryside re-echoed like a shell with shouts and calls and excited voices. Restlessness and nervous excitement, nervous hilarity were in the air. There was a sense of electric surcharge everywhere, frictional, a neurasthenic haste for excitement.
Every moment Aaron Sisson was greeted with Good-night—Good-night, Aaron—Good-night, Mr. Sisson. People carrying parcels, children, women, thronged home on the dark paths. They were all talking loudly, declaiming loudly about what they could and could not get, and what this or the other had lost.
When he got into the main street, the only street of shops, it was crowded. There seemed to have been some violent but quiet contest, a subdued fight, going on all the afternoon and evening: people struggling to buy things, to get things. Money was
