Читать книгу The Hippodrome - Rachel Hayward - Страница 3

"Aujourd'hui le primtetemps, Ninon, demain l'hiver.

Quoi! tu nas pas l'étoile, est tu vas sur la mer!"

DE MUSSET.

Count Emile Poleski was obliged to be at the Barcelona Station at five o'clock in the afternoon one hot Friday in May. His business, having to do with that which was known to himself and his associates as "the Cause," necessitated careful attention, and required the performance of certain manoeuvres in such a way that they should be unobserved by the various detectives to whom he was an object of interest.

He looked round, scowling, till he found the man he wanted, and who was to all outward appearances the driver of one of the row of fiacres that waited outside the station. Cigarettes were exchanged, and a tiny slip of paper passed imperceptibly from hand to hand, then he turned ostensibly to watch the incoming train from Port-Bou. As he was on the platform it would be better to look as if he had come to meet someone, and as he had nothing particular to do just then it would make a distraction to watch the various types of humanity arriving at this continental Buenos Ayres, the city of romance, anarchy, commerce and varied vices.

Emile Poleski called it l'entresol de l'enfer, and certainly he was not there by his own choice. It was the centre of intrigue, and to intrigue his life, intellect, and the little money he had left from his Polish estates, were devoted. To him life meant "The Cause," and that exigeant mistress left little room for other and more natural affections.

In his career women did not count, at least they did not count as women. If they had money to spend, or brains and energies that could be utilised, that was a different matter. He had a trick of studying people as one studies natural history through a microscope.

It was all very interesting, but when one had done with the specimens one threw them away and looked about for fresh material.

The train came in, slackened speed and stopped, and its contents resolved themselves into little groups of people all hunting with more or less excitement for their luggage, and porters to convey the same to cabs.

The figure of a girl who had just alighted and was standing alone, caught and held his roving eyes. The pose of her abnormally slim body had all the grace of a figure on a Grecian vase in its clean curves and easy balance.

Her head was beautifully set upon a long throat, and her feet were conspicuously slender and delicate in their high French boots of champagne-coloured kid. Her face, which as far as he could see was of a startling pallor, was obscured by a white lace veil tied loosely round her Panama hat, and left to fall down her back in floating ends; and she wore a rather crumpled, cream-coloured dress.

She stood, looking round, as if uncertain how to act, evidently in expectation of someone to meet her. No one appeared and she moved off in search of a porter. Emile followed at a reasonable distance. Books he found desperately dull, but humanity in any shape or form was attractive to him, and the girl's appearance appealed to a deeply embedded love of the exotic and mysterious.

He watched with cynical amusement as she tried to explain her wishes in French to a porter, who spoke only the dialect of Catalonia. Her voice finally decided Emile on his line of conduct. Low-pitched it was, with subtle inflections, and with a hoarseness in the lower notes such as one hears in the voices of Jewish women.

A woman, whose vocal notes were of that enchanting timbre, was likely to prove interesting.

He advanced a few steps nearer, saying in French, "I speak the language. Can I be of any use?"

The girl turned, giving him a comprehensive glance, and bowed slightly in acknowledgment.

"Many thanks, Monsieur! I know scarcely any Spanish. Perhaps you would tell me where one could get lodgings. It seems rather hopeless for this man and myself to continue arguing in different languages, so if you would not mind—"

When they were both in the fiacre she did not speak, but leaned back, her hands in her lap, her feet crossed, looking straight in front of her with hazel-green eyes, expressionless as those of the Sphinx. Count Poleski congratulated himself in silence over his discovery. Here was a woman so unique that she asked no questions, did not volunteer after the manner of most women a flood of voluble information, apparently took everything for granted, and was in no way embarrassed by himself or his company.

In some respects she appeared a young girl, but her composure was certainly not youthful.

"So you're out from England," he said at last.

"From Paris," she answered him serenely. "I'm Arithelli of the Hippodrome." There was a girlish pride in her accents, and she looked at him sideways to observe the effect of her announcement.

"Ma foi! So it's that, is it? Then I've heard something about you. I know the Manager pretty well. He said you were un peu bizarre."

"Peut être plus qu'un peu," Arithelli retorted quickly. "I see you think he's right."

Arrived at the lodgings she sat still, waiting in the cab with the same apparent indifference while Emile wrangled with the landlady. At length he came back to her: "You had better try these for a week," he said. "They're forty pesetas. She will want the rent in advance as you have no recommendation." For the first time Arithelli seemed disturbed.

"I'm afraid I can't pay it. I'm to have five pounds a week at the Hippodrome, but of course I can't ask for that in advance. I had a second-class ticket out here, and now I've only got four-and-sixpence left."

She held out a small blue satin bag, displaying a few coins. "Perhaps I'd better go and explain to the Manager." Emile shrugged his shoulders. Obviously the girl was very young.

"On the whole I think you'd better not," he said. "You know nothing about either myself or the Manager, and it seems you've got to trust one of us so it may as well be me."

When he had arranged matters he departed, saying casually, "I'll come in again to-night about nine o'clock to see how you are getting on. Don't do anything insane, such as wandering about the streets, because you feel dull. It won't hurt you to put up with the dulness for a bit. You'll have plenty of excitement if you're going to live in Barcelona."

"Tiens!" said Arithelli to herself. "What manners and what dirty nails! C'est un homme épouvantable, but very useful. But for him I should have been prancing round this place all night, looking for rooms."

She dragged her trunk towards her, and proceeded to unpack the collection of gaudy dresses that she had bought with so much pride at the Bon Marché in Paris, and which were all in the worst possible taste.

Perhaps she had been impelled to a choice of lively colours as being symbolical in their brightness of the new life on which she was about to embark. There was a green cloth rendered still more hideous by being inlet with medallions of pink silk, a cornflower blue with much silver braid already becoming tarnished in the few times it had been worn, and a mauve and orange adorned with flamboyant Eastern embroidery.

When she had tumbled them all out they showed a vivid patch of ill-assorted tints. Arithelli shivered as she sat back on her heels on the floor, and looked round the sordid room. The excitement of her arrival had worn off, and the element of depression reigned supreme in her mind. Certainly the apartment, which was supposed to be a bed-sitting-room, but which was merely a bedroom, was not enlivening to contemplate. No carpet, dirty boards, a large four-poster bed canopied with faded draperies against the wall facing the window. There was a feeble attempt at a washstand in a small alcove on the left, furnished with the usual doll's house crockery affected on the Continent—no wardrobe and no dressing table.

It all looked hopeless, she told herself disgustedly. Surely there were better rooms to be found in Barcelona for forty pesetas a week! Either lodgings must be very dear or else Emile Poleski had meant to take a large commission for his trouble in finding them!

She was stiff and tired after the long journey and want of proper food, and every trifle took upon itself huge dimensions. She was daintily fastidious as to cleanliness, and everything seemed to her filthy beyond belief. The universal squalor customary in Spanish life had come as an unpleasant shock.

When she started from Paris she had conjured visions of a triumphal entry into her new career. Now she felt rather frightened and desperately lonely, and the horrible room appeared like a bad omen for the future. But, she reflected, after all, things might have been worse. She had found one friend already. Certainly he had disagreeable manners, especially after the artificial and invariable politeness of the Frenchmen she had met while travelling, but at least he promised to be useful. She picked herself up off the floor and began to consider the disposal of her garments. Three or four wooden pegs, the only accommodation to be seen, were obviously not sufficient to hold all her clothes.

Presently there was an interlude, provided by the advent of the landlady. Her dishevelment accorded well with the general look of the house; her slippers clicked on the carpetless boards at every shuffling step, and she carried a half-cold, slopped-over cup of coffee. To Arithelli's relief the woman was mistress of a limited amount of French patois, and in answer to a demand for a wardrobe of some kind, said she would send up her son. He was a carpenter and would doubtless arrange something. She gave a curious glance at the girl's witch-like beauty, a mixture of suspicion and barely-admitted pity in her thoughts.

As to Emile's share in the drama she had naturally formed conclusions. After a respectable interval her son arrived, and having delivered himself of a remark in Spanish and being answered in French, proceeded to hammer a row of enormous nails into the wall at regular intervals. Arithelli sat upon her trunk, which she considered cleaner than the chairs, and watched the process, her green eyes assuming a curious veiled expression, a hank of copper-tinted hair falling upon her shoulders.

There was something uncanny in her capacity for keeping still, and she had none of the usual and natural fidgetiness of a young girl. In whatever position of sitting or standing she found herself she was capable of remaining for an indefinite period.

When the carpenter's manipulations had ceased she hung up her dresses carefully, put the rest of her things back into the trunk, as being the safest place, and sitting down again began to cry in a low, painful way, utterly unlike the light April shower emotion of the ordinary woman.

Here she was in Barcelona, and the fulfilled desire seemed likely to become already Dead Sea fruit. Supposing she got ill, or failed to satisfy the audience. She would see her name to-morrow when she went out in large letters on the posters of the Hippodrome:

"Arithelli, the beautiful English equestrienne," and underneath some appalling picture of herself in columbine skirts, or jockey's silk jacket and cap and top boots.

She had been crazy with delight over her success in getting the engagement from the manager in Paris, and it had not occurred to her that her appearance had had a great deal to do with her having been accepted. She had signed a contract for a year; and looking forward a year seemed a very long time. There had been opposition at home.

Her father had said, "I don't approve, but at the same time I don't know in the least what else you can do. It's Hobson's choice. You can ride, and you've got looks of the sort to take in a public career."

Her mother had been frankly brutal. Now that there was no money, she said, she could not have three great girls at home doing nothing. She had given them all a good education and they must try and make some use of it. Neither of the younger sisters, Isobel and Valèrie, were old enough to do anything for themselves, so Arithelli at the age of twenty-four had taken her courage, which was the indomitable courage of her race, in both hands, and launched herself on the world. The bare-backed riding of her early days in Galway had proved a valuable asset, and there was not a horse she could not manage.

Her slim figure seemed born to the saddle, and her nerve was as yet unshaken.

The man who had engaged her had been more than a little astonished at the composure with which she showed off the horses' paces, and went through various tricks. As she was young and inexperienced, he would get her cheaply; she could be taught all the stereotyped acts with very little trouble, and her morbid style of beauty would be a draw in Spain.

There was nothing of the English miss about her appearance and few people would have believed her to be only twenty-four. She had no freshness, no beautè de diable. Her beauty was that of line and modelling. Her quietness was partly the result of a convent education. An old Irish nun had told her once that good looks were a snare and a delusion of the Devil, and that hers would never bring her happiness.

At least they had got her an engagement, and a circus had always represented to her the very height of romance.

She wondered how she could manage for money till she got her five pounds next Friday. It was lucky that all her habits, and so on, were provided by the management. She wished to-morrow would arrive, for she felt eager to begin work, and see the horses. She had quite forgotten all about Emile's promised visit, and was just pulling down the rest of her hair preparatory to getting ready for bed, when he walked in without any preliminary knock.

"How are you getting on? All right?" Then after a momentary inspection of the many garments that festooned the dirty walls, he added: "I don't think you've got very good taste in clothes!"