Free A Song of Sixpence by A. J. Cronin

all but, disregarding the whistles and the catcalls, she was smiling now at her tormentors. Suddenly, as I shrank down in my seat waiting for the first feeble whimper of ‘La Mer’ to destroy her, her hands descended hard on the keyboard, startling me with the stirring strains of one of Sousa’s Besses o’ the Barn marches: a favourite of Father’s entitled ‘ Washington Post’.
    Was I dreaming? Apparently not, for when this ended, without pausing, without acknowledging the rattle of applause, before even someone yelled, ‘ Give us another,’ Mother dashed intrepidly into another rousing tune, the famous Pipe Band favourite of the Highland Infantry, ‘ Cock o’ the North’. If the first number had pleased the Levenford contingent this completely won them. Before she was halfway through she had them singing:
Piper Finlater, Piper Finlater,
Played the Cock o’ the North!
    While the last verse still vibrated against the roof more applause burst out, stamping of heavy boots, and repeated shouts of ‘’core, ’core’. And now Mother was in full cry. Scarcely hesitating she broke into what I can only call a medley, or rather an improvisation—since she played many of them by ear—of the old Scottish airs: ‘Ye Banks and Braes’, ‘Green Grow the Rashes, O’, ‘Over the Sea to Skye’, and ending with the local favourite, ‘The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’. The effect was tremendous, even those most unresponsive in the body of the hall, whom I had thought to be our enemies, were conquered, beating time now, nodding and humming, swept, away by this brilliant melodic surge of sentiment and national spirit.
    I was glowing with pride, my palms hot with clapping in homage to this wonderful mother whose undreamed-of cleverness and skill had saved the day for all of us.
    And they wanted more. Even when Mother rose from the piano they would not let her go. Someone unseen in the wings, must have signed to her to yield. What would she play now? The answer came quickly and it seemed that her eyes had sought us out. She struck the first chords of Moore’s ‘Far from the Land’, a tribute, not to her old loyalties, but to the new. And she was singing it, too, calmly and confidently, as though she were sitting at the piano at home. I scarcely breathed as her voice rose, clear and sweet, in the perfect attentive stillness of the hall.
    Father, leaning back, twirling his moustache, and with a strange rapt smile, had kept his gaze riveted on Mother as though he could scarcely believe his eyes. And when at last after a final curtsy, she left the stage, he rose abruptly and, demonstrating in every action that the event of the evening was over, he took me by the collar, steered me down the aisle and out of the hall.
    We had not long to wait for Mother. She came hurrying down the steps of the upper entrance wearing her coat, with a fringed white shawl round her head, and ran straight towards us. Father gave her such a hug it lifted her off her feet.
    â€˜Gracie, Gracie …’ he murmured in her ear, ‘I knew you had it in you.’
    â€˜Oh, Mother!’ I was hopping with delight. ‘ You were splendid.’
    Mother gave a little gasp.
    â€˜It was an awful hash of sentiment but I fancied it was the only thing, and I think they liked it.’
    â€˜They loved it, Mother,’ I shouted.
    â€˜Couldn’t have been better,’ Father purred.
    â€˜I didn’t want to go on so long, but Lady Meikle made me.’
    â€˜Ah,’ said Father, with a satisfied click of his tongue. ‘I knew the Whalebone would be on our side. But what made you think to do it in the first place? Did she give you the idea?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Who, then?’
    Mother gave him a sly glance.
    â€˜It must have been your Mr Martell.’
    Shouts of delirious laughter from all three of us. What joy, what bliss!