Читать книгу The Three Lovers - Frank Swinnerton - Страница 25

Table of Contents

Monty came into the small studio very much as a tall man enters the saloon of a yacht. His head was lowered, and he produced the impression that all about him was very small. Patricia's first thought of Monty was a disappointed: "Oh, he's fat!" But when his overcoat was laid aside, and he was nearer, she saw that whatever he might become in the future he was still on the slim side of corpulence.

"What a pleasant surprise," murmured Monty. His air caused Jack Penton to appear callow. He was almost mocking to Amy. There was something in the way he held his shoulders, and stood quite still, that made him seem nearly as well-bred as a servant; and yet there was such ease in his manner that Patricia felt he could never in all his life be for an instant discomposed. She envied Monty. She was silent with envy, and her slight shyness, which was expressed by such graceful unconscious shrinking, was an added charm.

"What happened to Dalrymple, Monty?" demanded Amy, as her new guest took the armchair, and smiled down upon Patricia.

"Oh, he went home." Monty had a soft voice, perfectly quiet and smooth; and he almost always raised his inflexion at the end of the sentence, as if he were inviting a response.

"He was drunk," said Amy.

"My dear Amy!" Monty cast a glance of pretended protest which included Patricia, but seemed also to associate her in his protest. "There are so many stages of drunkenness."

"A lot of the people were drunk last night. And not jollily drunk, either. They were all white and puffily drunk." Amy was persistent. She was determined—as ever—to speak the truth which was in her.

"How unpleasant," remarked Monty. "But you enjoyed yourself, didn't you, Miss Quin? I hope you'll come again when there is a sober party."

"I'd love to," cried Patricia, sparkling. She was happy again, the perplexities arising from her talk with Amy forgotten. "I thought it was a wonderful party."

Monty ran his eye over her, with the quick certainty of a connoisseur. She was fair, fresh, volatile, beautifully shaped; vain, and therefore to be reached by flattery; over-confident, perhaps, of her power to please; but unspoilt and capable of affording him interest and amusement. He had no interest at all in Amy. She was too crudely egotistical, and she was, besides, too set. Monty could have foretold her expressed opinion (not necessarily her true opinion, since she was often, as he knew, unaware of what she really thought) upon every matter that was likely to come up between them. Neither did she interest him physically: for that she was too hard, and although he supposed her to be sensual she appeared to Monty to lack both mystery and abandon. So, although he knew that he could more easily create an artificially-emotional situation with Amy, he gave all his interest to Patricia. There was more in the fresh little new girl, he decided, than in anybody he had recently met. He eyed her appreciatively, as a gourmet may eye a dainty dish. She was interesting. All she did, even if she did nothing but sit quite still upon that enormous cushion beside the gas fire, had grace and personality in it. Especially he noticed that impetuous mouth, which might betray weakness or instability or reckless bravado, but which could never, he was sure, be associated with tedium. He resolved upon a quick stroke. He saw that Amy and Jack were debating something which removed their attention from his own activities, and so he bent towards Patricia.

"I'm so glad you enjoyed the party. Look here ...." He appeared to consider. "I've got a small party on Friday ... I wonder if you'd like to come to that. I'm afraid ... Let me see, there are only about half-a-dozen people...." He was thinking as he spoke, and recollecting the names of his guests. "I think the only one you know who is coming is Mayne. You met him, didn't you? Yes, I remember, you went home in his car. Would you like to come?"

Patricia could have jumped for joy. How lovely!

"I should like to come very much," she made herself say very sedately; but Monty was not so inexperienced in these matters as she might have wished him; and she was not altogether sure that her eagerness had escaped his notice.

"That's delightful," he said in his gentle way. "So nice." He was extraordinarily polite and agreeable. And in an instant it was as though that matter were settled and forgotten. Monty rose and went casually to the easel, Patricia watching him in curiosity as he contemplated the monstrous botch. "Yes," he said at last. "I like that. That bit's awfully well-done, Amy." He indicated with a slowly sweeping hand. Amy was by his side, her expression greedily changed. She was avid of this expert flattery, and eagerly receptive. Jack Penton hung behind. He came over to Patricia, stooping to her.

"Do you like it?" He jerked his head at the painting.

"Very much." Patricia was doing her best. She had not had much experience in catching the true note of art criticism; but a rush of sympathy made her cordial to him, and anxious to say what she imagined he might find in some degree reassuring. Jack shrugged, and took a cigarette-case from his hip-pocket.

"I can't understand it," he said bluntly. "I see an eye, and a blob and a swish; and I can't make it into a picture." He was clearly puzzled and undecided. "I wish I could understand it," he went on. "Suppose I'm dull, or something."

"Perhaps it isn't everybody's idea of painting," agreed Patricia, guardedly. "I'm afraid I don't know much about it."

Jack lowered himself to the floor at her side.

"I wish I did," he said. "You know, I'm interested, and all that; and I want to like it, because it's Amy's. But I can't, and that's all about it. When a chap like Rosenberg comes along.... He's so damned fluent with it all.... You see, this is what worries me. He's pulling her leg. He thinks her work's awful."

"Oh! Oh!" came in protest from Patricia.

"It's true," said Jack, gloomily. "They all do. To her face they say this sort of stuff; and when they're away they make fun of it. They just laugh. I wish she'd give it up."

"I can't believe ..." began Patricia, greatly distressed.

"No, you don't want to." Jack's dark face, already thin, seemed to grow haggard. "Imagine what I feel about it. They shut up a bit when I'm there; but nobody thinks she's really any good. And what's to be the end of it? Can you see? Can't you imagine her going on, fiddling with this and that—water colours and oils—all drunk with her conceit. And then, what? When she's soured and disappointed she'll...." He shrugged. During the speech his temper had risen, and his tone held a stabbing savageness. "They won't care. They never care about human beings, as we do. They'll laugh, and she'll never know it, but she'll think there's a conspiracy against her. She may go all to pieces; she may pull through. Anything may happen. Sometimes I feel inclined to leave her to it; but I've been in love with her for years—since she was a kid; and I feel I just can't let her drop. She hasn't got a friend in the world except me. Not one that cares if she sinks or swims. Look at her purring, and Monty ladling out the lies. Look at it!"

He checked himself as with venom in his urgent tone he drew attention to the two by the easel. Patricia had paled under the fury of his quiet disclosure. The husky voice, which she had previously disliked, was in keeping with his mood and his words, and it therefore assumed new meaning, and her dislike was gone immediately. She saw him as a young man deeply—almost passionately—in earnest, but she was saddened by the picture of such unhappiness as his must be. Her vision of this whole affair became horrible, beyond bearing.

"If her work isn't any good," said Patricia, "surely she'll realise it? She is wise. At any rate, she's shrewd enough to find out the truth, isn't she? If it is the truth."

"Never. You don't understand what ... all this rot"—he waved vaguely—"means to her. When did a dud—a second-rate person—ever realise his second-rateness? Why, all the really able people I know, or that I've ever heard of, are humble—not that they aren't conceited, too; but it's in a different way. They're humble as well. They've got a sense of their own limitations. They're not like Amy. She's mad about her own cleverness. She calls herself an artist, when it's for other people to do that. And it's only because she guesses there's a catch somewhere. She feels she's failing, and won't face the reason. There's nothing like success for lowering a person's conceit. She's never had any success—not real success. She's got to make it all up inside. Her vanity's all out of control; and if you try to warn her she just flies into a passion and calls you a fool for your pains. She'll never have any success. It's impossible, with her temperament."

"Well, then, you mean she's worthless," whispered Patricia, with indignation.

"I'm in love with her," answered Jack, in the same low tone of doggedness. "That's all."

"Isn't it a funny sort of love that decries ... as you've been doing?" She was still warm with loyalty, to hide the dreadful convincingness of his words.

"You're just a dear little girl, as kind as anything," Jack said. "And you think I'm a cantankerous fool."

"No ... never that. Oh, no." Patricia made a gesture of uneasiness, her hand almost upon his hand in consolation. "No, I think you're unhappy and bitter, looking at the dark side ... exaggerating...."

Jack Penton gave a little bitter laugh.

"Exaggerating!" he said. "I wish I was!"

"Then leave her. Let her learn. You're only driving her deeper...."

"I can't leave her," he answered, doggedly. "I'm in love with her. I'd go, and she'd call to me, and I'd come running back. See, I'm not a strong chap. Some men could do it. I can't."

"No, no. It's dreadful. Dreadful. I feel helpless. I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry. So really sorry."

Patricia was as vehement as he. She was carried right out of her young ignorance, as she often was, by emotion; and she sat looking at him with a glowing face, her eyes melting in their sympathy. The lines upon that poor grey forehead and round those troubled eyes hurt her, and the bitter droop of Jack's thin dark lips made its direct appeal to her heart, even while that heart sank inevitably at the prospect of unhappiness in life which lay for all to see in front of this bewildered lover. It was at this moment that Amy and Monty, both aware of tension in that other corner of the studio, turned and contemplated their companions. Very strange impressions were recorded by each at such manifest intimacy between the two who were sitting absorbed by the fire.