Coleridge’s visitors arrived just a matter of weeks after the birth of his daughter. They had arrived at Coleridge’s modest home in Croydon promptly at three, about an hour or so after Kathleen. Jess had arranged for tea to be served by a local girl called Elsie who occasionally did odd jobs around the house for Mrs Coleridge-Taylor.

Andrew Hilyer was a wealthy, black accountant from Washington. He was a quiet man, but this was more than compensated for by his ample and jolly wife, Mamie. Mr and Mrs Hilyer were visiting Europe with their friends Dr and Mrs Cabaniss and the well-known American baritone, Mr Henry Burleigh. Burleigh was a strong and very handsome man in his late thirties. Coleridge had not been surrounded by so many black Americans since his tea with Loudin’s Fisk Jubilee Singers six years earlier and this was the long awaited fruit of that initial meeting. Watha played on the floor and the new baby gurgled contentedly on Jess’s proud knee.

“I used to stand hungry in front of one of Dennett’s downtown restaurants,” Mr Burleigh recounted, “and watched the man in the window cook cakes. Then I would take a toothpick from my pocket and use it as if I had just eaten one. I’d draw on my imagination rather than my pocket, you understand and then walk off down the street singing to myself.” Jess laughed politely.

“No imaginary cakes here,” she said.

“Hello baby Gwendolen,” Kathleen cooed as the infant reached out for and gripped her little finger.

“Coleridge was adjudicating in South Wales,” Jess said to Mr Burleigh. She had been waiting for a cue to begin one of the anecdotes she had prepared. “We were there at the invitation of our dear friend Lady Williams, the wife of the late Queen’s physician, and she actually suggested the name to me.”

“My, my, the Queen!” said Mrs Cabaniss.

“It’s a lovely name,” Burleigh agreed.

Coleridge sat across the room by the door and was deep in conversation with the Hilyers who were sitting on, and full of admiration for, his beautiful new settee in front of the window.
“Mr Dubois’ book is about the finest book I have ever read by a coloured man and one of the best by any author, white or black,” he told them. “Thank you over and over again for so kindly sending it to me.” Elsie rattled the tea things in on the trolley.

“Tea!” Jess announced. “And real cakes, Mr Burleigh, English cakes!”

The conversation inevitably turned from baby names and toddlers and from tea and cake to Coleridge’s first love. Coleridge’s latest pieces had been receiving very lukewarm responses but the African influences that had started to manifest in his work greatly interested Mr Burleigh who was very knowledgeable about African American folk music.

“All are distinguished by unusual and subtle harmonies,” he told Coleridge from his side of the room, with Kathleen, Jess and the doctor and his wife, “the like of which I have found in no other songs but those of old Scotland and Ireland. In Negro Spirituals my race has pure gold – our contribution to America’s artistic possessions!”

Later, Jess poured a second cup of tea for each from the replenished pot.

“I just love your English tea,” Mrs Hilyer said reaching for another slice of Jess’s Victoria sponge without being offered and as the others were barely through their first piece. “You know, we were most disappointed not to be here for ‘The Atonement’. How did it go?”

The Three Choirs Festival had rejected the piece despite commissioning it.

“The fact is,” Coleridge said with a response well-rehearsed, “the fact is that there has never been a religious work written by a coloured man before. They, I’m afraid to say, decided to revert to Gounod’s ‘Redemption’. They thought my portrayal of Christ by a baritone might offend. But I have to say that it held the people well at the Royal Albert Hall.”

“Well, that’s something at least,” said Mr Burleigh encouragingly. Sensing his unease, Mr Burleigh skillfully changed the subject to one that he knew Coleridge would be interested in hearing about and it worked. Coleridge sparkled back into life and listened intently as Mr Burleigh recounted his experience of working with Dvorak.

“I am very proud of my association with him,” Mr Burleigh concluded.

“Coleridge loves the open-air sound his music has, don’t you?” Jess chimed in as she handed Mr Burleigh his second cup. “Coleridge and I believe our modern music lacks Dvorak’s genuine simplicity.” Coleridge nodded silently. Of course he agreed – he had said exactly those words to Jess less than a week before. She hadn’t said anything at the time. He returned to brooding over ‘Atonement’.

“Coleridge, tell us about this mysterious Dr Miller?” Kathleen asked in an attempt to dispel the inclement weather front that seemed to be drifting into the conversation. Jess had mentioned the story to them when he had popped out of the room. He hid the irritation he felt that she had shared this embarrassing story with his guests in his absence. Dr Miller had called on two more occasions and Coleridge had made a total of three loans to him amounting to thirteen pounds. Dr Miller never returned as promised to honour his I.O.U.’s. Coleridge told them all about it with his usual self-deprecating humour.

“I felt such a fool,” he laughed.

“Stitched up like a kipper, eh?” said Mr Burleigh in a poor English accent. It was very funny to hear an American use such an English phrase. Coleridge’s chuckle was genuine that time and at last he began to relax. He liked Henry Burleigh very much. “Well isn’t that what you English say? Eh, Coleridge?” Mr Burleigh teased, his grin broadening as Coleridge’s giggles increased. To explain would be far too involved, Coleridge thought and to submit to the giggles far more pleasant.

“Yes Mr Burleigh, that’s what we English say.” Americans really were extraordinary, he thought, but he was interested to hear the purpose of the Hilyers’ visit to Europe. It seemed to him that everyone was talking of everything except why they were actually there. It was all too apparent that there was something that was waiting to be said. Everyone knew it. Coleridge wasn’t the only one wanting whatever it was to be out in the open. Mr Hilyer had said very little but had been eyeing Coleridge over the brim of his teacup, waiting for his moment.

“He still keeps the I.O.U.’s though, don’t you Coleridge – just in case!”

“Mrs Hilyer?” Coleridge cautiously asked choosing to ignore Jess’s jibes.

“Goodness! Call me Mamie. After all our correspondence, surely we’re old friends now, Coleridge…”

“Mamie then, thank you –” he said rather uncomfortably, realising that he couldn’t possibly ask if there was something that they wanted from him – it would be like asking, ‘why are you here?’ He quickly thought of something else to say and although it was said to pull him from the hole he had stumbled into, it nevertheless came from the heart. “Mamie, your remarkable compilation of the doings of the coloured race makes me wish I was doing my share. But perhaps in matters of art, it is better for a coloured individual to live in my country? Though all the people I’ve met from America seem to be extraordinarily cheerful. Perhaps it’s because you are all so very philosophical about it and I am not so, I’m afraid. But all this earnest work you do – that you all do, surely this does something to leaven the prejudice?” Mamie smiled at him but didn’t say a word. Dr & Mrs Cabaniss smiled at him but didn’t say a word. “Have I …said something?”

“Coleridge, I’m going to cut to the chase, here if I may, as we Americans like to call it,” said Mr Hilyer breaking his silence. “The fact is my wife here, Dr & Mrs Cabaniss and Mr Burleigh – we’ve come to England for a purpose.”

“The ‘Passion Play’ in Oberammergau was a ruse,” Mrs Cabaniss added gleefully. “We weren’t interested in that at all.” Then, as before, no one spoke. No one was drinking their tea either. The Americans smiled at him and he smiled back. He looked to Kathleen and to Jess for some clue but neither of them looked like they knew quite what was coming either. Whatever it was that needed to be said, was waiting for the silence to end first. Had he done something wrong, he wondered. Had he made some sort of American etiquette faux pas and they were waiting for an apology? Were they laughing at him? The smile on his face started to ache.

“Mamie was a founder member of Washington’s women’s vocal group –” said Dr Cabaniss, starting at the beginning.

“We called ourselves The Treble Clef Club,” his wife interrupted, taking up the baton and flourishing her hand to express her dismissive attitude towards the old name. “But now, we’re the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society.” She clapped her hands together. She waited for his reaction and Coleridge was deeply flattered, but was that it? They could have told him that in a letter.

“We have Mr Loudin to thank for introducing your work to us,” Mr Hilyer said, “and Mr Burleigh here for leading us to you personally.”

“Everyone agrees that you are a splendid singer, Mr Burleigh,” Coleridge said, “and also – more rare – a splendid musician. …The two things do not always go together, I find.”

“We know that you had other work commitments when we wrote you that first time,” said Mr Hilyer “and totally understand your concerns about our orchestra –”

“Yes, about that. I have to say how sorry –” he began.

“Coleridge, –” Mrs Cabaniss jumped in again but she didn’t go on. Her frivolous nature slid from her face. She put down her cup and walked over to him and then, most disarmingly, knelt at the side of his chair. She suddenly looked rather sad. She sandwiched his hand between hers and he put down the teacup and saucer held in the hand she didn’t have – he knew that if tea got spilt on his cushion covers it would be merry hell to get out. His other hand free, she took that one too and sandwiched it also. He was going nowhere. She looked him in the eyes and spoke softly and with a heartfelt affection.

“Coleridge, I don’t believe that you understand what you mean to us in America?” He looked at her, then to them. He didn’t understand. “I know it is different here,” Mrs Cabaniss said slowly, “but – and the others will back me up, you have inspired African Americans… but you won’t come see us. Everyone’s heard of you there and everyone wants you there and we’ve invited you but you won’t come.” He couldn’t draw his eyes away from hers. “Our parents, Coleridge, our parents were slaves. Look at us. Coloured folks there have to struggle every day and I mean really struggle and you know, oftentimes it does feel hopeless, I’ll admit it. Sometimes we may even want to give up, but we all still struggle on regardless. Now, in England you are a great musician but you… you are so much more than just a musician over there, Coleridge. You are a cultural hero.”

She saw his eyes mist over. He wanted his hands back. She rubbed them between hers and squeezed.

“You have done something wonderful for the African American spirit just by being you and you… you don’t even know it. We… well I guess we hadn’t realised we’d been crying out for a figurehead so never considered what form such a thing might take. But then you came along and… got chosen, I’m afraid. African Americans have chosen you, Coleridge, an English composer, as their inspiration and they need you there so that they can go on – they really need to see you there. Our people don’t often get the success you have achieved and they want to embrace you, Coleridge. Would you deny them that? You fire our spirits. You inspire African Americans to keep on struggling.”
He couldn’t speak.

“So,” she said, in conclusion, “please don’t say to us you won’t come. We came all this way especially to ask you. So, will you? Will you please come?”

She let go of his hand. He couldn’t answer. Mrs Cabaniss stood and went back to her seat. He sniffed. Watha gazed up at him from the floor. They all looked at him and he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He had no idea that that was how people there felt. It had never crossed his mind.

Dr Cabaniss spoke. “You know how many people we had crowded into the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church to hear ‘Hiawatha’ last year when you wouldn’t come?” Coleridge shook his head weakly.

“Two thousand. All the rest had to stand outside to listen. At the public rehearsal nearly three thousand people had to be turned away.”

Coleridge was overwhelmed by this wave from across the Atlantic Ocean. The thought of actually visiting America had never been seriously entertained. He’d taken the ferry to the Isle of Wight for his honeymoon, but all that way across the Atlantic? He thought of his old friend Paul Laurence Dunbar. It would be wonderful to see him again. He thought of the Pan-African movement. He thought of Frederick Loudin and the Jubilee Singers.

“Come. …Please,” said Mr Burleigh.

The mood was far too intense for poor Coleridge, so Mamie cleared her throat and with a grin, put down her teacup noisily.

“Now, take your time over this, Coleridge,” she blustered playfully. Kathleen couldn’t believe that her gentle, modest friend would pass up such an invitation after what had been said.

“Coleridge…!” she said prompting him to speak.

“We Hilyers are not used to being turned down twice,” Mamie went on with a twinkle that made Coleridge smile at last. But the smile forced a tear from the corner of his eye and it rolled down his cheek. “Let me spell it out for you. We have two hundred African American singers who have been rehearsing ‘Hiawatha’ for well over a year. We have Mr Burleigh here, we have Convention Hall and we want you there to conduct it for us and my husband here is paying. Now I understand that you were concerned about our little orchestra last time, weren’t you, Mr T?” Coleridge giggled again. “Well we got you the United States Marine Band, this time, Mister. Will that do you?” Her eyes rolled as she spoke and her head swayed like a beautiful, big, black cobra.

Mr Hilyer spoke. “This’ll be the first time that a man with African blood in his veins ever held a baton over the heads of a white orchestra in the United States of America and you know what that means? Coleridge, you will be making American history.”

He couldn’t talk.

“Is it the prejudice…?” Mrs Cabaniss asked.

“Oh no,” said Coleridge, at last finding his voice. Mrs Cabaniss was very crafty indeed – she knew exactly what to say to get him talking again. “No. I am well prepared for it. Surely that which you and so many others have lived in for so many years will not quite kill me. I am English and I am a great believer in the coloured race. I never lose an opportunity of letting my white friends know it, do I?” Kathleen smiled at him. This was more like her Coleridge. “But if you make any arrangements to wrap me in cotton-wool, I promise I shall run a mile.”

“Am I correct in understanding then, Mr Coleridge-Taylor,” asked Hilyer, “that you will come to Washington as our guest and conduct us in your ‘Hiawatha’ trilogy there?”

“It sounds to me like this visit has already been deferred far too long,” Coleridge said. “I can see that now. I don’t think that anything else would have induced me to visit America, other than an established society of coloured singers such as yourselves, and what this dear lady, Mrs Cabaniss said to me just now. It is for this reason, first and foremost, that I shall be most honoured to come and all my other engagements are secondary.”

They were overjoyed. Mamie and Mrs Cabaniss shrieked and clapped and danced about and the others laughed and shook his hand.

Coleridge looked at Jess. There was to be no discussion this time. It was to be his decision and his alone. He was not a spontaneous person but he had decided this and he would not be moved. Of course, old Jaegar would see no value in the trip either but Coleridge didn’t care. He would cancel everything. He would be the guest of these wonderful, wonderful people. He would visit their great country and he would conduct their society named in his honour.
 

© Charles Elford 2008