Читать книгу The Vultures - Henry Seton Merriman - Страница 11

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“His face reminds one of a sunny graveyard,” a witty Frenchwoman had once said of a man named Paul Deulin. And it is probable that Deulin alone could have understood what she meant. Those who think in French have a trick of putting great thoughts into a little compass, and, as the hollow ball of talk is tossing to and fro, it sometimes rings for a moment in a deeper note than many ears are tuned to catch.

The careless word seized the attention of one man who happened to hear it—Reginald Cartoner, a listener, not a talker—and made that man Paul Deulin's friend for the rest of his life. As there is point de culte sans mystere, so also there can be no lasting friendship without reserve. And although these two men had met in many parts of the world—although they had in common more languages than may be counted on the fingers—they knew but little of each other.

If one thinks of it, a sunny graveyard, bright with flowers and the gay green of spring foliage, is the shallowest fraud on earth, endeavoring to conceal beneath a specious exterior a thousand tragedies, a whole harvest of lost illusions, a host of grim human comedies. On the other hand, this is a pious fraud; for half the world is young, and will discover the roots of the flowers soon enough.

Cartoner had met Deulin in many strange places. Together they had witnessed queer events. Accredited to a new president of a new republic, they once had made their bow, clad in court dress, and official dignity, to the man whom they were destined to see a month later hanging on his own flagstaff, out over the plaza, from the spare-bedroom window of the new presidency. They had acted in concert; they had acted in direct opposition. Cartoner had once had to tell Deulin that if he persisted in his present course of action the government which he (Cartoner) represented would not be able to look upon it with indifference, which is the language of diplomacy, and means war.

For these men were the vultures of their respective Foreign Offices, and it was their business to be found where the carcass is.

“The chief difference between the gods and men is that man can only be in one place at a time,” Deulin had once said to Cartoner, twenty years his junior, in his light, philosophic way, when a turn of the wheel had rendered a long journey futile, and they found themselves far from that place where their services were urgently needed.

“If men could be in two places at the same moment, say once only during a lifetime, their lives would be very different from what they are.” Cartoner had glanced quickly at him when he spoke, but only saw a ready, imperturbable smile.

Deulin was a man counting his friends among all nationalities. The captain of a great steamship has perhaps as many acquaintances as may be vouchsafed to one man, and at the beginning of a voyage he has to assure a number of total strangers that he remembers them perfectly. Deulin, during fifty-odd years of his life, had moved through a maze of men, remembering faces as a ship-captain must recollect those who have sailed with him, without attaching a name or being able to allot one saving quality to lift an individual out of the ruck. For it is a lamentable fact that all men and all women are painfully like each other; it is only their faces that differ. For God has made the faces, but men have manufactured their own thoughts.

Deulin had met a few who were not like the others, and one of these was Reginald Cartoner, who was thrown against him, as it were, in a professional manner when Deulin had been twenty years at the work.

“I always cross the road,” he said, “when I see Cartoner on the other side. If I did not, he would go past.”

This he did in the literal sense the day after Cartoner landed in England on his return from America. Deulin saw his friend emerge from a club in Pall Mall and walk westward, as if he had business in that direction. Like many travellers, the Frenchman loved the open air. Like all Frenchmen, he loved the streets. He was idling in Pall Mall, avoiding a man here and there. For we all have friends whom we are content to see pass by on the other side. Deulin's duty was, moreover, such that it got strangely mixed up with his pleasure, and it often happens that discretion must needs overcome a natural sociability.

Cartoner saw his friend approaching; for Deulin had the good fortune, or the misfortune, to be a distinguished-looking man, with a tall, spare form, a trim white mustache and imperial, and that air of calm possession of his environment which gives to some paupers the manner of a great land-owner. He shook hands in silence, then turned and walked with Cartoner.

“I permit myself a question,” he said. “When did you return from Cuba?”

“I landed at Liverpool last night.”

Cartoner turned in his abrupt way and looked his companion up and down. Perhaps he was wondering for the hundredth time what might be buried behind those smiling eyes.

“I am in London, as you see,” said Deulin, as if he had been asked a question. “I am awaiting orders. Something is brewing somewhere, one may suppose. Your return to London seems to confirm such a suspicion. Let us hope we may have another little . . . errand together—eh?”

As he spoke, Deulin bowed in his rather grand way to an old gentleman who walked briskly past in the military fashion, and who turned to look curiously at the two men.

“You are dressed in your best clothes,” said Deulin, after a pause; “you are going to pay calls.”

“I am going to call on one of my old chiefs.”

“Then I will ask your permission to accompany you. I, too, have put on a new hat. I am idle. I want something to do. Mon Dieu, I want to talk to a clean and wholesome Englishwoman, just for a change. I know all your old chiefs, my friend. I know where you have been every moment since you made your mark at this business. One watches the quiet men—eh?”

“She will be glad to see you,” said Cartoner, with his slow smile.

“Ah! She is always kind, that lady; for I guess where we are going. She might have been a great woman . . . if she had not been a happy one.”

“I always go to see them when I am in town,” said Cartoner, who usually confined his conversation to the necessaries of daily intercourse.

“And he—how is he?”

“He is as well as can be expected. He has worked so hard and so long in many climates. She is always anxious about him.”

“It is the penalty a woman pays,” said Deulin. “To love and to be consumed by anxiety—a woman's life, my friend. Oddly enough, I should have gone there this afternoon, whether I had met you or not. I want her good services—again.”

And the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders with a laugh, as if suddenly reminded of some grievous error in his past life.

“I want her to befriend some friends of mine, if she has not done so already. For she knows them, of course. They are the Bukatys. Of course, you know the history of the Bukatys of Warsaw.”

“I know the history of Poland,” answered Cartoner, looking straight in front of him with reflective eyes. He had an odd way of carrying his head a little bent forward, as if he bore behind his heavy forehead a burden of memories and knowledge of which his brain was always conscious—as a man may stand in the centre of a great library, and become suddenly aware that he has more books than he can ever open and understand.

“Of course you do; you know a host of things. And you know more history that was ever written in books. You know more than I do, and Heaven knows that I know a great deal. For you are a reader, and I never look into a book. I know the surface of things. The Bukatys are in London. I give you that—to put in your pipe and smoke. Father and son. It is not for them that I seek Lady Orlay's help. They must take care of themselves—though they will not do that. It does not run in the family, as you know, who read history books.”

“Yes, I know,” said Cartoner, pausing before crossing to the corner of St. James's Street, in the manner of a man whose life had not been passed in London streets. For it must be remembered that English traffic is different to the traffic of any other streets in the world.

“There is a girl,” pursued the Frenchman. “Families like the Bukatys should kill their girls in infancy. Not that Wanda knows it; she is as gay as a bird, and quite devoted to her father, who is an old ruffian—and my very dear friend.”

“And what do you want Lady Orlay to do for Princess Wanda?” inquired Cartoner, with a smile. It was always a marvel to him that Paul Deulin should have travelled so far down the road of life without losing his enthusiasm somewhere by the way.

“That I leave to Lady Orlay,” replied Deulin, with an airy wave of his neat umbrella, which imperilled the eyesight of a passing baker-boy, who abused him. Whereupon Deulin turned and took off his hat and apologized.

“Yes,” he said, ignoring the incident, “I would not presume to dictate. All I should do would be to present Wanda to her. 'Here is a girl who has the misfortune to be a Bukaty; who has no mother; who has a father who is a plotter and an old ruffian—a Polish noble, in fact—and a brother who is an enthusiast, and as brave as only a prince can be.' I should say, 'You see that circumstances have thrown this girl upon the world, practically alone—on the hard, hard upper-class world—with only one heart to break. It is only men who have a whole row of hearts on a shelf, and, when one is broken, they take down another, made, perhaps, of ambition, or sport, or the love of a different sort of woman—and, vogue la galere, they go on just as well as they did before.'”

“And my accomplished aunt . . .” suggested Cartoner.

“Would laugh at me, I know that. I would rather have Lady Orlay's laugh than another woman's tears. And so would you; for you are a man of common-sense, though deadly dull in conversation.”

As if to prove the truth of this assertion, Deulin was himself silent until they had ascended St. James's Street and turned to the left in Piccadilly; and, sure enough, Cartoner had nothing to say. At last he broke the silence, and made it evident that he had been placidly following the stream of his own thoughts.

“Who is Joseph P. Mangles?” he asked, in his semi-inaudible monotone.

“An American gentleman—the word is applicable in its best sense—who for his sins, or the sins of his forefathers, has been visited with the most terrible sister a man ever had.”

“So much I know.”

Deulin turned and looked at his companion.

“Then you have met him—that puts another complexion on your question.”

“I have just crossed the Atlantic in the next chair to him.”

“And that is all you know about him?”

Cartoner nodded.

“Then Joseph P. Mangles is getting on.”

“What is he?” repeated Cartoner.

“He is in the service of his country, my friend, like any other poor devil—like you or me, for instance. He spends half of his time kicking his heels in New York, or wherever they kick their heels in America. The rest of his time he is risking his health, or possibly his neck, wherever it may please the fates to send him. If he had been properly trained, he might have done something, that Joseph P. Mangles; for he can hold his tongue. But he took to it late, as they all do in America. So he has come across, has he? Yes, the storm-birds are congregating, my silent friend. There is something in the wind.”

Deulin raised his long, thin nose into the dusty May air and sniffed it.

“Was that girl with them?” he inquired presently—“Miss Netty Cahere?”

“Yes.”

“I always make love to Miss Cahere—she likes it best.”

Cartoner stared straight in front of him, and made no comment. The Frenchman gave a laugh, which was not entirely pleasant. It was rare that his laugh was harsh, but such a note rang in it now. They did not speak again until they had walked some distance northward of Piccadilly, and stopped before a house with white window-boxes. Several carriages stood at the other side of the road against the square railings.

“Is it her day?” inquired Deulin.

“Yes.”

Deulin made a grimace expressive of annoyance.

“And we shall see a number of people we had better not see. But, since we are here, let us go in—with a smile on the countenance, eh? my brave Cartoner.”

“And a lie on the tongue.”

“There I will meet you, too,” replied Deulin, looking into his card-case.

They entered the house, and, as Deulin had predicted, there found a number of people assembled, who noted, no doubt, that they had come together. It was observable that this was not a congregation of fashionable or artistic people; for the women were dressed quietly, and the men were mostly old and white-haired. It was also dimly perceptible that there was a larger proportion of brain in the room than is allotted to the merely fashionable, or to that shallow mixture of the dramatic and pictorial, which is usually designated the artistic world. Moreover, scraps of conversation reached the ear that led the hearer to conclude that the house was in its way a miniature Babel.

The two men separated on the threshold, and Deulin went forward to shake hands with a tall, white-haired woman, who was the centre of a vivacious group. Over the heads of her guests this lady had already perceived Cartoner, who was making his way more slowly through the crowd. He seemed to have more friends there than Deulin. Lady Orlay at length went to meet Cartoner, and as they shook hands, one of those slight and indefinable family resemblances which start up at odd moments became visible.

“I want you particularly to-morrow night,” said the lady; “I have some people coming. I will send a card to your club this evening.”

And she turned to say good-bye to a departing guest. Deulin was at Cartoner's elbow again.

“Here,” he said, taking him by the sleeve and speaking in his own tongue, “I wish to present you to friends of mine. Prince Pierre Bukaty,” he added, stopping in front of a tall, old man, with bushy, white hair, and the air of a mediaeval chieftain, “allow me to present my old friend Cartoner.”

The two men shook hands without other greeting than a formal bow. Deulin still held Cartoner by the sleeve, and gently compelled him to turn towards a girl who was looking round with bright and eager eyes. She had a manner full of energy and spirit, and might have been an English girl of open air and active tastes.

“Princess Wanda,” said the Frenchman, “my friend Mr. Cartoner.”

The eager eyes came round to Cartoner's face, of which the gravity seemed suddenly reflected in them.

“He is the best linguist in Europe,” said Deulin, in a gay whisper; “even Polish; he speaks with the tongue of men and of angels.”

And he himself spoke in Polish.

Princess Wanda met Cartoner's serious eyes again, and in that place, where human fates are written, another page of those inscrutable books was folded over.