Читать книгу The Hippodrome - Rachel Hayward - Страница 4

Table of Contents

"All women are good; good for something, or good for nothing."

CERVANTES.

The next morning Emile made his entrance with the same complete disregard of ceremony. Arithelli was still in bed and only half awake. She raised herself slightly and looked at him with sleepy eyes.

"Oh!" she said. "I didn't hear you knock."

There was the same entire lack of embarrassment in her manner that she had shown on the previous night. Almost before she had finished her sentence she shut her eyes again, and leant back yawning. It seemed a matter of the greatest indifference to her whether he was there or not. Emile's interest rose by several degrees as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I didn't knock," he said, speaking English fluently enough, but with the hard, clipped accents of the Slav. "I can't bother about all that humbug. If you're straight with me I'll be straight with you, and we may as well be friends. I dare say you think you're very good-looking and all that, but it doesn't make any difference to me. You're here, and I'm here, so we may as well be here together."

"I'm so sorry," Arithelli replied, "but I'm always so stupid and sleepy in the mornings. Do you mind saying it all over again?"

And very much to his own surprise Emile Poleski repeated his remarks. It struck him that there was something of the boy, the gamin, about her in spite of her exotic appearance. That was so much the better and would suit admirably with his schemes for her. It was better that she should not be too much of a woman; for in the realms of anarchy there is no sex, though comradeship is elevated to the dignity of a fine art.

For chivalry and love making there is neither the time nor the desire, and those who are wedded to La Liberté find her an all-sufficient idol for purposes of worship. Human life is held of small account, to join the Cause being equivalent to the signing of one's own death warrant. One would probably have to die to-morrow if not to-day, and whether it were sooner or later mattered little. Emile's fierce devotion to the cause of his oppressed country had been the means of leaving him stranded in Barcelona at the age of forty, without hopes, illusions or ideals. His estates in Russia had been confiscated, his parents were dead, the woman he had loved was married.

Now he lived in a dirty back street, in a single room, on two pounds a week, morbid, suspicious, cynical, keeping his own counsel, owning no friends, and occupying body and brain with plots, secret meetings, ciphers and the usual accompaniments of intrigue. The Brotherhood consisted of fifteen men, though occasionally the number varied. Two or three would disappear, another one come. There was no feminine element. An Anarchist seldom marries. To him a woman is either a machine or the lightest of light episodes.

Emile had not the least desire to make love to the girl whom he had for his own purposes befriended. He was a quick and subtle judge of character, and had seen at a glance that in her he would find a study of pronounced interest. Also she might prove of some utility. It was one of the tenets of the fraternity to which he belonged never to waste any material that might come to hand. In the finely-cut face before him, with its Oriental modelling and impassivity, he read brains, refinement and endurance. Her hair was plaited in two long braids, and drawn down over her ears, showing the contour of a sleek, smooth little head.

She had relapsed into silence after disposing of the slovenly meal he had induced the landlady to provide. The only thing that seemed to worry her was the superfluous dirt that adorned the cups.

At length she spoke:

"And what sort of a place is this Barcelona?"

"L'entresol de l'enfer," answered Emile curtly. "What are your people doing to allow you to come here alone?"

"They don't know I am here. I ran away, you see. If I get on well,

I'll write and let them know, and if not—"

"Alors?"

"Oh, I don't know. But I will get on. Don't you think I ought to make a success at the Hippodrome?"

Emile ignored the naïve conceit of the last remark. "But what are you doing at the Hippodrome at all?" he demanded.

"I am riding," she answered with an elfish smile in which her eyes took no part.

"Obviously! What are you going to do about déjeuner? The landlady won't bring you up all your meals."

"I don't know," was the unconcerned answer.

"You'll have to go to one of the cafés, and you had better let me show you which are the most desirable ones. Enfin! have you any intention of getting up this morning?"

Arithelli yawned again. "I suppose I must go round and present myself to the Manager. I'm to rehearse a fortnight before I make my appearance in public."

"Then I had better come with you," Emile replied with decision. "As I told you yesterday, I know the Manager fairly well."

An hour later they walked together through the streets on their way to the Hippodrome. Emile was a bad advertisement for the secrecy of his profession, for he looked a typical desperado. His velvet coat had the air of having been slept in for weeks, and had certainly never been on terms of acquaintanceship with a brush; and, besides the usual Anarchist badge, a red tie, a blood red carnation flamed defiance in his buttonhole.

Under a battered sombrero he scowled upon the world; a dark skin, fierce moustache, and arching black eyebrows over hard, grey eyes.

There are few people who look their parts in life, but Emile might without addition or alteration, have been transferred to the stage as the typical villain of a melodrama.

Arithelli had arrayed herself in the cornflower blue frock, which she carried with a negligent ease, and she still wore the Panama hat with the flowing veil. As a matter of fact it was the only piece of headgear she possessed; for she had been reckless over dresses and boots in Paris and had found herself drawn up with a jerk in the midst of her purchases by her small stock of money coming to an abrupt end.

Of her carriage and general deportment, which were noticeably good even among Spanish women, Emile approved. The crude blue of her dress, the tags and ends of tinselled braid set his teeth on edge. In his "Count Poleski" days he had known the quiet and exquisite taste of the mondaines of Vienna and St. Petersburg, and like most men he preferred dark clothes in the street. Later on he proposed to himself the pleasure of supervising her wardrobe, except her boots, which met with his fullest approbation.

He noticed that she did not talk much but observed in silence. He felt that nothing escaped those heavy-lidded, curious eyes. "Is everything dirty in Spain?" she said at last.

"How fussy you are about dirt!" retorted Emile disagreeably.

"Yes. My mother is a Jewess, you know. I expect we notice these things more than the dirty Gentiles."

Her calm assertion of the superior cleanliness of the tribe of Israel,

amused Emile, who had been accustomed to hear the usual contempt of the

English-speaking races for anyone possessing a strain of Jewish blood.

So it was the Jewess in her that accounted for her haunting voice.

The Manager was a hatchet-faced and haggard man who looked as if he went to bed about once a week, on an average, and existed principally on cigarettes and absinthe. The simultaneous arrival of Emile and Arithelli roused him from his normal condition of bored cynicism to comparative animation.

Like the landlady he naturally made his own conclusions.

"When did you arrive?" he demanded of Arithelli. Emile, not being afflicted with a sense of the necessity for elaborate explanation, removed himself a few paces and began to roll a cigarette.

Arithelli stood her ground, listened to the comments on her appearance which the Manager felt himself entitled to use, returned his cynical survey with a level glance, and answered his questions with an unruffled composure.

It was arranged that she should rehearse every day for two hours in the morning, and another two hours between the afternoon and evening performances. For the first act she could wear a habit of any colour she cared to choose, and a smart hat; for the second act, which included jumping over gates, and the presence of the inevitable clown, she would have to wear short skirts.

"They won't suit me," she said. "You see how long and thin I am, and look at my long feet. I shall look a burlesque."

The Manager glared at her.

"I quite believe you will," he snapped. "I suppose you think you're going to do the leaping act in a court train and feathers! Is there anything more you would like to suggest?"

The intended sarcasm was not a success. Arithelli considered gravely.

"I don't think so, thank you," she said at last. "But if I do think of anything else I'll tell you. And I should like to see the horses."

She was filled with a genuine delight by the four cream-coloured pure-bred Andalusians, El Rey, Don Quixote, Cavaliero and Don Juan. They turned intelligent eyes upon her as she entered their stalls, neighing gently as if they recognised a friend. Both the men experienced the same feeling of surprise at her evident knowledge and understanding of animals. In five minutes she had shown that she knew as much about their harness and food as a competent groom.

The astute Manager, upon whom no sign of intelligence was wasted, saw a good opportunity for getting a little extra work out of his youthful leading lady. He informed her that she must be down at the stables every morning at eight o'clock to inspect the horses and see them fed and watered. As a matter of fact the inspection should have been one of his own duties, but the girl was not likely to cavil at any little additional work that had not been exactly specified in her contract. Besides, if she did, he could soon make it uncomfortable for her. Arithelli made no objection. Though she hated getting up early she would never have grudged a sacrifice of comfort made on behalf of any animal. When all the business was completed, Emile took her to the Café Colomb for lunch.

Before they left he knew the details of her history.

The big house in Ireland, with its stud of horses and unlimited hospitality, and the rapidly vanishing fortune. Her mother, a Viennese by birth, a cosmopolitan by travel and education, a fine horsewoman, and extravagance incarnate. Her father, good-natured, careless, manly, as sportsmanlike and unbusinesslike as most Irishmen. When his horses died he bought more, keeping always open house for a colony of men as shiftless and as easy-going as himself.

As the children grew up the money became less and less. They were sent to Convent schools in France and Belgium, then to cheap schools in England.

At length the final crash came, and the big, picturesque, rambling house in Galway was sold, and they came to London with an infinitesimal income partly derived from the grudging charity of relatives.

Arithelli cleaned the doorsteps and the kitchen stove, blackleaded the grates and prepared the meals, which more often than not consisted only of potatoes and tea.

Their mother, who hated all domestic work, and could never be induced to see that their loss of money was due to her own extravagance, retired to bed, where she spent her days in reading Plato in the original, and writing charming French lyrics.

When Arithelli ran away she had gone straight to an old friend of her mother's, the widow of an ambassador in Paris. She had made up her mind to earn her own living. She would carve out for herself a career. Having decided that riding was her most saleable accomplishment, she had gone round to the riding school where the managers of the Hippodromes of Vienna, Buda-Pesth and Barcelona waited to select equestriennes.

Luck, youthful confidence, and her tragic, unyouthful beauty, had all ranged themselves together to procure her the much desired engagement.

"I made up my mind to get taken on," she concluded. "Et me voilà! I did all sorts of desperate jumps that day. I felt desperate. If I hadn't got it, there was only the Morgue. I couldn't have gone home."

Emile listened in silence, and drank absinthe and considered.

That night at a meeting of the Brotherhood he took the leader,

Sobrenski, aside and said:

"It was decided the other day that we wanted someone to take messages and run errands. Someone who could go unnoticed into places where it would be suspicious for us to be seen. You suggested a boy. Fate has been so kind as to show me a woman who seems to be in every way suitable—or at least with a little training she will become so."

"A woman!" echoed the other. "Are you mad?"

"I conclude her to be a woman because of her clothes. Otherwise she seems to be a mixture of a boy and wood-elf. The combination appears to me to be a fascinating one. She is of good family, half Irish, speaks three languages, asks no questions, and seems to have an extraordinary capacity for holding her tongue. It is on that account that I questioned her sex. Her appearance is excessively feminine. Of course I do not propose to enrol her among us at once. As I have said before, there are many ways in which a woman would be useful."

Sobrenski pulled doubtfully at his reddish, pointed beard. "Does she know anything about the Cause?"

"I fancy not, but she appears to have the right ideas, and after I have judiciously fanned the flame!—girls of that age are always wildly enthusiastic over something—so she may as well devote her enthusiasm to us."