The first joint rehearsal of the midsummer programme was held beneath the Old Willow on Tuesday afternoon. It was the only rehearsal at which all four performers were scheduled at one hour, and it had been awaited on that account. It ran through the early items of the running order in good order. It reached the third item, the duet, in the late afternoon. The duet was begun. It did not, on this occasion, reach the end the Cultural Subcommittee had been led to expect.
Here is what was seen, from the spot the Cultural Subcommittee had marked as the proper one for watching. The two voices began together at the agreed pitch. The higher voice carried, as it does. The long-resident frog of the southern waters has called it audible from his station twice this season, and it was audible now, a fair distance into the reeds. The lower voice held for four breaths, by this paper’s count, and then it did not. Mabel of the north bank lost her line. The acting chair signalled an immediate pause. Mabel withdrew by the south bank approach to the western reeds at the western end, where she was, by report, no longer in plain view.
Hettie’s mother had been watching from the south bank. She crossed to the western reeds at a pace not to be called hurried or unhurried, since both are wrong in their own way. She spoke briefly with the acting chair. The Clerk of the Cultural Subcommittee was sent for, by a hand that went unseen. The three then conferred in low voices, and not one word of it reached this correspondent in any form she is at liberty to set down. Hettie stayed at the willow with the smallest and eldest goslings. She was seen at one point studying the bark, in the manner of a bird who has decided that the bark, for now, is the only fit thing to look at.
This paper reports what may be reported and leaves the rest alone. Mabel’s withdrawal may be reported. The conferring may be reported. What was said may not, and will not be. Some readers will reach this paragraph and want more. To them is offered what such occasions always recommend, which is patience.
The conferring went on the best part of an hour. The light dropped. The older drakes had drifted to the south bank in their usual number, and on this evening they did not remark on it, or did not remark in any words that carried to the willow. Late in the evening the Clerk of the Cultural Subcommittee passed the word along. Mabel had agreed to go on. The rehearsal would resume after sundown. She returned to her place beneath the willow in due course. This correspondent records the return as graceful, and chooses the word with care, and expects no argument about it.
The duet resumed after first dark. The two voices carried together for twelve breaths, then for sixteen, and then stopped, by agreement and on the acting chair’s signal, for the night. The rest of the programme went unrehearsed. The Cultural Subcommittee indicated that a further joint rehearsal would be set for Thursday or Friday, conditions allowing, and that the matter, by which this paper takes it they meant every matter arising from the afternoon, was now in hand.
The willow stands. The duet stands. The co-honker, talked round, stands with it.