‘Madge, Madge, I wish you would sometimes save me the trouble of laboriously striving to discover what you really mean.’
Mrs Hopgood bethought herself that her daughters were talking too much to one another, as they often did, even when guests were present, and she therefore interrupted them.
‘Mr Palmer, you see both town and country—which do you prefer?’
‘Oh! I hardly know; the country in summer-time, perhaps, and town in the winter.’
This was a safe answer, and one which was not very original; that is to say, it expressed no very distinct belief; but there was one valid reason why he liked being in London in the winter.
‘Your father, I remember, loves music. I suppose you inherit his taste, and it is impossible to hear good music in the country.’
‘I am very fond of music. Have you heard “St Paul?” I was at Birmingham when it was first performed in this country. Oh! it _is_ lovely,’ and he began humming ‘_Be thou faithful unto death_.’
Frank did really care for music. He went wherever good music was to be had; he belonged to a choral society and was in great request amongst his father’s friends at evening entertainments. He could also play the piano, so far as to be able to accompany himself thereon. He sang to himself when he was travelling, and often murmured favourite airs when people around him were talking. He had lessons from an old Italian, a little, withered, shabby creature, who was not very proud of his pupil. ‘He is a talent,’ said the Signor, ‘and he will amuse himself; good for a ballad at a party, but a musician? no!’ and like all mere ‘talents’ Frank failed in his songs to give them just what is of most value—just that which separates an artistic performance from the vast region of well-meaning, respectable, but uninteresting commonplace. There was a curious lack in him also of correspondence between his music and the rest of himself. As music is expression, it might be supposed that something which it serves to express would always lie behind it; but this was not the case with him, although he was so attractive and delightful in many ways. There could be no doubt that his love for Beethoven was genuine, but that which was in Frank Palmer was not that of which the sonatas and symphonies of the master are the voice. He went into raptures over the slow movement in the _C minor_ Symphony, but no _C minor_ slow movement was discernible in his character.