Rhapsody by Dorothy Edwards

Foreword written by Christopher Meredith

Last summer, on the very first day I returned from Egypt for my summer vacation, I made a new and interesting acquaintance. I reached London at about three o’clock, and had to wait about until a six o’clock appointment with my firm, and because I was too tired to do anything else in the meantime, and feeling also a little depressed and lonely, I turned into a café and sat there drinking tea and reading a magazine. At about four a man walked in and sat at the table in front of mine. He was short and thin, with very straight fair hair and pale blue eyes, and he was perhaps about forty years of age, though he looked very young. His face wore a curious expression, as if he were listening all the time to something intensely illuminating but scarcely audible, or as if he were experiencing some almost intolerably sweet emotion, and he seemed to be imploring you ‘Please don't interrupt me for a moment; it will soon be over.’

I noticed him particularly as he ordered tea and poured it out for himself, and I remember thinking what a neat and well-ordered personality he must be.

Then I went back to my magazine, and, when next I looked up, he was standing at my side, trying to attract my attention by saying in a very polite voice, ‘Pardon me, could you tell me what time it is?’

The fact of his not knowing the time was so much out of harmony with the conception I had formed of his ‘well ordered personality,’ and I was so muddle-headed after my rather sensational magazine story, that I did a very rude thing. I said, ‘But haven’t you a watch?’

He put two fingers into his watch-pocket and said, ‘No. I lent it to my little boy this morning. It has been a great inconvenience all day.’

‘It is a quarter to five,’ I said hurriedly; and then, to make up for my rudeness, I offered him a cigarette, and asked him if he would not sit down at my table. He accepted my invitation very politely, and sat down.

‘It is most unpleasant being without a watch,’ he said seriously. ‘I am so anxious not to miss my train, which goes at 5.40, because my wife is an invalid. There was no means of ascertaining the time at the concert this afternoon, and I regret to say that I came out of it earlier than necessary, because I thought it was later than it actually was. That is why I have some time to spend here.’

‘Yes. That is awfully annoying,’ I said.

‘However,’ and his expression of intolerable bliss returned, ‘I heard a great deal.’

‘You are fond of music?’ I remarked.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I never have the opportunity to hear very much now. It is impossible for me to come to town in the evening, because I cannot get home the same night. I can never go to the opera, for instance, though I am very fond of Mozart. My wife is an invalid, so that I do not like to leave her for very long. She used to play, but our tastes were dissimilar in many ways, and now she cannot play at all.’

‘And do you not play?’ I asked.

‘Alas, no!’ he answered. ‘I can finger out the notes in a very clumsy way, but though that gives me pleasure, I am sure it causes great anguish to everyone anywhere near, and it annoys my wife terribly, because her technique was always excellent. I can see you are sympathising with me,’ he added almost gaily. ‘I suppose you can play beautifully. Is that so?’

I laughed too. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I am very fond of music, though. I quite understand how you must miss it.’

He was delighted. He began to hum the little Minueto from Don Giovanni ecstatically in a whisper. Suddenly he said, ‘But, though you do not play, you will go to hear everything this season while I shall hear nothing.’

I was so anxious to take away some of his envy that I answered sorrowfully, ‘Yes, but even if it were possible to go to concerts every day, it is very dull wandering about by oneself in between for a whole three months.’

He was all compassion. ‘You have no friends here? Perhaps you do not live in London?’

It seemed a pity to talk about me, but I had made it inevitable