Читать книгу The Triumph of Jill - F. E. Mills Young - Страница 6

Table of Contents

When St. John left the studio it was with so sore a feeling of resentment against Miss Erskine that it seemed to him most unlikely that he would ever re-enter it. It was not that he disliked her; he did not, but he had an uncomfortable conviction that she disliked him, and felt aggrieved at his presence even while she suffered it on account of the fee. He remembered with some vexation that he had almost forced her into accepting him as a pupil, for poor as she undoubtedly was she had plainly evinced that she had no desire to instruct him. Never mind, he would atone for his persistence by sending her his cheque and troubling the studio no more; that at any rate would show her that he had no wish to intrude. This decision being final he dismissed the matter from his mind, and, as a proof of the consistency of human nature, on Friday morning at the specified hour he stood on the dirty steps outside Miss Erskine’s lodgings knocking with his walking-stick on the knockerless door. The modest Isobel opened it after a wait of some five minutes—minutes in which he had time to recall his past determination and to wonder at himself for having so speedily altered his mind—and having opened it startled him considerably by firing at him without giving him time for speech the vague yet all comprehensive information.

“She’s hout.”

“Miss Erskine?” he queried in very natural astonishment.

“Yus; been gone over ’arf a nour.”

“But,” remonstrated St. John, “the Art School opens at half past nine, it is after that now.”

“Carnt ’elp it, she’s hout.”

“It is a very strange procedure,” he exclaimed in visible annoyance. “I come to the Art School at the hour it should open and Miss Erskine is out.”

“Well!” snapped the damsel waxing impatient in her turn, “wot of that? The Art School aint hout, is it? You can go up if yer want to.”

The permission was not very gracious but St. John accepted it nevertheless, and striding past her into the narrow passage began the ascent. He had not mounted two stairs however, before the slipshod Isobel called him back, and he noticed with surprise that her manner was altogether different, her tone softer, and in the obscurity of the dingy passage she looked less dirty and untidy.

“Ere’s the key,” she said, holding it towards him. He advanced his hand but immediately her own was withdrawn and thrust behind her.

“Wouldn’t yer like to git it?” she said.

He mildly answered that he would and stood waiting expectantly, but she made no move unless a facial contortion could come under such heading.

“Then take if,” she returned with arch playfulness, and a broad grin, but still she kept her hand behind her and stared up in his face with impudent meaning, and a leer that was evidently intended to be captivating. He understood her perfectly but his mood did not fit in with hers; to do Mr St. John bare justice he was rather above that sort of thing, and he remained stationary with one hand grasping the greasy banister, and one foot on the lowest stair. The girl gave it up then, and with another grimace, and a little scornful giggle approached him with the key held at arm’s length between a grimy finger and thumb.

“’Ere greeny,” she said, then laughed again as he took it from her with a word of thanks and turned to go upstairs, “I don’t wonder Miss Herskine went out,” she said.

But St. John went on feigning not to hear though a flush of annoyance dyed his cheek, and he had rather the appearance of a man who with difficulty restrained a swear.

When he opened the studio door the first thing that struck him was its untidiness, the next, that the fire was out, two facts which filled him with an irritating sense of discomfort and half inclined him to return whence he came; but for the desire to occasion Miss Erskine some slight embarrassment and thwart her plans by remaining, he assuredly would have done so. That the fire had been lighted that morning was evident, he discovered on closer inspection, by a thin line of smoke still issuing from the seemingly dead embers; it had not been purposely omitted then but had gone out for want of attention. The knowledge appeased his wrath somewhat, and feeling more disposed to remain he drew a chair up to the table and looked round for his drawing-board with the intention of commencing work before Miss Erskine returned. The board stood against the wall with a fresh sheet of paper stretched ready for use, but there was no copy, so going over to the shelf from which Jill had taken the former one he commenced turning it over in search of another. He did not find what he wanted, however, because before doing so he tumbled accidentally upon what he was not looking for, what he had never dreamed of finding there, and what, when he had found it, caused him anything but pleasure. It was, in short, a very clever, and considering the length of the acquaintance a very impertinent sketch of himself. He had not seen her doing it, but there could be no doubt who was responsible for the thing, besides he knew the writing at the bottom of the sketch—small legible writing that he had seen on one other occasion in the curt little note which had refused him as a pupil. She must have drawn him while he sat working, and had achieved an admirable likeness, indeed as a specimen of artistic skill the caricature—for such it was—was perfect. The whole thing was not larger than a cabinet photograph, just the head as far as the shoulders with eyes downcast, and an absurdly exaggerated rapture of expression on the face. The height of his collar had also been exaggerated and above the bent head encircling his brow was a nimbus. Beneath the drawing Miss Erskine had scribbled, ‘Saint John the Beloved,’ and St. John looked at it, and failing to appreciate the unmistakable talent it betrayed stood scowling at his own portrait. How long he remained thus he knew not, but the next thing he was aware of was the opening of the studio door, and Miss Erskine herself appeared while he still stood there with the drawing in his hand. She looked pale and hurried, and was panting a little as if she had been walking very fast. She bowed to St. John, and glanced from him to the drawing-board, and then back again to the paper in his hand.

“I am so sorry that you should have found me out,” she exclaimed; “I started early with the intention of being back in time, but—well accidents will happen, won’t they? It was unfortunate but I am glad to see that you were going to begin without me. Have you found a copy?”

“Yes,” he answered coolly, keeping his glance fixed full upon her face, “a Biblical one; but I am afraid it is rather beyond me.”

He held it towards her, and, all unconscious of what it was, she took it from him, glanced at it, then bent her head lower to conceal her features and the vivid blush which overspread her face.

“It’s—it’s decidedly beyond you,” she said, and there was a note of defiance in her voice, he even fancied that he detected a ring of laughter in it also, but that might have been his imagination.

“Yes,” he agreed, “so I thought.”

“It’s very strange but it seems to me to be a little—a little like—you,” she continued, and then she raised her eyes to scan his face looking from him to the sketch and back again with her head on one side and a gleam of mischievous amusement in her glance. Evidently she intended braving it out; though it was easily seen that she was feeling both awkward and uncomfortable.

“Not a little,” he corrected, “but very much like me.”

“Ah! so you perceive it also? Yes, it is very much like you. Strange! I wonder how it got there?”

“So do I,” he answered dryly. “It is also a case for speculation how your handwriting got on the bottom of the paper.”

“Why, so it is, ‘Saint John the Beloved,’ whose beloved, I wonder, that’s a case for speculation also.”

She tossed the sketch on to the table and stood facing him with such an assured, audacious air that he could find nothing to say, so fell to scowling again in lieu of any verbal expression of his opinion concerning her. She had perfect control of herself now, and meant to give him no further satisfaction, indeed she was vexed to know that he had managed to confuse her at all; but it had been such an altogether unexpected contretemps and had taken her so entirely aback. She smiled at the angry young man, and began slowly pulling off her gloves.

“If you wish to copy that, Mr St. John,” she began, “you are welcome to make the attempt, but it is rather advanced. I should advise you to give your attention to something simpler.”

As she finished speaking she turned to a portfolio against the wall and abstracted thence a series of heads in outline, showing the method of working. These she placed on the table before him and ran through a brief explanation of the method, and how he should follow it, while he watched her in gloomy silence, and reluctantly admired the easy mastery with which she sketched in the first head for him to see.

“There,” she exclaimed, “now you know how to go on so I will leave you for a moment while I go and take off my outdoor things.”

She disappeared behind the old green curtain partitioning off a part of the room that had served her father for a sleeping apartment, and was now kept as a dressing-room but seldom used, and from thence into the tiny chamber which she called her bedroom. When she returned, in the big studio apron that he had first seen her in, she found St. John very deeply engrossed; he did not even glance up as she appeared, but bending his head lower over his board went diligently on with his work. The sketch of himself, she noticed, had vanished but hardly had she time to regret this fact before her attention was caught by the fireless grate which on her first entry, heated with her rapid walk, and enveloped in a thick jacket had escaped her observation. Seeing it now she turned to him with a very injured air.

“Why, you’ve let the fire out,” she said reproachfully.

“I beg your pardon,” he answered stiffly, “it was out when I arrived.”

Jill bit her lip and walked swiftly across the room to the fireplace. There were sticks and paper in a cupboard beside it, and, getting some out, she knelt down before the hearth and commenced laying the fire anew.

“I beg your pardon,” she said somewhat crestfallen. “It happened, I suppose, through my being out so much longer than I intended; but that was quite an accident, and not my fault at all. I hope you will excuse all this inconvenience.”

“Don’t mention it,” he exclaimed, “the inconvenience is greater for you than for me.”

He glanced round as he spoke and watched her while she began to arrange the sticks.

Something struck him as unusual about her, and after a time he discovered what it was, she was working with one hand, the right one, and on the left wrist was a very neat and very new looking bandage. In a moment all his resentment against her vanished, the caricature was forgotten, and with it her former ungraciousness of manner. He recalled how pale and weary she had looked on entering, and how he had endeavoured to embarrass her by showing her what he had found. He rose and joined her where she knelt upon the hearth.

“Excuse me,” he began in a slightly apologetic tone, “I see that you have hurt your wrist; won’t you let me do that for you?”

“Thank you,” she answered, “but I can manage very well; it is nothing—much.”

The much was a concession to conscience, and was thrown in with an unwilling jerk at the end. Then he did a very bold thing; he went down on his knees beside her and took the sticks out of her hand.

“I’m a don hand at building up fires,” he said; “there’s never any difficulty about my fires burning.”

“I should think not,” replied Jill, watching the reckless way in which he threw on the sticks; “a fire that wouldn’t burn with all that wood ought to be ashamed of itself. Mr St. John, please; you’ll ruin me.”

St. John desisted then and put on coals instead, piling them up with an equally lavish hand; then he struck a match and set light to the erection which was soon blazing and cracking merrily.

“I told you so,” he cried triumphantly looking up at her as she stood a little behind him regarding with a somewhat rueful smile the very unnecessary extravagance. “That will be as hot as blazes before long. Come a little nearer; you look cold.”

He fetched her a chair and Jill sat down and held her hands to the warmth. She was cold—cold, and tired, and shaken. Her head ached badly too, and all the fight seemed taken out of her; she could only sit there enjoying the rest, experiencing the pleasurable novelty of being waited upon, and of having someone to talk to again.

“And now,” exclaimed St. John, taking his stand before her with his grimy hands held at awkward angles from his clothes, “tell me how you managed to hurt yourself. Is it a sprain?”

“I don’t know what it is, a mere scratch, I think,” she answered. “It happened when I was out this morning.”

“Indeed! an accident then?” His tone was sympathetic and interested. Jill expanded further.

“Yes,” she replied, sinking her chin in the palm of her right hand and resting her elbow on her knee. “A female horror on wheels rode over me.”

“What, a cyclist?” Jill nodded.

“You don’t approve of biking then?”

“Oh! I don’t know,” she answered. “I suppose I should if I had one of my own. It isn’t the machine that I’m disparaging now but the rider. Some people seem to think that the metropolis belongs to them, and that you ought to apply to them for the privilege of residing in it. She was one of that sort.”

“But it was not purposely done?”

“No, I suppose not, as it occasioned her the great inconvenience of stepping off into the mud, but it was sheer carelessness all the same. I was crossing the road, and it was a case of being run over by a hansom, or biked over; I preferred the latter.”

“Did you find out who she was?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Jill, feeling in her pocket. “I have her card. She was very gracious, and wished me to apply to her if I wanted money, hinting delicately at a doctor’s fee, or something of the sort. I took her card out of curiosity, and walked into the nearest chemists’, having the satisfaction of hearing her say to someone as I went, that she would see that I had compensation, poor girl! so stupid to have run right in front of her wheel.”

“Prig!” muttered St. John.

“There’s the card. You can throw it into the fire when you’ve done with it; I shall make no application.”

He took it from her, glanced at it, and then gave vent to an involuntary exclamation of surprise. Jill looked up.

“You know the name?” she questioned.

“Rather!”

“A friend of yours?”

“Well—yes, I suppose so; she’s a sort of connection.”

Jill compressed her mouth, and stared fixedly at the fire; the situation was a little awkward.

“Being a relation of yours,” she began in a slightly strained voice, “I’m sorry that I said what I did, but—well, you yourself, called her a prig, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted, and then he tore the card in two, angrily, and threw it into the flames.

“She couldn’t, perhaps, have avoided the accident,” Jill went on, “and she meant to kind, but she doesn’t possess much tact.”

“No,” he agreed, “she doesn’t. You must allow me to apologise for her. After all there is some slight excuse for her gaucherie; she has been spoilt with a superabundance of this world’s goods—quarter of a million of money is rather inclined to blunt the finer sensibilities.”

“Quarter of a million!” gasped Jill. “Oh, dear me, I would like the chance of having my finer sensibilities blunted.”

She laughed a little, but St. John was looking so gloomy that her mirth died away almost as soon as it had risen.

“Come!” she said, jumping up. “I will get you some water to wash your hands, and then we must go to work; it will never do to waste a whole morning like this.”

He allowed her to go without hindrance, and when quite alone stood glaring at the charred embers of Miss Bolton’s card.

“Just like Evie,” he soliloquised. “That girl is always making a blithering idiot of herself, though I—H’m! I wonder what little Miss Erskine would say if she knew that I—”

He broke off abruptly and kicked savagely at an inoffensive lump of coal lying near to his boot left there by his own carelessness when making the fire.

“Oh, hang it!” he mentally ejaculated, “what a confounded ass I am.”

“The water and soap are on the table,” said Jill’s voice at his elbow, such a small friendly voice, so very different from her former tone—the tone that was always associated in his mind in connection with her—that he turned and faced her involuntarily, looking down at her with a smile.

“It is awfully good of you to trouble,” he said. “I am afraid that I and my relations are putting you to a lot of bother.”

“By no means,” she answered, with a return to her former distance of voice and manner. “When a student of mine soils his hands in my service, the least I can do is to provide him with the means of cleansing them again.”

St. John immediately retreated within himself, and taking the towel which she offered him, walked over to the table. When he had finished his ablutions, Miss Erskine removed the basin, while he took his former seat and quietly resumed work. The rest of the time passed pretty well in silence, Miss Erskine’s manner continuing as distant as ever. In all likelihood she would have bowed him out as before, had he not boldly put hesitation on one side, and marching straight up to her held out his hand. Jill, in unwilling acquiescence, placed hers in it.

“You mustn’t treat me altogether as a stranger,” he said. “Because we are teacher and pupil it doesn’t follow that we need be enemies also. Good morning, Miss Erskine; believe me, I am sincerely sorry for the injury that you have received.”

Jill smiled and a gleam of mischief shone in her eyes.

“I seem to have received so many this morning that I hardly know which you mean,” she said. “Do you allude to the hurt wrist or the very ungenerous manner in which you greeted me on my return?”

He coloured a little. Then he laughed.

“I was rather wild,” he admitted. “Saint John with my face, twentieth century get-up, and a nimbus, was a bit too much.”

“Indeed! I thought it rather clever,” Jill modestly remarked.

“Clever, yes; so it was, no doubt. If it hadn’t been so clever, it wouldn’t have been so annoying.”

“It has gone!” she cried, glancing at the table, though she knew already that it was not there. “You are not taking it with you?”

“Yes,” he answered coolly, “I am.”

“But, Mr St. John,” she remonstrated, “I think that I have some claim to my own work.”

“But, Miss Erskine,” he retorted, “I think that I have some claim to my own portrait.”

“Well, never mind,” said Jill. “I can sketch it again if I want to.”

“Yes,” he replied, “but I don’t think you will.”

“Perhaps not. I am not fond of wasting my time; it is too precious.”

St. John laughed and took up his hat.

“Good-bye again,” he said. “I hope by the next time I come that the hand will be quite well.”

“Thank you,” she answered. “I hope it will.”

He had not been gone half an hour when a most unusual thing occurred—unusual, that is, for number 144. It was, indeed, an unprecedented event within the memory of the present owners of the establishment, and quite a shock to the slovenly Isobel who opened the door to the very peremptory knock. It was, in short, a florist’s messenger with a large and magnificent basket of hot-house flowers for Miss Erskine. Not being the locality for such dainty gifts, it was not surprising that, to quote Isobel verbatim, it struck her all of a heap. She carried the basket up to the studio, another unusual event; on the very rare occasions when a parcel arrived for Miss Erskine it was left on the dirty hall table until she descended in quest of it. But Isobel’s femininity detected sentiment amid the fragrant scent of the delicate blossoms, and the vulgar side of her nature was all on the alert. No doubt she expected Miss Erskine to be equally excited and curious with herself, but Miss Erskine was not in the habit of gratifying other people at her own expense. She was standing in front of her easel roughly sketching with a piece of charcoal when Isobel bounced into the room, and only paused in her occupation to give a very casual glance at the flowers, and to evince some surprise at sight of them, and still more at having them brought up.

“One would think that I was a first floor lodger,” she exclaimed, turning back to her work again, “instead of merely the attics. You’ll be charging me for attendance soon, Isobel, if it goes on at this rate. Put it down on the table, please.”

Isobel looked distinctly disappointed.

“But you ain’t looked at ’em yet,” she said.

“I’ve seen flowers before,” Jill answered.

“They look very pretty and smell nice; but they’ll soon die in this turpentine atmosphere.”

“Then you can keep the barskit,” giggled the other. “I expect ’e thought o’ that; ’e aint so green as I took ’im to be. Fancy you ’avin’ a young man, Miss Herskine!”

Jill did look round then, and her glance was withering in the extreme.

“Explain your meaning, please,” she said. “I don’t understand jests like those.”

“It aint no jest,” replied Isobel somewhat abashed but grinning still despite the snub. “I didn’t mean no ’arm neither, only,” edging toward the door and preparing for flight, “when a gent takes to sendin’ flowers it’s like when the lodgers begins complainin’ o’ the charges—the beginnin’ of the hend, so to speak.”

The studio door slammed on her retreating figure, and her footsteps could be heard asserting themselves triumphantly in her descent—verily some people are born to make a noise in the world! Jill listened to them until they reached the next landing, then she laid down her charcoal and approached the table. For a minute she stood motionless regarding the flowers, then she smiled a little and bending forward drew out from among them a card though she hardly needed that to tell her from whom they came. “With Saint John’s compliments,” she read, and the smile on her lips widened until it broadened into a laugh.

“If all your relations possessed the same amount of tact,” she soliloquised, “what a model family yours would be.”

She laid her face against the flowers and laughed again, a soft quiet laugh full of enjoyment.

“What a bright patch of sunshine in the old studio,” she continued, smilingly caressing the blossoms, “and what a bright patch of sunshine in somebody’s heart, my dear saint, what a warm, brilliant, altogether delightful patch to be sure.”