Читать книгу The Island of Fantasy - Fergus Hume - Страница 9

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Woman’s a weathercock,

Full of frivolity.

Men may together mock

At her heart’s quality.

But if a heart she steals,

Worth all the smart she feels,

There then her place is;

Lo, then the nether rock

Less firm of base is.

Needless to say, Count Constantine Caliphronas was much admired by the two ladies, which was scarcely to be wondered at, seeing his charm of manner was almost as great as his physical perfection. Attracted in the first instance by his good looks, they were quite prepared to find the kernel of such a handsome nut somewhat disappointing; in other words, they fancied that Nature could scarcely be so profuse in her gifts, as to give this man great mental powers in addition to his comely exterior. To their surprise, they found the Greek to be a charming conversationalist, and were much astonished at the purity with which he spoke the English tongue.

It would be ridiculous to say that Caliphronas was a man of any great intellectual powers; for, as before stated, he was gifted with more cunning than brains, still, such cunning enabled him to conceal his educational deficiencies, and by a dexterous use of the little knowledge he possessed, he managed to pass for a very intelligent man. Shallow Caliphronas was, without doubt, and his education in many ways had been wofully neglected; but he had travelled a great deal, he was acute enough in picking up unconsidered trifles of general information, he had plenty of small talk, so all these advantages, in conjunction with his undeniable good looks and ready wit, enabled him to fascinate the ordinary run of people. A clever man or a brilliant woman would have discovered the smallness of his intellectual powers at once; but every-day folk are not so difficult to please, and both Mrs. Dengelton and her daughter, being ordinary folk, gifted with ordinary brains, found the flashy, frivolous chatter of the Count infinitely charming.

Maurice, having got over his first suspicions of the Greek, soon liked him extremely, as he was a pleasant companion, and always in a good humor. On the other hand, Crispin, who knew what Caliphronas really was, and how mean and vile a soul inhabited that splendid body, was much put to in order to conceal his distaste for the society of this brilliant stranger. He saw through the thin veneer of good manners and facile accomplishments, into the true nature of the man, and was well aware that this apparently charming child of Nature, all impulse and simplicity, was in reality a crafty, selfish, sensual scoundrel, whose only aim in life was to benefit himself at the expense of others.

“If we were only in the Palace of Truth now!” thought the poet, as he sat silently watching the dexterous way in which Caliphronas was using his small stock of accomplishments. “I wonder what they would say were that man compelled to give utterance to his real thoughts. They would fly in horror from him as a vile thing, a beautiful flower, whose appearance is exquisite, yet whose odor is death. Still, he has improved wonderfully since the old days. I wonder where he picked up these good manners—not from Justinian or Alcibiades, I’ll be bound; but perhaps he has been learning the art of pleasing from Helena.”

As this thought came into his mind, and he remembered the charming woman who bore that name, knowing what Caliphronas was, he could not restrain a shudder, which, immediately drew the eyes of the Greek towards him.

“Eh, my friend, Mr. Creespeen,” he said slowly; for Caliphronas, in spite of his intimate acquaintance with the English tongue, picked up, heaven only knows where, could never pronounce proper names without a strong foreign accent,—“eh, my friend, you shudder. Some one is walking over your grave.”

“Oh, what a horrible idea!” cried Mrs. Dengelton in her liveliest manner, for the Count’s good looks had made a deep impression on her elderly heart. “I declare, my dear Count, you make me shudder also. It is exactly the kind of thing my brother Rudolph would say. Ghouls, vampires, omens, dreams, and all those grewsome things, he used to revel in. Yes, positively revel in. Never shall I forget being told how he brought some lady friend a book to read, called ‘Footprints on the Borders of Another World.’ It nearly frightened her into convulsions, and she threw it out of the window.”

“My Uncle Rudolph must have been an interesting kind of person,” said Maurice dryly.

“Oh, my dear Maurice, he was so terribly wild! Yes! Why, in the old days, he would have been a buccaneer or a pirate—it is just the kind of thing he would have liked to be.”

At this last remark, Crispin looked straight at the Count, who met his gaze with an uneasy laugh, and tried to turn the conversation.

“This gentleman, madam? He was very adventurous, I presume?”

“Oh dear me, yes! Your uncle, Eunice, I am speaking of—your uncle, Maurice.”

“Yes, mamma—yes, aunt,” said both the cousins together.

“He had a fiery eye, and was over six feet in height. I always thought him the image of the Templar in ‘Ivanhoe;’ but, of course, I speak from hearsay, as I was a babe when he left England. Is there not a portrait of him somewhere, Maurice?”

“It is just behind you, aunt, over the piano.”

Both Caliphronas and Crispin arose with a simultaneous movement, and strolled across the room to look at this modern Captain Kidd, for that style of man he appeared to have been, judging from Mrs. Dengelton’s highly-colored description.

The portrait was a full-length one of a handsome young man in the old-fashioned costume à la d’Orsay of the early Victorian age, and assuredly he appeared to be a dandy of the first water. But his strong commanding face, his eagle glance, firm mouth, and prominent nose marked him at once as a born leader of men. A man who, in Elizabethan times, would have sailed the Spanish main and thrashed the Dons; who, in later years, would have delighted in Jacobite conspiracies; who would have fought his way to a marshal’s baton when Napoleon led the armies of France: in fact, one of those men who find no outlet for their energies in the leading-strings of civilization, but who, in a lawless life, develop those qualities whereof heroes are made. Maurice was good-looking enough in an ordinary fashion, but he had none of the power and daring in his face, such as showed so conspicuously in his uncle’s countenance.

The Count and Crispin remained looking at the portrait an unconscionably long time, considering the original was unknown to them, and glanced meaningly at one another as they went back to their seats.

“Your description is an admirable one, Mrs. Dengelton,” said Crispin, as that lady evidently desired his opinion of the portrait; “the face is that of a man who would be either a hero or a scoundrel according to circumstances, but always brave.”

“My dear Mr. Crispin!” cried the lady, somewhat scandalized at the epithet applied to a Roylands.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Dengelton; I am speaking of the type more than the man. Rudolph Roylands has the bearing of a born leader of men, and I do not wonder he left England for wider fields. He must have been stifled in this narrow island.”

“How do you know he left England?” asked the lady sharply.

“Why, your story of last night”—

“But you were not here when I told it. Ah, my dear Mr. Crispin, I am indeed very angry at you for taking my daughter out onto the terrace. She might have caught her death of cold—but we will not speak of that. At all events, you could not have heard my story.”

Crispin looked rather uncomfortable, as if he feared he had committed himself; but, as Mrs. Dengelton’s beady eyes were fastened shrewdly on his face, he had to make some answer, though, truth to tell, he did not know what to say.

“Well, really, Mrs. Dengelton, I hardly know how to reply,” he said, coloring. “I did not hear all your story; but, if you remember, just before the Rector said good-night, you talked about your brother leaving England.”

“Dear me, yes, so I did!” said Mrs. Dengelton, and would have liked to add something anent the story of the photographs, the falsehood of which she had discovered. Maurice, however, guessed how the land lay, and feeling sorry for Crispin, who was really very uncomfortable, made the first remark that came into his head. Caliphronas, tired of the conversation, had gone to the piano, where Eunice was playing softly, and talked to her in an undertone. This attention, however, was not noticed by Crispin, who was too busy trying to extricate himself from his dilemma with Mrs. Dengelton, to think about anything else. How he would have managed to evade the photograph question, which Mrs. Dengelton was bent on asking, it is difficult to say, but that Maurice came to his aid with the apparently irrelevant remark,—

“My dear Crispin, you say that, judging from his face, my uncle would either be a hero or a scoundrel. Now what do you mean by that remark?”

“Oh, I hope I haven’t offended you by making it,” said Crispin, with a grateful smile, for he saw through Roylands’ stratagem; “but if a man like your uncle has such qualities as he seems to possess, strongly developed, they are bound to break out in some direction. Place him in the army, and he will be a hero in time of war, but supposing he was born in Whitechapel, I am afraid his heroic qualities would be dangerous to society.”

“Then you think a hero and a thief are composed of the same qualities?”

“I will not say a thief, but use the milder term, ‘adventurer.’ If the great Napoleon had not been an adventurer of that quality, he would never have mounted the throne of France. Sforza, the Duke of Milan, was of the same species; so was William the Conqueror, and Roger de Hauteville, King of Sicily. All these men, through force of circumstances which aided the development of their commanding qualities, obtained thrones—they were adventurers who became kings. On the other hand, look at Benvenuto Cellini. He had the same instincts for fighting, commanding, and daring, the same longing for fame, riches, adventures; yet, to the end of his life, he was but a quarrelsome swashbuckler, simply because his circumstances did not permit his qualities developing in the right direction. Cromwell had these qualities and mounted a throne, Rienzi had them and died on the scaffold—all through circumstances. Believe me, my dear Maurice, whatever qualities a man may possess, the development of them in the right or the wrong direction depends on his surroundings. It is a common saying that genius can override all obstacles—a mistake which anyone who reads history can perceive. Circumstances are sometimes too strong for the greatest soul, and that genius which should have created empires dies in obscurity.”

“Quite a historical lecture, I declare,” tittered Mrs. Dengelton, who found this long speech a trifle wearisome; “but, how does all this apply to my brother?”

“If your brother, Mrs. Dengelton, went to South America, he probably rose to be president of one of those petty republics; if he went as a free lance into the service of some Eastern potentate, he very likely ended his life as a pasha of three tails; but if he stayed in England, I feel certain that his violent temperament, his adventurous longings, must have brought him into trouble.”

“I don’t think he stayed in England,” replied Mrs. Dengelton, shaking her head, “or we certainly would have heard of his death. Probably he is a president, or a pasha, or some of those dreadful things you speak of.”

“Do you think he is dead, aunt?” asked Maurice, who had been listening quietly to this argument.

“I’m sure I don’t know. I haven’t heard of him for years and years; but the Roylands are always long-living people, so perhaps he is still alive. It is now fifty years since he went away, at the age of twenty-five, so if he is still alive he must be quite seventy-five years of age.”

“Seventy-five years of age,” repeated Crispin, and relapsed into silence.

“Who is seventy-five years of age?” asked Caliphronas, overhearing the remark.

“My Uncle Rudolph, if alive,” said Maurice lazily.

“Oh, indeed!” replied Caliphronas carelessly, but his words conveyed volumes as he tried to catch the eye of Crispin. In this, however, he was not successful, as Crispin was wrapt up in a brown study, so the Greek turned towards Eunice and asked her to sing something.

“I am passionately fond of music,” he said, turning over some songs, “and nothing so delights me as to hear a woman’s voice.”

Eunice blushed at this compliment to her sex, and, not knowing how to answer it,—for she was still afflicted with the shyness of the bread-and-butter age,—took up the first song that came to hand.

“Do you know this song?” she said, placing the music before her—“‘The Star Sirius;’ it is the new scientific style of song, now all the rage.”

“A scientific song,” repeated Caliphronas, rather puzzled.

“Yes, blending instruction with pleasure,” said Crispin, rousing himself out of his revery and walking over to the piano. “The public are tired of love-songs, sea-songs, sacred songs, comic songs, and sentimentalities of all kinds; so some ingenious person has invented the scientific song. In this song astronomy is brought to the aid of eroticism, and the result is peculiar, to say the least of it. I presume such ditties are written for musically-inclined Girton girls. Shall I play your accompaniment, Miss Dengelton?”

“If you would be so kind,” said Eunice, vacating her seat at the piano, which action brought a frown to the face of her watchful mother. “I can sing better standing up.”

Crispin played the prelude in sufficiently good style, and Caliphronas, sinking into a chair near the singer, looked up into her face in a somewhat bold fashion, as she sang the latest up-to-date song of the day.

THE STAR SIRIUS.

I.

A glowing star of ardent ray

In midnight skies we trace,

It is a central sun, they say,

Enshrined in distant space.

Around it giant planets turn,

In motion constant roll,

With fiery force its splendors burn,

As for thee burns my soul.

Oh, star ascendant at my birth!

For tears, for sadness, or for mirth,

You rule my destiny on earth.

II.

Oh, star of stars! in thee no flaw

The telescopes reveal;

Thine orbs obey attraction’s law,

And round thy centre wheel.

Beloved, thou and I are one,

Nor parted e’er can be;

I am thy planet, thou my sun,

For all eternity.

Oh, star ascendant at my birth!

For tears, for sadness, or for mirth,

You rule my destiny on earth.

“Thank you, Miss Dengelton,” said Caliphronas, when the song ended; “I like your singing much better than the words. They are somewhat perplexing.”

“They are up-to-date words,” remarked Crispin calmly; “the music is also up to date, of the most advanced school, a blending of Dvoräk and Rubinstein.”

“What awful names!” cried Caliphronas, with a shudder; “they grate on the ear.”

“So does their music in some cases; there is nothing like consistency. Still, some of the advanced school of music’s efforts are delightful. This dance of Dvoräk’s, for instance.”

Bringing down his hands on the keys with a crash, he played one of those weird gypsy dances of the Bohemian musician, which thrill the listener with their wild capriciousness, and conjure up pictures of a mode of life quite alien to our prosaic respectability. That strange chord resounds loudly through the room, and at once we see the wild horses flying across the illimitable gray plain, the fierce voices of their gypsy riders pealing up to the sombre sky of midnight. That rapid medley of sounds, and lo! the fires burn redly under the trees, while round them bound tawny women with flashing eyes, tossing their arms and clashing their tambourines to the wild rhythm of the music. Death on the cards, love in the stars, and the muttered prophecies of crouching hags, terrified at the omen of flying bat, of shrieking night-bird. Another whirl of glittering notes scatter themselves through the air, crash, crash, crash, chord upon chord sounds fiercely, with intervals of sparkling chromatic runs like the falling of broken spray, and then one final chord, bringing the red of the dawn, the chill winds of morning, and the uprising of the cheerful sun.

“Wonderful!” cried Mrs. Dengelton, who knew nothing about music, but admired Dvoräk because he was the fashion, and not intelligible to the ordinary mind.

“So fantastic,” added Eunice, whose accomplishments did not soar above the mild singing of a mild drawing-room ballad, such as “Daddy’s Dancing,” or “Oh, if to thee my heart is Welcome!”

“Well, for my part,” said the Count, shrugging his shoulders, “I think your new music is horrible.”

“Ah, it does not appeal to your Hellenic spirit,” replied Crispin carelessly. “Mephistopheles felt out of place at the classical Walpurgis Night, so you, my dear Caliphronas, feel equally at sea among this diablerie of a Northern composer, so suggestive of the festival on the Bröcken.”

“I don’t know what you are taking about,” said the Count uneasily, having a vague idea he was being laughed at.

“Of course you don’t,” replied Crispin coolly. “You have never read ‘Faust,’ either the first or the second part.”

Caliphronas knew that Crispin did not like him, and, thinking he wanted to ridicule him in the presence of the ladies, would have made some angry answer, but that Eunice, quite unaware of this storm in a teacup, asked him to sing a Greek song.

“Yes, do, dear Count!” said Mrs. Dengelton gushingly. “I do so love foreign songs! They go to the soul.”

“And the soul—at least the English soul—does not understand them,” observed Maurice, with a yawn, for he was growing somewhat tired of this musical discussion.

“If the song is in Italian, French, or German, I can certainly understand it,” said the lady, with dignity; “but Greek I can hardly be expected to know.”

“I do not think you would care much for the words if you did understand modern Greek,” remarked Crispin with a smile. “The sonorous tongue of Hellas invests the most commonplace poems with a dignity and a charm which they would lose if translated. Come, Count, and sing that love-song you used to be so fond of in Athens.”

“Athens!” repeated the Count, with a significant smile, as he rose to comply with this request.

“Yes, Athens!” repeated Crispin, with emphasis. “I was accustomed to play your accompaniment. How does it go?”

He began playing a simple melody, which, wild though it was, sounded quite poverty-stricken after the wealth of harmonies which had so distinguished the music of Dvoräk. Caliphronas watched the player’s fingers for a little time, and then began to sing in an uncommonly fine tenor voice, though of course somewhat rough for want of training. What he lacked in delicacy, however, he made up in force and fire; and the wonderful language he sang in also assisted him greatly, though, as regards the song itself, neither melody nor words were particularly striking.

Daphne, this summer night is full of singing;

I hear my comrades sigh at the windows of those they worship;

The windows are open, but thy lattice is closed.

“Love!” calls the lover to his beloved.

“Love!” answers the beloved with smiling lip.

But from your window you call not “Love!”

Wherefore the night is empty of singing to me:

Lean from your lattice, capricious one,

And I will sing the strain of the nightingale to the rose.

Yes! you have heard me: you open your window,

I can see the silver daggers gleam in your hair;

And you throw me a rose, which sighs “I love thee.”

Ah, you have spoken to the rose, and the message is told.

Good-night, my Daphne, sleep with the sound of my voice in thine ears;

But for me there is no slumber,

For all night will I demand of the rose your message,

And the rose will reply, “I love thee! I love thee!”

“Thank you so much,” said Eunice, coming over to the piano. “I do not know what it means, but it sounds wonderfully charming.”

“It is a love-song.”

“I wish I had a translation of it.”

“I will translate it if you wish, Miss Dengelton,” said Crispin, by no means relishing the attention which Eunice was paying to the Greek.

“What! do you know Greek?”

“Modern Greek; yes. I have been in Greece a great deal.”

“A great deal,” echoed Caliphronas, with an evil smile.

Crispin faced round abruptly, and was about to say something in an undertone, but, after a moment’s deliberation, turned slowly away. The Count looked after him with a smiling face, and then devoted himself to Eunice, who was by no means averse to receiving his attentions.

Now, Eunice must not be misjudged. It is true that she felt flattered by the attentions of such a strikingly handsome man as Caliphronas; but she was not, as Crispin in his jealousy thought, attracted in any marked degree by this stranger. In fact, she was playing a little comedy for the blinding of her lynx-eyed mother; for, afraid lest that lady should discover that she was secretly engaged to Crispin, with the instinctive craft of womankind, Eunice pretended to be more taken up with the Greek than with the poet. By following this course, she thought her mother’s mind would be set at rest concerning the rivalry of Crispin with Maurice. Alas! the plan was a good one, and excellently well carried out; but such diplomacy met with but an ill reward, as in avoiding Charybdis she fell into the clutches of Scylla; for, in place of an angry mother, she had to put up with an angry lover.

Crispin was puzzled to account for her sudden desertion of him and this marked attention to Caliphronas, so at once with masculine stupidity, deemed that the outward graces of the Count had rendered her false to him. Had Crispin been fortunate enough to possess a female friend to whom he could have talked on such a serious matter, his suspicions would speedily have been lulled to rest; for no one but a woman can understand a woman, and, as Crispin was of the masculine gender, he therefore failed to grasp the situation. Eunice chatted gayly with Caliphronas, smiled on him, sang songs to him, and quite neglected poor Crispin, who grew towards the end of the night almost as melancholy as Maurice, in his despair at such unlooked-for behavior on the part of the girl he loved.

As to Caliphronas, that gentleman, who possessed a considerable amount of vanity, and an overweening sense of his own perfections, saw nothing in the conduct of Miss Dengelton otherwise than what should be. He was so accustomed to be petted and made much of by women, that it became a matter of habit with him, and he would have been considerably astonished had Eunice acted otherwise than she did. At the same time, he was secretly very pleased at making an impression in this quarter, as he saw at once from intercepted glances that the poet was violently enamoured of this fair English maiden. Caliphronas hated Crispin with all the strong venomosity of a little soul, and if he could do him an ill turn would certainly take advantage of the opportunity. Thinking Eunice had succumbed to his fascinations, he was quite prepared to take advantage of his conquest, and deprive the poet of his ewe lamb, the more so as Crispin’s ill-concealed jealousy added considerably to the charm of the flirtation. Poor Eunice, who never thought her motives would be misconstrued by her jealous lover, was quite astonished when he permitted Caliphronas to present her with her bedroom candle, and wished her a frosty good-night. She would have liked to obtain an explanation, but Mrs. Dengelton was at her heels, so she was obliged to retire to bed, considerably disconcerted over the strange behavior of this stupidly-jealous poet.

Caliphronas also went to bed very shortly, as he did not smoke, and, alleging that it was his custom to retire early and rise early, went off to his room, leaving Crispin alone with Maurice. As soon as they were by themselves, Crispin turned at once to his friend.

“Did you see Eunice to-night?”

Maurice leisurely filled his pipe.

“Yes; I saw her. You are jealous of our friend Caliphronas.”

“Well, I certainly think Eunice gave me good cause to be. What is the reason of this sudden change?”

Roylands shrugged his shoulders and lighted his pipe.

“I don’t know; unless Francis I. was right,” he said calmly,—“‘Souvent femme varie.’”