Читать книгу The Masterfolk - Haldane MacFall - Страница 11
CHAPTER VIII
ОглавлениеWherein it is discovered that the Strength of Genius may lie in the Hair
With a loud shout of laughter there burst riotously into the room several young fellows, pushing before them the indignant and expostulating Lovegood.
A shock-headed fellow, Rippley the sculptor, dressed with the picturesque carelessness of an art student, left the others, advanced to their scowling host, and said breezily:
“Look ’ere, Paul Pangbutt—the boys have come to give old Jack Lawrence a house-warming—down the street, you know.”
“Indeed!” said Pangbutt icily; and with cutting coldness he added: “I presume that this news should interest me!”
Rippley was hugely pleased:
“Yes, rather! He’s setting up a studio almost next door to you—but the old rip isn’t in this evening; so, as we have the beer and stuff in a dray outside, we’ve converted it into a surprise party for you instead, d’you see?”
Pangbutt’s blanched face was moved to a sneer:
“Really, so spontaneous an honour cannot but flatter,” he said.
“Of course,” roared Rippley jovially. He went up to his sulky host and slapped him on the shoulder. It floated through Pangbutt’s mind with something like a twinge of jealousy that they had never given him a house-warming when he took his studio, months ago now.
“Oh, yes,” he said bitterly—“make yourselves at home.”
The sculptor gave him a sounding thump on the shoulder:
“That’s a good generous fellow!” cried he, and winked at the others. “All the scum of Bohemia is coming here to-night. We have invited ’em—in your name.... Of course you don’t mind. I said you wouldn’t.”
Through the open door there came gusts of hilarity from below, and the sound of horseplay.
The sculptor chuckled.
Pangbutt scowled:
“Oh, no—treat the place like a pot-house,” he said. “Of course I am delighted,” he added ironically.
Rippley turned and winked an eye solemnly at the others; he burst into a jovial laugh, and gripping Pangbutt’s shoulder with his great hand:
“Good old Paul,” cried he—“of course you are!... But we found old Lovegood before us—the sly old dog.”
He left his sulky host, and, walking up to Lovegood, punched his embarrassed bulk in the ribs.
Lovegood strode over to the brooding man:
“Pangbutt,” he said—“you would rather have them go. Why don’t you say so?”
“No, no—let them alone.”
He waved the subject aside irritably with his hand, and walked impatiently to the fireplace, where he turned and, leaning his shoulders against the mantel, scowled at the riot.
There was a shuffle of feet, as of men carrying a heavy burden, and, with a roar, the noisy crew swung through the great doorway and came swarming into the room, headed by half a dozen that carried a full beer-barrel on slings, followed by a red-headed fellow frantically blaring a trombone before another who carried Andrew Blotte upon his shoulders, crowned with a wreath of roses and considerably the worse for strong liquors.
They gave their sulking host a shout as they streamed in. The rest of the noisy crew, talking and laughing, escorted a couple of pretty but gauche girl-models, who were awkwardly carrying bouquets as they might have carried cabbages; long streamers of coloured ribbon hung from their nosegays.
The barrel was carried at the run to the most handy armchair, and plumped into the seat. The handicraftsmen of Louis Quinze must have turned in their graves—it was a fine specimen of the period. With a whoop they set hiccuping Andrew Blotte astride of the barrel—one of the girls, picking up his wreath of roses, which had fallen to the floor, set it awry on his head. From under its shadow his eyes blinked drunkenly at the room.
The men were all smoking.
Rippley came forward and, addressing Pangbutt, said:
“You don’t mind our smoking, eh?”
Pangbutt shrugged his shoulders:
“I was not aware my permission was necessary—but of course——”
“Of course you don’t,” roared Rippley; and turning to the others he put his tongue in his cheek:
“Gentlemen, you may smoke,” said he; “nor, indeed, has friend Paul any conscientious objections to the ladies smokin’.” He turned to the red-haired man with the trombone:
“Milk the bell,” said he, “my fluffsome Reubens.”
The red-haired fellow with the incipient beard, whom they called Fluffy Reubens, uttered a startled wail on the trombone, and walking over to the bell-pull, tolled the bell solemnly as he might have milked a cow.
He smiled at the peal that rang and rang through the house:
“It’s rather a good bell,” said he. “Nothing throaty about its top notes.” He turned to his scowling host: “We will put you to as little trouble as possible, Paul,” he said—“so I ring the bell. But if you would not mind asking your swoggle-eyed bottle-washer for the glasses it wouldn’t strain the etiquette——”
Rippley burst out laughing:
“That idiotic hireling man of yours thought we were bailiffs—his language was really quite naughty—for a butler. So Fluffy flung himself at his old legs and I clapped a hand over his fowling-piece—the language was within an ace of being obscene. We whipped him off his legs and sat on his chest and head, or he would have bawled murder. Of course we quite understand, indeed sympathize with, his haughty attitude towards tax-gatherers; but we cannot lightly put aside his stone-blindness to genius when he sees it in full flare of the electric light——” The old butler, sulky as his master, appeared at the door and stood there with stiff dignity. Rippley turned to him:
“Glasses, mister!” cried he.
The old servant took not the slightest notice—he was deaf to all vulgar appeal.
Pangbutt nodded to him:
“Glasses, Dukes,” he said.
“Yessir.”
The old man solemnly turned and left the room.
Fluffy Reubens, who had been gazing sentimentally at the portrait upon the easel, turned to the gilt chair that yawned empty amidst its picturesque setting on the painter’s throne:
“What! the society beauty has flown!”
Rippley kissed his hand to the portrait:
“I put it,” said he, “that Eustace Lovegood take the beauty’s chair.”
There was a din of acclamation; and the big man stepped tragically on to the throne and took the seat. His pale face smiled.
“This is no longer a vulgar brawl,” said he—“but an ordered debauch.”
Rippley turned and, staring at Blotte where he sat solemnly astride of the cask, blinking drunkenly from under his wreath, gave him a hail:
“Cheer up, my bilious Bacchus!” cried he. “A smile to greet this picnic!”
Lovegood coughed:
“But what is Bacchus without the cup?” said he.
Andrew Blotte, astride the cask, raised his hand as for oration, but overbalanced and tumbled from the barrel to the carpet. Several sprang to help him to his feet; and as he stood with difficulty they restored his fallen wreath. He strode with drunken solemnity into the middle of the room, towards his host, where he stood brooding before the fireplace; and as Blotte came the scowl left the hard pale face of the other, and his mouth fell open a little way—but he took command of himself in the winking of an eyelid, and the blood poured back into his heart:
“My God!” slipped from him in a hoarse whisper; “Andrew Blotte!”
Andrew Blotte pulled himself up to a halt, and blinking at his memory, shuffling amongst the faces that were ghosts of the past, he tried to gather his rambling thoughts together, and said with slow precision and friendly confidence:
“I once knew a—fellow (hic)—rather like you.... Clean-shaven poetic-looking fellow, rather good-looking—nevertheless—rather like you.” He giggled drunkenly. “He—he thought he could paint, too.” He blew through his lips. “We all thought we could do things—in Paris.... Youth lives on illusions——”
It struck Paul Pangbutt as he stood there, his arms folded before him, and his eyes set on the poor drunken wreck of a once brilliant youth, that it was nothing less than devil’s irony that had sent this broken man into his life this night—the night which his profession might, as likely as not, have chosen to do him honour—it was the evening of the elections at the Academy.
Blotte roused; and added solemnly:
“He was one of your good fellows—always the fine gentleman—with as keen an eye on his dignity as—a—colonial bishop. Nevertheless, he was rather like you.” He sniggered, and came closer to Pangbutt; gazing at him hazily he added: “You’ll excuse me, but I’ve quite forgotten the point—and I can’t remember your name.... We have not been formally introduced—there is that excuse for us.... Oh, ah, yes, though—I remember—to be sure—(hic)—yes. He stood just about your height—he was a good-looking fellow—whee-hew—better-looking fellow than you.... Of course—that’s strictly between you and me and”—he swept his hand towards the silent others—“and pandlemonium!... Looked like a poet—but his brain was—mostly—self-respect.... That was it—he looked a man—I was wholly insignificant.... He had the grand manner—I didn’t give a slop-can for manners. Never did. Always had a positive idioshincrasy against dancing-masters—except for dancing.... Of course,” he added slowly, gazing with heavy eyes into the past—“of course when a woman appeared on the scene, he—cut me out—hiccup——”
A sneer came to Pangbutt’s pale lips:
“Indeed!” said he. “Such modesty——”
“Sit down, Blotte,” roared the sculptor, Rippley.
The poor drunken fellow took no slightest notice of the interruption, but continued his tale:
“Of course—it was easy enough. It wasn’t worth scoring the trick. But—he was a shabby devil—though he stood just about your height....” He whistled aimlessly.... “About this time, what d’you think? the fellow got into the Embassy set—hiccup—God knows how!... Don’t ask me.... The Baddlesmeres were connected with Embassy people—and the fellow got a footing.... Cæsar was always ambitious.... So he dropped Kate Ormsby—poor little devil!... She was such a pretty creature—and I spent the rest of my youth in telling her that the fellow would come back to her—God forgive me!...”
Pangbutt shifted uneasily; but his cynical voice showed no uneasiness:
“Really,” said he coldly—“your biography is not without romance, Mr. Blotte.”
“Quite so,” said Blotte. “She sings outside taverns now.... I consider it a most damned unladylike thing to do.... Saw her—last winter—snow on ground—and formally asked her hand in marriage—hiccup. But,” he smiled, “she—hiccup—she said I wasn’t sober.... Rather bad taste of her, I thought——”
The man-servant entered the room with the glasses on a tray; Fluffy Reubens nudged Rippley, and jerked his thumb towards Blotte.
“Sit down, Blotte,” cried Fluffy Reubens—“and dry up.”
“Aha!” cried Rippley—“the glasses, gentlemen! Blotte, I give you better advice—come and be moistened.”
The drunken man nodded to his host:
“You’ll excuse me,” he said; and he strolled off unsteadily towards the glasses.
There was a loud shout of laughter, as Rippley, to cause a diversion, poured a libation of beer on the old butler’s bald head, dedicating him to Venus: the old man, with the beer trickling down his nose, and scorn upon his lip, solemnly withdrew.
Rippley started the cask of beer, the girls handing the glasses about as they were filled.
Lovegood, master of the revels, coughed:
“How naturally Rippley presides at the cask!” said he. “Heaven meant him for an honest publican; but native conceit, or some other maggot in the brain, turned his hands to sculpture.”
Pangbutt fretted in sullen silence, wondering when the crew would be done and gone. He even told himself that it would have been less embarrassing if he had gone to see the Baddlesmeres—and for the rest of the evening he brooded upon it.
Lovegood sat back in his chair, glad to get all eyes away from the host:
“Ah, English-brewed ale to-night!” said he tragically. “None of your sour wines of France.” He turned to one of the girl-models—“Sweet Andromache, a tankard for the chair!” said he.
The girl carried beer to him in a tumbler, giggling.
“No, no—give me the juice of the pagan grape—of such alone is brewed the nectar of the gods!” said a slim man who lounged on a sofa, glass in hand. He was Aubrey, the poet, and he was as beautiful as a woman, and with his mass of dark hair drawn from his brows and hiding his ears he looked like one: “Ah, that dissipation should destroy the complexion, and to be intoxicated should have grown unpoetic—to be drunk and disorderly simply to be sordid! The exquisite orgies of the deliciously wicked Greeks are done. The Bacchic frenzy is dead. Nay, Pan—even Pan—Pan is dead.”
Tears came to the eyes of Andrew Blotte, and he shook his head sadly. The wreath came over one eye.
Lovegood blew his nose dramatically:
“Poor, poor Pan!” said he. “Really it is quite a tearful statement. It had escaped me that it was the anniversary of Pan.” He turned to the girl-model they called Andromache and held out his empty tumbler: “Repeat the dose, therefore, Andromache,” said he; “we must drink to the translation of Pan—since we cannot go to his funeral. Though I don’t wholly give up Pan on Aubrey’s mere report. Poets are so scandalous; they will make any misstatement to fit a rhyme—or blast careers to assist a dramatic situation.”
Rippley withdrew his nose from a foaming glass of beer:
“I wish you poet johnnies would bury Pan,” he said. “You’re always diggin’ ’im up—or the other dead Greeks.”
Aubrey yawned wearily:
“Don’t jabber art, Rippley. You make my head ache....”
Pangbutt roused, and, walking over to Lovegood, asked him in a whisper for the Baddlesmeres’ address. The big man fumbled in the breast-pocket of his shiny black coat.
A shout of protest caught his attention.
“Nonsense, Aubrey,” cried Rippley—“sheer nonsense!”
Lovegood looked up, and put out his hand:
“Order, gentlemen!” said he in thundering bass. “It is most unseemly to insinuate that poets talk nonsense.”
He searched again for the pencil, and wrote the address on the other’s cuff. They were roused from their colloquy by a quarrel. Pangbutt returned to the fireplace, his brows set.
Lovegood stood up:
“Order, gentlemen, order!” he called.
Aubrey languidly appealed to him from the sofa:
“Rippley says he has an idea,” he complained pathetically.
Lovegood motioned for silence:
“Hush, Aubrey! you should never repeat a scandal,” said he.
Rippley laughed:
“I have, though—a rippin’ idea!”
“Really?” said Lovegood, and he coughed. “Attention, gentlemen—whilst Mr. Rippley yields up an entirely original and rippin’ idea!”
Rippley sniggered:
“You make me feel quite nervous,” he said. “But—you know, I’ve got a rippin’ idea for a statoo: A fellow struggling alone against the weight of his pre-ordained destiny, which keeps coming back on ’im, don’t you know! He works for Fame, but finds his load getting heavier and heavier to his hand. Ambition, Pluck, Endurance—all are no good. Doom broods over all—Span of Life don’t give enough time—Age creeps on and numbs his Strength. And when the poor devil gets near the top of the hill, there stands Death at the summit to cut him down at the end of his labours—and he sees the night-mist of Oblivion stretching beyond—a mist in which the greatest names are faintly dying away——”
“But, my dear plasterer,” said Fluffy Reubens, “how are you going to express this in stone?”
“That’s just it!” said the tousle-headed sculptor, warm to his idea. “That Greek Johnny that pushed a great hanking stone up a hill, and kept letting it go again——” He made an effort to recall the name and shook his head: “No, it wasn’t ’Erkyools——”
Aubrey tittered, and languidly corrected him with cutting precision:
“Her—cu—les, Rippley—Hercules!”
“No, no—it wasn’t ’im,” said Rippley impatiently. “T’other fellow.”
“Rippley,” said the languid poet, turning half-shut eyes of contempt upon him, “your originality staggers me.”
“Ra-ther!” said Rippley. “When I got that idea you could have knocked me down with the brains of a minor poet.”
Lovegood coughed:
“The Grecian gentleman who pushed the—er—hanking great stone up the hill,” said he with measured accent, “I have read somewhere, was called Sisyphus.”
Rippley bounced and clutched at the air.
“Sisyphus—that’s the chap!... Knew Aubrey was wrong about its being ’Erkyools.... Rummy things the old Greeks used to do! luckily for sculpture and the schoolmasters.” He bent his eyes on his idea again: “But what licks me is Fame!... Such a comical thing is Fame!... Now, look at this fellow Sisyphus: A great muscular chap pushes the dickens of a big stone up a hill, and keeps having to let it go again before he reaches the top. It ain’t much to build a reputation on. But Plato or some blanky poet comes along and writes it down—and that fellow goes pushing and heaving that stone up a hill through the ages. Then look at Aubrey—he works just as hard at his confounded rhymes; yet no one reads him, but everyone goes on talking about ’Omer.”
“Omar Khayyam?” asked Aubrey flippantly.
“Khayyam be damned!” said the shock-headed sculptor. “No—old ’Omer ’imself. A fine, hairy old fellow, with big workmanlike head! Good solid old poetry! None of your rhymes and jingles and frills and coloured neckties and long nails and modern——”
Lovegood tapped his glass on the arm of the judgment-seat:
“It is the painful duty of the chair,” said he, “to remind our sculptor that he claims to have been infected with an original and rippin’ idea.”
Rippley shook himself peevishly:
“This bleating minor poet keeps diggin’ his dandified elbow into my ideas until he makes ’em sulk in their tents like—like Ash-heels.”
“Achilles, Rippley—Achilles!” cooed the poet gently.
Rippley turned upon him:
“I say, poet,” said he, walking up to the languid Aubrey, “you’re looking sallow; you poets don’t take enough exercise. I bet I put you under that sofa.”
Aubrey rose to his feet in alarm, and took up a mild attitude of protest:
“Now, don’t be vulgar, Rippley!” said he.
But the thick-set little sculptor jumped at him and bore him to the ground. The two rolled on the carpet until Rippley, getting the grip of the plaintive poet, pushed his slim figure, expostulating, beneath the sofa, where he disappeared from view under its hangings, amidst a roar of applause.
Lovegood coughed:
“Poetry is fallen on rough times indeed,” said he.
Pangbutt stood frowning at the riot. How these tomfools took him back to the years of his insignificance and Paris!
The door was flung open and a stoutish woman, her hands thrust in the side-pockets of her jacket, stepped into the doorway with swaggering stride. Glancing calmly round the room, she called airily, in a strident, jolly voice:
“How do, Pangbutt?”
She nodded to him:
“They told me this rotten party was to be at Jack Lawrence’s. But his place is as black as your blooming frontispiece. I’ve been huntin’ for this scum all over the shop, until a policeman sniggered and told me there was a deal of cock-crowin’ goin’ on here.” She turned to the roomful of them: “Hullo, boys! and what are you all up to?... Nothing unladylike, I hope, eh?”
She laughed the question jovially.
“No, no,” they all cried.
Blotte waved his arm, standing by the barrel:
“Come along, jovial Emma,” said he, and hiccuped.
“Eh?” she queried; “quite sure I’m not——”
“No, no,” they chorused. “Come along!”
Blotte took up an oratorical attitude by the beer-cask:
“Come in—rollicking Emma—you’re making quite a draught—gives me—hic—quite a chill. I must have something to warm me—from within outwards.”
He drew his empty tumbler out of his pocket.
Emma laughed shrilly, and flung the door to:
“My word,” cried she, “you are going it!... Heigho! I say, boys, I have only a paragraph or two to send in to the papers and I’m finished; so let me rest.... Which is the largest and most comfortable seat?”
She moved towards the empty sofa.
As she swung herself round to sit down, she said shrilly:
“Don’t see that poetic idiot Aubrey here. Where’s he braying to-night?”
“He isn’t braying, robustious Emma,” said Lovegood from the chair. “He’s on all fours, eating the thistles of humiliation.”
Emma Hartroff plumped her weight on to the sofa, and a wail arose from under her.
She started—then laughed:
“Bless my soul! I have known a sofa to groan before—but this one cries out!” she rattled; and added indignantly:
“As if I didn’t know my figure was gone!”
Aubrey’s voice came plaintively from under her foundations:
“Most adorable Emma,” he groaned.
Lovegood coughed:
“You press heavily upon a poet’s husk,” he said solemnly. “Arise, madam, as you love poetry, and free him.”
Emma arose.
As Aubrey crawled out, all tousled and tossed, from under the sofa, a shout went up. He gathered himself on to his feet and brushed his knees.
She sat down:
“The ecstatic ass is not dead, after all,” she said.
Aubrey bowed, polite and affected as always:
“Ah, madam,” said he—“the weight of your opposition crushes me.”
Lovegood chuckled:
“But you have not his death upon your conscience, glorious Emma. The recorded word remains unbroken—no one has yet seen a dead donkey.”
Emma Hartroff shrugged her shoulders:
“That is of no consequence,” she said. “But there are other—serious things. There’s no doubt about it—I’ve begun to apologize for my figure.”
“Hush, Emma!” Lovegood’s pale face became serious “You should never apologize for the acts of Providence. It is most irreligious.”
Aubrey, who had taken his stand against the end of the sofa, folded his arms, and said absently:
“‘The wit that rouses rippling laughter now,
May be but winnow’d chaff at fifty—
Raise but a cackling laugh at fourscore years.’”
They all thumped on the tables and tapped heels upon the floor:
“Certainly,” cried the chorus.
Emma Hartroff stood up:
“Tsh!” she hushed; “let the inspired idiot speak.”
She sat down in a hush of silence.
Aubrey ran his hands through his hair:
“‘The eyes that catch our eyes, and check our breath with sweet, delicious ecstasies
May be but line-marked eyes, with disillusion’d sight at fifty—
Tear-fill’d, and inward cast in age’s loneliness at fourscore years.
But shall we therefore fear to laugh—since jests grow old?
Or cease to garner for old age’s ease—since graveyards yawn alike for spendthrift and for thrifty?
Shall we fulfil, with homage of a loveless life, black Pessimism’s scold
That that we do matters as little, after the years we lease, as the worn idols to whom none now bow?’”
Emma Hartroff, pointing to the vacant place beside her, waved him to it:
“H’m!... Sit down, Aubrey.”
Aubrey sat down, and, lolling back comfortably in the corner of it, he spread himself out luxuriously.
Andrew Blotte cheered:
“Excellent! Ex’lent!” he said solemnly. “That ain’t—hiccup—altogether bad.... Wonderful thing, genius!”
Lovegood tapped on his chair-arm, and there was silence:
“It is my painful duty,” said he, rising to his feet, “to put it to the republic of letters that our poet be not again heard this evening.”
They all held out their hands, and solemnly turned their thumbs down.
Lovegood nodded gloomily:
“The ayes have it,” he said.... “Citizens, I thank you for recording in dignified silence the contempt which you felt compelled to express for so pathetic an exhibition of mediocrity.” He sighed sadly. “Beer, please, coy Andromache!...”
Blotte strolled unsteadily over to where Emma Hartroff sat on the sofa; and straddling out his legs he gazed at her pensively—the wreath of roses awry over his brow.
“Well, my merry Andrew,” said she, “get it off your chest. What’s worrying you?”
“Emma,” said he slowly, “you don’t do yourself justice.” He put his head on one side critically, and uttered a rending hiccup: “you ought to (hiccup) put plum-juice on the—lobes—of your ears. It would make you look so voluptuous.”
“Get out,” said she. “But look here, Master Andrew, what have you been doing of late?”
He stood swaying and balancing himself, the wreath awry on his head, and hiccuped:
“I’ve been trying to discover the source of heartburn in a radish,” he said. “Sorry I can’t stay any longer, adorable Emma,” he added flirtily, “but will you come with me to the sunny south to see the almonds bloom?”
“Oh—get out!”
He sighed:
“Well—I must go alone.” And he added dramatically, spilling much beer in Emma’s lap: “Away from this black cauldron of the city, to meet the pageant of the Spring!”
He turned and shuffled over slowly to Paul Pangbutt:
“Good-bye, old—Polyglot!...” He crooned. “I forget your name—but I’m sorry I can’t stay.... This palace of varieties” (he waved his arm round the room) is most alluring—but I’m sorry—I can’t stay.”
Pangbutt nodded, humouring him:
“I understand,” he said.
“Of course you do.” Blotte burst out into a great laugh. He suddenly button-holed him again: “I say, I suppose you wouldn’t care to—come—and see the almonds bloom?”
He gazed at his dandified host, and slowly shook his head. The wreath came down over one eye:
“You won’t come to meet the pageant of the Spring?”
He shook his head in answer to the other’s shake; and, turning clumsily, lurched towards the door.
Emma Hartroff called to him from her sofa:
“Where are you going, Blotte?”
At the door Blotte halted and faced the room:
“Goo’-night!” he said. “I would embrace you, Emma, but there are so many of you it would seem polygamous.”
He squealed gaily, and kicked out a leg—it nearly flung him off his feet.
As he fumbled at the handle:
“Quite sure,” said he, hanging to the door, “quite sure you won’t all come—and walk on air—and—sing?”
He shook his head sadly:
“Will no one come with me to see the almonds bloom?” said he; and fell through the doorway with a clatter, his feet inside.
Pangbutt hurried after him:
“A moment,” said he, as he passed Lovegood. “I’ll see him out. My guests do not require a host.”
Lovegood smiled grimly:
“No,” said he—“they are a host in themselves.”
The door closed on Pangbutt.
A titter went round the room.
Emma Hartroff sat up suddenly on the sofa:
“I say, boys,” said she, “Anthony Baddlesmere’s a bit down at heels, ain’t he? Eh?... Met him an hour ago—looked as if he’d pawned his shirt. I should have thought Caroline Baddlesmere’s book——”
Aubrey opened a sleepy eye where he lay on the sofa:
“Who says Caroline Baddlesmere?” he asked drowsily.
Emma turned on him:
“I say Caroline Baddlesmere,” she said. “I say she has written a book—which is more than your worst enemy could say of you, Aubrey.”
Aubrey yawned:
“Ah! Book is rather a large word, most blunt Emma. Every school-girl prints her literary effusions nowadays. But print and binding do not make a book.”
He yawned again.
Rippley raised his eyebrows:
“Aubrey’s quite inspired to-night,” he said.
The fussy little minor critic, Fosse, jumped into the opportunity for an opinion:
“One cannot but admire the personality of Caroline Baddlesmere,” he began.
Rippley winked to the others:
“Shorthand writer, please,” he called. “The lips of James Fosse are about to drop pearls.”
Fosse flushed impatiently, but held doggedly to his opportunity:
“But her work was bound to die. It lacked the dainty quality of style”—he twiddled fingers in the air, seeking the expression of subtleties too exquisite for translation by the tongue—“that illuminating light that only comes to the virile-minded; the epigram—finesse—the er—er——”
“Quite so,” growled Lovegood gloomily—“quite so, Mr. Fosse. Unlike your genius, the thrills of cachinnation never followed at her heels.”
Fosse’s fussy eyes looked perplexed:
“N-no, no. Perhaps not. Still—that was not exactly what——”
“Sit down, Fosse!” cried Rippley impatiently. “Let the other ass speak.”
Fosse sat down.
Aubrey drowsily took up the cue:
“Woman,” said he languidly—“woman is adorably illogical—deliciously ridiculous—exquisitely attractive; but woman has no sense of humour——”
Emma Hartroff laughed shrilly:
“Good old Aubrey!” cried she. “I always said that our minor poet was lineally descended from his mother.”
“Silence!” Lovegood’s bass boomed through the room. “Silence! I will have no one insinuate that our poet’s mother was an ass.”
Tumblers on tables, and feet on floor, thundered applause.
Aubrey, lying back on the sofa, his arms folded, and his head drooped forward, drowsily opened his eyes:
“I repeat,” said he—“Caroline Baddlesmere was simply popular. Popularity is merely a vulgar mood—signifying the commonplace—signifying nothing.”
Rippley laughed:
“Well, you are not above trying for it, old man,” said he. “And it’s a mighty sight easier to be unknown.”
Aubrey yawned:
“I seek nothing from popularity,” he said.
“Then why do you print yourself?” asked Rippley.
“I am in love with art.... I have the perplexing preference for the elements of inspiration rather than for the elements of popularity.”
Rippley snorted:
“Oh—go to sleep!” said he.
Aubrey turned to Emma Hartroff apologetically:
“I’m sorry,” he murmured drowsily, “but I have been wandering in the meads by running streams all day, and it has only made me sleepy. I had done better to have invented my own facts in Nature—Nature does not select—like the good God, she is most wasteful.”
Emma Hartroff jumped to her feet, and strode up and down a turn or so, her hands in her pockets. She came to a halt, and straddling in the middle of the room, she said suddenly:
“D’you know, boys—I like Caroline Baddlesmere!”
Lovegood coughed:
“Fame, indeed, for Caroline Baddlesmere,” said he.
“Yes.” She nodded her head decidedly. “Caroline Baddlesmere’s a rippin’ good sort.”
Lovegood, sitting back in his chair, eyed the straddling figure gloomily from under his dark brows:
“Certificate of character for Caroline Baddlesmere!” he growled.
“Yes.” She nodded again. “I’m ding-dong sorry she’s struck bad luck; but—y’know—Caroline is a bit of a new woman.... Now, I like a woman to be a woman—and act like a woman—and—and—dress like a woman!”
There was loud and prolonged laughter, and shouts of satiric applause, and cat-calls.
She herself dressed like a policeman.
Tumblers were banged on the tables.
There were loud cries:
“Good old Emma!”
“Sublime Emma!”
“Gorgeous Emma!”
She bent her brows on her mood, and set her feet more firmly apart.
“Yes,” said she—“I like a gentle voice in a woman.”
The laughter became hysteric.
Lovegood raised a gloomy eyebrow:
“What’s the matter with Caroline Baddlesmere’s voice?” he growled.
She turned on him:
“Look here, Eustace; can Caroline Baddlesmere cook?”
“God knows!” he said. “Why should she? The Creator did not make woman in the image of a Dutch oven!”
Emma Hartroff sat down, and uttered a sigh:
“Oh, you’re beyond me, Eustace. I don’t like you when you’re serious.” She turned to the others: “Our humorist is as solemn as a pawnbroker,” she said.
There were loud cries of “Order! order!”
Rippley stood up:
“Someone dared to speak of pawnbrokers!” he said.
Emma Hartroff seized the tails of his coat:
“For heaven’s sake, let us have no fines to-night, Rippley—I’m stone-broke——”
She started—gave a shrill scream—and added:
“Gracious, boys! I forgot. I have to knock up some paragraphs for The Midnight Sun.”
She fumbled in the breast-pocket of her jacket, and lugged out a note-book.
“Bother!” said she; “what shall I write about?”
She licked the pencil, and cudgelled her genius, but nothing came of it.
Rippley looked down upon her contemptuously:
“Blue Stephens! Emma,” said he—“you have no imagination. Brilliant Literary and Artistic Reception at Mr. Pangbutt’s!”
“Right you are!” she bawled. “That’ll do, rippin’!... Someone dictate, and I’ll write”—she looked round—“You, Lovegood! You have the most gorgeous imagination.”
Lovegood bowed:
“I cannot agree with him who said that the flattery of woman has no end,” he said drily.
“Oh, chuck epigram,” she said—“and dictate, like a good chap.”
He set his gaze on the theme, and the great black brows met:
“The select Conversazione in the spacious and brilliantly-lighted rooms—of the—er—world-famous portrait-painter was attended by——”
Emma Hartroff held up her pencil:
“Easy all!” said she—“attended—by——All right. Go on.”
Fluffy Reubens took up the dictation:
“——by the élite of the fashionable world and the flower of Upper Bohemia——”
Emma Hartroff’s pencil scratched down the addition:
“Upper—Bohemia,” said she.
Lovegood coughed:
“Which idiot is writing this masterpiece, Emma? the fluffsome Reubens or I?”
Fluffy Reubens apologized:
“I was so afraid that élite might be left out,” he said.
“I am sorry,” said Lovegood sadly, “that so old a friend should think me so barren an artist.”
Emma Hartroff looked up:
“Oh, chuck argument,” she said impatiently. “Go on, Lovegood!”
She licked her pencil invitingly:
Lovegood entered into his inspiration again:
“The palatial rooms were resplendent with a hundred lights, and the myriad glass lustres shone like stars above the well-bred Babel assembled in this gorgeous modern palace. Amongst the witty throng mingled eminent men—in the arts and the—er—liberal professions.” He coughed. “Aubrey represents the liberal professions—though he rarely achieves his larger intentions——”
“Shut up, Lovegood—and dictate,” said Emma.
Lovegood sighed, and got back to his task:
“To say nothing of much beauty and fashion——”
Emma simpered:
“Flatterer!” she said giddily.
Lovegood bowed:
“Mr. Fosse, the English Maupassant, was to be seen flitting from group to group, discoursing on the magnetism of style. Mr. Carver Rippley, whose possible election to the Academy was the topic of much speculation, explained away the motive of his coming masterpiece in marble. Mr. Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre——”
A bottle-necked man with a shapeless head, colourless hair, and a fat puffy underlip beneath a slovenly moustache slowly rose from a chair.
Rippley flung himself upon him, punched him in the midriff, and threw him back into his seat. Rippley’s brows were knit:
“For God’s sake,” said he, frowning at Lovegood—“don’t start Quogge Myre talking. He always takes two columns of close print to yield up an idea—and then it isn’t his own.”
Lovegood chuckled grimly:
“A most pleasant evening showed Mr. Pangbutt to be not only a man of mark in the fashionable world, but a brilliant and amusing host—his loud, jolly laugh and gay camaraderie setting the keynote of refined amusement to the distinguished party that poured through his palatial rooms.”
Emma Hartroff looked up—the pencil on her lip:
“Hang it all, you’ve left me out, Lovegood!” she said.
Lovegood smiled:
“I distinctly mentioned beauty and fashion, Emma. But I will give you the personal note: Miss Hartroff was elegantly dressed in peau-de-suede gloves of the latest colour——”
Rippley said “Naughty!”
Lovegood coughed:
“Mr. Aubrey, languidly witty, was the soul of poetry in motion.”
There was a gentle snore.
Rippley held up a hand, motioning for silence:
“Ts-s-sh!” he hushed; and he added in a whisper: “Poetry sleeps.”
Aubrey was heavily asleep in his corner of the sofa; chin on chest, his inert arms fallen listless by his sides.
Lovegood rose from his chair, and said in a low growl:
“Citizens, the republic of letters is again called upon to record its august vote.” He pointed tragically to the sleeping beauty: “This weary Affair that lies before you, its lank indecent limbs stretched in such graceless attitude of repose, has once already, during this evening, offended your eyes, insulted your intelligence, galled your ears, with the declaiming of unasked-for verse.”
“Intolerable!” growled Rippley; and
“Intolerable!” growled they all.
“Hush!” said Rippley.
Lovegood pointed a scornful hand at the sleeping poet:
“The Thing stood up, stopped conversation, and—uttered indifferent verse!” said he.
They all shook their heads.
Lovegood’s pale face glowered upon them:
“Here is a being, old before his time, usurping the wisdom of the world—which were bad enough—but, worse still, offending your sight, as citizen Rippley might say, by affecting the hair of decadence.”
Fluffy Reubens coughed:
“Preposterous,” growled he—“cut it off.”
An angelic smile spread over the pale features of Eustace Lovegood:
“How great thought travels!” he said ecstatically—“how thought begets thought!... Now that was precisely what flashed into my thinking machinery. What? Scissors? Oh, ah, yes—materialistic Emma always carries scissors. But the executioner! who is worthy to clip the godlike locks?”
Rippley stole over to Emma and took the scissors.
Lovegood smiled:
“Ah, yes, Rippley! Thy subtle fingers, creating such blood-curdling insignificances in clay, shall at last be used to noble ends—at last be put to their originally designed calling of barber.” Rippley was snipping off the hair with unskilful gashes, the severed locks falling softly upon the floor. “Thou, Rippley, shalt make minor poetry illustrious—thou shalt breathe notoriety into the nostrils of Aubrey’s verse—thou shalt give him through a success of scandal what his rhymes can never bring him—a grip on the skirts of Fame. Since Fame his verse can never bring him, he shall flirt with her through Infamy.”
Rippley held up a lock:
“Anyone else have some?” he asked.
Lovegood chuckled ironically:
“But shear the glory from him tenderly, deftly,” said he. “You’re not cutting a hedge. Set aside each lock that falls, that the hero-worshipper may wear a snippet from a poet’s brow.... All the dear delightful barmaids will want a lock. Peckham tea-parties will thrill at the touch of it—Clapham culture sob—West Kensington be troubled. And in the town I can hear all the little coffee-girls a-weeping.... Pan is not dead. The news is worse than that—Pan is growing bald and middle-aged.... Poets should be heard, not seen.”
Rippley dropped the scissors and whipped into a seat, uttering a smothered guffaw, as Aubrey roused and yawned.
Lovegood sat down:
“Silence,” said he—“the sleeping beauty wakes.”
The poet opened his eyes drowsily, and rose slowly, sleepily, from the sofa, amidst a tense silence.
As he stood up, his hair raggedly clipped about his head, making his long neck inordinately naked, a titter ran round the guests.
He shivered:
“I dreamed,” he said; and ran his hand over his hair.
“I dreamed——”
He ran his hand over his hair again.
Emma Hartroff got up from her seat and, thrusting her hands into her pockets, she straddled before him, gazing at him.
His eyes were staring blankly into space.
She tittered:
“Well, I’m blowed!” said she—“Modern Poetry seems to be all rhymes and neckties.”
The poet burst into tears.
******
For a month the boy Noll lay seriously ill; but at last his young body began to gain vigour, and strength slowly to come back to him.
