Second Violin
Mansfield

  A February morning, windy, cold, with chill-looking
clouds hurrying over a pale sky and chill snowdrops
for sale in the grey streets. People look small and shrunken
as they flit by; they look scared as if they were trying to hide
inside their coats from something big and brutal. The shop
doors are closed, the awnings are furled, and the policemen at
the crossings are lead policemen. Huge empty vans shake past
with a hollow sound; and there is a smell of soot and wet
stone staircases, a raw, grimy smell....
  Flinging her small scarf over her shoulder again, clasping
her violin, Miss Bray darts along to orchestra practice. She is
conscious of her cold hands, her cold nose and her colder feet.
She can't feel her toes at all. Her feet are just little slabs of
cold, all of a piece, like the feet of china dolls. Winter is a
terrible time for thin people -- terrible! Why should it hound
them down, fasten on them, worry them so? Why not, for a
change take a nip, take a snap at the fat ones who wouldn't
notice? But no! It is sleek, warm, cat-like summer that makes
the fat one's life a misery. Winter is all for bones....
  Threading her way, like a needle, in and out and along, went
Miss Bray, and she thought of nothing but the cold. She had
just come out of her kitchen, which was pleasantly snug in the
morning, with her gas-fire going for her breakfast and the
window closed. She had just drunk three large cups of really
boiling tea. Surely, they ought to have warmed her. One
always read in books of people going on their way warmed and
invigorated by even one cup. And she had had three! How
she loved her tea! She was getting fonder and fonder of it.
Stirring the cup, Miss Bray looked down. A little fond
smile parted her lips, and she breathed tenderly, "I love my
tea."
  But all the same, in spite of the books, it didn't keep her
warm. Cold! Cold! And now as she turned the corner she
took such a gulp of damp, cold air that her eyes filled. Y_i_-y_i_-y_i_,
a little dog yelped; he looked as though he'd been hurt. She
hadn't time to look round, but that high, sharp yelping soothed
her, was a comfort even. She could have made just that sound
herself.
  And here was the Academy. Miss Bray pressed with all her
might against the stiff, sulky door, squeezed through into the
vestibule hung with pallid notices and concert programmes,
and stumbled up the dusty stairs and along the passage to the
dressing-room. Through the open door there came such shrill
loud laughter, such high, indifferent voices that it sounded like
a play going on in there. It was hard to believe people were
not laughing and talking like that...on purpose. "Excuse
me -- pardon -- sorry," said Miss Bray, nudging her way in
and looking quickly round the dingy little room. Her two
friends had not yet come.
  The First Violins were there; a dreamy, broad-faced girl
leaned against her 'cello; two Violas sat on a bench, bent over
a music book, and the Harp, a small grey little person, who


only came occasionally, leaned against a bench and looked for
her pocket in her underskirt....
  "I've a run of three twice, ducky," said Ma, "a pair of
queens make eight, and one for his nob makes nine."
  With an awful groan Alexander, curling his little
finger high, pegged nine for Ma. And "Wait now, wait now,"
said she, and her quick short little hands snatched at the other
cards. "My crib, young man!" She spread them out, leaned
back, twitched her shawl, put her head on one side. "H'm,
not so bad! A flush of four and a pair!"
  "Betrayed! Betrayed!" moaned Alexander, bowing his dark
head over the cribbage board, "and by a woo-man." He sighed
deeply, shuffled the cards and said to Ma, "Cut for me, my
love!"
  Although, of course, he was only having his joke like all professional
young gentlemen, something in the tone in which he
said "my love!" gave Ma quite a turn. Her lips trembled as
she cut the cards, she felt a sudden pang as she watched those
long slim fingers dealing.
  Ma and Alexander were playing cribbage in the basement
kitchen of number 9 Bolton Street. It was late, it was on
eleven, and Sunday night, too -- shocking! They sat at the
kitchen table that was covered with a worn art serge cloth
spotted with candle grease. On one corner of it stood three
glasses, three spoons, a saucer of sugar lumps and a bottle of
gin. The stove was still alight and the lid of the kettle had
just begun to lift, cautiously, stealthily, as though there was
someone inside who wanted to have a peep and pop back again.
On the horse-hair sofa against the wall by the door the owner
of the third glass lay asleep, gently snoring. Perhaps because
he had his back to them, perhaps because his feet poked out
from the short overcoat covering him, he looked forlorn,
pathetic and the long, fair hair covering his collar looked
forlorn and pathetic, too.



  "Well, well," said Ma, sighing as she put out two cards and
arranged the others in a fan, "such is life. I little thought when
I saw the last of you this morning that we'd be playing a game
together to-night."
  "The caprice of destiny," murmured Alexander. But, as a
matter of fact, it was no joking matter. By some infernal mischance
that morning he and Rinaldo had missed the train that
all the company travelled by. That was bad enough. But
being Sunday, there was no other train until midnight, and as
they had a full rehearsal at 10 o'clock on Monday it meant
going by that, or getting what the company called the beetroot.
But God! what a day it had been. They had left the luggage
at the station and come back to Ma's, back to Alexander's
frowsy bedroom with the bed unmade and water standing about.
Rinaldo had spent the whole day sitting on the side of the bed
swinging his leg, dropping ash on the floor and saying, "I
wonder what made us lose that train. Strange we should have
lost it. I bet the others are wondering what made us lose it,
too." And Alexander had stayed by the window gazing into
the small garden that was so black with grime even the old lean
cat who came and scraped seemed revolted by it, too. It was
only after Ma had seen the last of her Sunday visitors...