She drifted in from the verandah to the living-room, where the piano stood open as Hermie had left it, when, imagining Challis out of hearing an hour or two ago, she had sat down to it for a few minutes. But the cheap tinkling stuff that comprised poor Hermie’s _repertoire_—the jingling waltzes, the pretty-pretty compositions of Gustave Lange and Brindley Richards, ’Edelweiss’ and ’Longing,’ ’Warblings at Eve,’ and such—they set her ear horribly on edge, though she would rather have died than have said so. It were less torture to hear Flossie thumping conscientiously away at ’The Blue Bells of Scotland’ and ’We’re a’ Noddin’.’
The very piano was a heartache; it was seven years since it had been tuned, and despite the careful dusting of Miss Browne, the silverfish led a gay existence in its interior, and ate all the softness and depth from the notes.
But this afternoon the girl, with that vague misery tugging at her heart, was driven to it; nothing else could ease her. She put her foot down on the soft pedal, to keep the discordant jangle away, and avoiding as much as she could the B that was flat, and the D that was dumb, and the F sharp that Roly had torn off bodily, she worked off the gloom that oppressed her with Beethoven and Bach.
Roly came in. He was arming himself for a new attack on Ladysmith; he had the kitchen poker and the stove-brush, the tin-opener, a knife from a broken plough, a genuine boomerang, the corkscrew, the gravy-strainer, and the carving-knife, disposed about his person, and he came into the living-room, his eye roving about in search of fresh implements of warfare. Nothing seemed to appeal to him, however, and he was going out again discontentedly when he noticed his new sister had dropped her hands from the keyboard, and was resting her forehead there instead.
’Can you play with your head too?’ he asked; then he noticed there were tears running down her cheeks. ’Don’t cry,’ he said; ’I’ll run out and ask mother to let you off. Did she say you’d got to practise an hour? Oh, I’ll soon get her to let you off!’
Challis smiled faintly through her tears.
’It’s all right,’ she said; ’don’t disturb mother. No one told me to practise.’
’Well, you _are_ a muggins!’ said the uncouth bushikin. ’Catch _me_ setting myself a copy or a sum! Why don’t you go out and play?’