Читать книгу Flames - Robert Hichens - Страница 18

From that night, and almost imperceptibly, the relations existing between Valentine and Julian slightly changed. It seemed to Julian as if a door previously shut in his friend's soul opened and as if he entered into this hitherto secret chamber. He found there an apparent strange humanity which, as he grew accustomed to it, warmed him. The curious refined saintliness of Valentine, almost chilly in its elevation, thawed gently as the days went by, but so gently that Julian scarcely knew it, could scarcely define the difference which nevertheless led him to alter his conduct almost unconsciously. One great sameness, perhaps, gave him a sensation of safety and of continuity. Valentine's face still kept its almost unearthly expression of intellectuality and of purity. When Julian looked at him no passions flamed in his blue eyes, no lust ever crawled in the lines about his mouth. His smooth cheeks never flushed with beaconing desire, nor was his white forehead pencilled with the shadowy writing that is a pale warning to the libertine. And yet his speech about the spring that night, as they leaned out over Victoria Street, had evidently not been a mere reckless rhapsody. It had held a meaning and was remembered. In Valentine there seemed to be flowering a number of faint-hued wants, such wants as had never flowered from his nature before. The fig-tree that had seemed so exquisitely barren began to put forth leaves, and when the warm showers sang to it, it sang in tremulous reply.

And the spring grew in London.

Never before had Julian been so conscious of the growth of the year as now. The spring stirred inside him, as if he were indeed the Mother Earth. Tumults of nature shook him. With the bursting of the crocus, the pointing of its spear of gold to the sun, a life gathered itself together within him, a life that held, too, a golden shaft within its colour-stained cup. And the bland scent of the innumerable troops of hyacinths in Hyde Park was a language to him as he strolled in the sun towards the Row. Scents speak to the young of the future as they speak to the old of the past; to the one with an indefinite excitement, to the other with a vague regret. And especially when he was in the company of Valentine did Julian become intensely alive to the march of the earth towards summer, and feel that he was in step with it, dragooned by the same music. He began to learn, so he believed, what Valentine had called the lesson of his strength, and of all the strength of the spring. His wild blood leaped in his veins, and the world was walking with him to a large prospect, as yet fancifully tricked out in mists and crowned with clouds.

The spring brought to Valentine an abounding health such as he had never known before, a physical glory which, without actually changing him, gave to him a certain novelty of aspect which Julian felt without actually seeing. One day, when they were out riding together in the Park, he said:

"How extraordinarily strong you look to-day, Val."

Valentine spurred his horse into a short gallop.

"I feel robust," he said. "I think it is my mind working on my body. I have attained to a more healthy outlook on things, to a saner conception of life. For years you have been learning from me, Julian. Now I think the positions are reversed. I am learning from you."

Julian pressed his knees against his horse's sides with an iron grip, feeling the spirited animal's spirited life between them. They were now on a level with the Serpentine and riding parallel to it. A few vigorous and determined bathers swam gaily in the pale warmth of the morning sun. Two boys raced along the grassy bank to dry themselves, whooping with exultation, and leaping as they ran. A man in a broad boat, ready to save life, exchanged loud jokes with the swimmers. On a seat two filthy loafers watched the scene with vacant eyes. They had slept in the Park all night, and their ragged clothes were drenched with dew.

"I could race with those boys," Valentine said. "But not so long ago I was like the men on the bench. I only cared to look on at the bathing of others. Now I could swim myself."

He sent his horse along at a tremendous pace for a moment, then drew him in, and turned towards Julian.

"We are learning the lesson of the spring," he said.

As he spoke a light from some hidden place shot for an instant into his eyes and faded again. Julian laughed gaily. The ride spurred his spirits. He was conscious of the recklessness created in a man by exercise.

"I could believe that you were actually growing, Val," he said, "growing before my eyes. Only you're much too old."

"Yes; I am too old for that," Valentine said.

A sudden weariness ran in the words, a sudden sound of age.

"The truth is," he added, but with more life, "my nature is expanding inside my body, and you feel it and fancy you can see the envelope echo the words of the letter it holds. You are clever enough to be fanciful. Gently, Raindrop, gently!"

He quieted the mare as they turned into the road. Just as they were passing under the arch into the open space at Hyde Park corner a woman shot across in front of them. They nearly rode over her, and she uttered a little yell as she awkwardly gained the pavement. Her head was crowned with a perfect pyramid of ostrich feathers, and as she turned to bestow upon the riders the contemptuous glance of a cockney pedestrian, who demands possession of all London as a sacred right, Julian suddenly pulled up his horse.

"Hulloh!" he said to the woman.

"What is it?" asked Valentine, who was in front.

"Wait a second, Val. I want a word with this lady."

"Rather compromising," Valentine said, laughing, as his eyes took in with a swift glance the woman's situation in the economy of the town.

The woman now slowly advanced to the railing, apparently flattered at being thus hailed from horseback. Her kinsmen doubtless always walked.

"Don't you remember me?" Julian said.

She was in fact the lady of the feathers, with whom he had foregathered at the coffee-stall in Piccadilly. The lady leaned her plush arms upon the rail and surveyed him with her tinted eyes.

"Can't say as I do, my dear," she remarked. "What name?"

"Never mind that. But tell me, have you ever had a cup of coffee and a bun in Piccadilly early in the morning?"

The mention of the bun struck home to the lady, swept the quivering chords of her memory into a tune. She pushed her face nearer to Julian and stared at him hard.

"So it is," she said. "So it is."

For a moment she seemed inclined to retreat. Then she stood her ground.

Her nerves, perhaps, had grown stronger.

"I should like to know you," Julian said.

The lady was obviously gratified. She tossed her head and giggled.

"Where do you live?" Julian continued.

The lady dived into the back part of her skirt, and, after a long and passionate pursuit, ran a small purse to earth. Opening it with deliberation, she extracted a good-sized card, and handed it up to Julian.

"There you are, dearie," she said.

On the card was printed, "Cuckoo Bright, 400 Marylebone Road."

"I will come at five this afternoon and take you out to tea," said

Julian.

"Right you are, Bertie," the lady cried, in a voice thrilling with pride and exultation.

Julian rode off, and she watched him go, preening herself against the rail like some gaudy bird. She looked up at a policeman and laughed knowingly.

"Well, copper," she said; "how's that, eh?"

The policeman was equal to the occasion.

"Not out," he answered, with a stiff and semi-official smile. "Move along."

And Cuckoo Bright moved as one who walked on air.

Julian had joined Valentine, who had observed the colloquy from afar, controlling with some difficulty the impatience of his mare, excited by her gallop.

"You know that lady?" he asked, still laughing, with perhaps a touch of contempt.

"Very platonically. We met at a coffee-stall in Piccadilly as I was going home after your trance. She was with me when I saw that strange flame."

"When you imagined you saw it."

"If you prefer it, Val. I am going to see her this afternoon."

"My dear fellow—why?"

"I'll tell you," Julian answered gravely. "I believe she is the woman who went to the 'European' with Marr, who must have been with Marr when he was taken ill, and who fled. I have a reason for thinking so."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you later, when I have talked to her."

"Surely you don't suspect the poor creature of foul play?"

"Not I. It's sheer curiosity that takes me to her."

"Oh."

They rode on a step or two. Then Valentine said:

"Are you going to take her out? She's—well, she is a trifle unmistakable, Julian."

"Yes, I know. You are right. She's not for afternoon wear, poor soul.

What damned scoundrels men are."

Valentine did not join in the sentiment thus forcibly expressed.

Between four and five that afternoon Julian hailed a cab and drove to Marylebone Road. The houses in it seemed endless, and dreary alike, but at length the cab drew up at number 400, tall, gaunt and haggard, like the rest. Julian rang the bell, and immediately a shrill dog barked with a piping fury within the house. Then the door was opened by an old woman, whose arid face was cabalistic, and who looked as if she spent her existence in expecting a raid from the police.

"Is Miss Cuckoo Bright at home?"

"Miss Bright! I'll see."

The old dame turned tail, and slithered, flat-footed, to a room opening from the dirty passage. She vanished and Julian heard two gentle voices muttering. The old woman returned.

"This way, sir!" she said, in a voice that perpetually struggled to get the whip-hand of an obvious bronchitis.

A moment more and Julian stood in the acute presence of the lady of the feathers. At first he scarcely recognized her, for she had discarded her crown of glory and now faced him in the strange frivolity of her hatless touzled hair. She stood by the square table covered with a green cloth, that occupied the centre of the small room, which communicated by folding doors with an inner chamber. A pastile was burning drowsily in a corner, and the shrill dog piped seditiously from its station on a black horsehair-covered sofa, over which a woolwork rug was thrown in easy abandon. Julian extended his hand.

"How d'you do?" he said.

"Pretty bobbish, my dear," was the reply; but the voice was much less pert than he remembered it, and looking at his hostess, Julian perceived that she was considerably younger than he had imagined, and that she was actually—amazing luxury!—a little shy. She had a box of safety-matches in her hand, and she now struck one, and applied it to a gas-burner. The day was dark.

"Pleased to see you," she added, with an attempt at a hearty and untutored air. "Jessie, shut up."

Jessie, the dog, of the toy species, and arched into the shape of a note of interrogation, obeyed, lay down and trembled into sleep. The gaslight revealed the details of the sordid room, a satin box of sweetmeats on the table, a penny bunch of sweet violets in a specimen-glass, one or two yellow-backed novels, and a few photographs ranged upon the imitation marble mantelpiece. There was one arm-chair, whose torn lining indecently revealed the interior stuffing, and there were three other chairs with wooden backs. The lady of the feathers did not dwell in marble halls, unless, perhaps, imaginatively.

"You've got cosey quarters," Julian said, amiably lying.

"Yes, they're not bad, but they do cost money. Sit down, won't you!"

The lady shoved the one arm-chair forward, and after a polite skirmish, Julian was forced to take it. He sat down, disguising from his companion his sudden knowledge that the springs were broken. She, on her part, laid hold of Jessie, dumped the little creature into her lap, and assumed an air of abrupt gentility, pursing her painted lips, and shooting sidelong glances of inquiry at the furniture. Julian could not at once explain his errand. He felt that caution was imperative. Besides, the lady doubtless expected to be entertained at Verrey's or possibly even at Charbonnel's. But Julian had resolved to throw himself upon the lady's hospitality.

"It's an awful day," he said.

The lady assented, adding that she had not been out.

"We are very cosey here," Julian continued, gazing at the small fire that was sputtering in the grate.

The lady looked gratified. She felt that the meagre abode which she must name home had received the hallmark of a "toff's" approval.