Читать книгу Ashes of Empire - Robert William Chambers - Страница 10

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The sun was shining through the blinds when Harewood awoke. He lay quite still examining his new surroundings, trying to remember where he was. The bandage on his head had stiffened; he untied it, and was gratified to discover that no serious damage had been accomplished by Mon Oncle.

As he lay there, winking amiably in the sunlight, he heard somebody tramping about in the next room. Without moving, he opened his mouth and called:

“Bourke!”

“Hello!” came the answer.

“What time is it?”

“Half past seven! I’m nearly dressed.”

“Is to-day Saturday?”

“Saturday, tenth of September, eighteen hundred and seventy,” replied Bourke. A moment later he appeared at the door and enquired, “How’s your noddle?”

“All right,” yawned Harewood, “how’s your own?”

Bourke sat down at the foot of the bed and buttoned his collar, whistling gaily.

“I saw Shannon and Malet last night,” he said; “I met them on the boulevard Montparnasse after I stabled the horses. They are coming this morning. I asked them to wire Stauffer and Speyer.”

Harewood sniffed.

“Stauffer seems to be all right,” he observed, “but I can’t stand Speyer.”

“I don’t like Speyer any better than you do, but we can’t leave him out of a conference. What we’ve got to do is to hold a conference; I’ve telegraphed Winston and Sutherland; the whole crowd is to meet here at ten o’clock this morning.” Harewood rubbed his battered head thoughtfully.

“As for me,” continued Bourke, “I know what I shall say.”

“What?”

“This. I’m going to stay in Paris. The Times has sent me out to get all the news I can—and get it as soon as I can.”

“And transmit it as soon as you get it—”

“Exactly.”

“Which you can’t do if you’re cooped up in Paris! You’d better come to Saint Cloud.”

“Nobody is going to be cooped up in Paris. The fighting will be done here, and the fellows who leave Paris will miss the whole show. You will be badly fooled, my son, if you let Winston or old Sutherland persuade you to leave Paris.”

“Shannon and Malet won’t stay.”

“Yes, they will. I don’t care what Speyer does—I hope he gets out. But, Jim, your precious Syndicate won’t thank you for leaving Paris just as the orchestra is tuning up for the overture.”

“But,” persisted the other, “if we make our headquarters at Saint Cloud or Versailles we can see the entire circus and also have the wires when we want them.”

“No, we can’t,” replied Bourke; “if Paris is surrounded by the German armies, Versailles will lie directly in the path of investment. Your instructions and mine are to stay with the French army. How can we, if we go to Versailles?”

“Well,” said Harewood, “I want to hear what the other fellows say, and that ought to carry some weight with you, too,” he added; “every big journal in New York will be represented.”

“And some little ones, too.”

“O, you mean Speyer’s?”

Bourke nodded and rose.

“Come, jump up,” he said, “here’s your tub. I had all our things brought over last night. Shall I pour the water in? There you are! Now hurry—and I forgot to tell you that I have made arrangements to take our meals in the house. It saves time.”

Harewood looked at him.

“Yes—it saves time. Where do we take our breakfast, for example,—with our hostesses?”

“Downstairs, of course,” said Bourke, briskly; “it will be ready before you are. Get up.” He went into his own room, whistling, and Harewood sprang out of bed and looked at his maltreated head in the mirror.

“Lucky it wasn’t my nose,” he reflected, “since I’m to breakfast with young ladies.”

When he had bathed and dressed, and stood again before the looking glass, parting and reparting his hair, Bourke came and stood in the doorway. He was particularly well groomed, and evidently aware of it.

“The one,” said Harewood, making a mathematically equal division of his hair—“the one with the dark eyes, you know—what is her name, Bourke?”

“Hildé,” said Bourke, reflectively.

“Hildé—what?”

“Hildé Chalais. Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten.”

“Is she the older or the younger?”

“They’re twins.”

“How the devil did you find all that out?”

“I don’t know,” said Bourke sincerely, “really I don’t know. Somehow or other they told me. I saw them last night when I came back from the Vaugirard. We stood chatting on the stairs. You were asleep up here.”

There was a silence, then Harewood spoke up impatiently, “Well, what did they say?”

“I don’t know. The whole thing is funny, anyway. It seems we are living over a bird store. They told me the story. Do you want to hear it?”

“Go on.”

“Well, it appears that those two young girls have been keeping house here for a year. Before that their uncle kept it. His name was Chalais; he was erratic, I believe—a sort of soured savant. Anyway, he died a year ago, and these two girls had to leave their convent school and come here and run the place. I guess they haven’t any too much money; I believe old Chalais left nothing but debts and birds and a few curses for the government that refused him a berth. Two young German students had this apartment for several months, but they left without paying their rent, and I fancy nobody has been here since. That’s all I know.”

Harewood tied his necktie twice before it satisfied him.

“Rather tough on them, wasn’t it?” he said. “You say they are poor?”

“Yes. I’m glad we took the apartment.”

“The—the one with brown eyes—what did you say her name is?” asked Harewood, without turning.

“I said her name is Hildé,” said Bourke, drily. “The other is named Yolette. They are both pretty.”

“Yes. They’re both extremely ornamental,” admitted Harewood.

Bourke looked at him sharply, saying:

“And they’re as innocent as two kittens. You might as well know that. I don’t mean wishy-washy. I mean they’re really absolutely and deliciously good. O, you can see it at a glance. By the way, did you ever see such a perfect combination of deep blue eyes and silky purple-black hair, with a skin like snow—”

“As—?”

“As Yolette’s.”

“O, I’ve seen that in Ireland—often,” replied Harewood, “but I never before assisted at the colour symphony which her sister presents—brown eyes, and gilt-coloured hair.”

“Gilt!” laughed Bourke; “nice way you have of putting things.”

“O, well, come on, I’m ready. Does this bump on my head show much?”

When they reached the stairway that led into the bird store, Hildé met them with shy reserve, and led the way across the hall. They followed her to the parlour, which was also the dining-room. Yolette sat at a small mahogany table, solemnly watching the steaming kettle. She raised her clear eyes as they entered and said good-morning with a smile that was at once apprehensive and confiding. The two young men made their bows. Then Yolette poured the café-au-lait. Her manner was that of a very young person unexpectedly burdened with tremendous responsibilities, which must be borne with self-possession.

“My sister and I,” began Yolette, “dine at seven—would that hour suit you, messieurs?”

She spoke to both, looking at Bourke, perhaps because Harewood was looking at Hildé.

The two young men became at once very fluent in the French language. They explained with one voice that the régime of the house should be established on one basis, namely, the convenience of their hostesses. They explained that neither of them was to be considered for one moment, and they added that they desired to make some amends for the trouble they would give by placing their services at the disposal of their hostesses. Perhaps this was not the usual method of settling a business relation, but it answered to perfection, and before long the young girls felt their formality and shyness melting like frost at sunrise.

And how prettily they laughed at the young men’s discomfiture when Schéhèrazade, the lioness, bounded silently into the room and sprang on to the sofa.

She lay there purring and licking her padded paws, her tawny eyes mildly blinking at the company. Yolette ran over and leaned on the sofa beside her, one cheek pressed against the creature’s velvety head.

“Her ancestors for generations have been born in captivity,” explained Hildé to Harewood. “There is no more harm in her than in any house cat. My uncle brought her up; my sister and I have always played with her.”

“Were you startled,” Yolette said to Bourke. “Won’t you come and be introduced?” Bourke went a little slowly; the lioness, pleasantly indifferent, suffered him to pat her head.

Harewood contented himself with a distant observation of the splendid animal, and remained where, without seeming to, he could watch Hildé moving swiftly back and forth between the kitchen and parlour, removing cups and saucers and laying a cloth over the mahogany table.

“This room is also the smoking-room,” she said, gravely, as she passed the table with her arms full of cups and plates; “it was my uncle’s custom to smoke here at all times.”

She stood looking down at Harewood, a faint smile in her brown eyes. Then she glanced at her sister.

“Of course,” said Yolette, “it will be pleasant to have the odour of tobacco in the house again.” As before she looked at Bourke when she spoke, and he, accepting the permission as a command, lighted his cigarette with a cheerful alacrity that made them all laugh.

The morning sun poured into the room; from the shop outside came the twittering of the birds, the chatter of the squirrel and sharp screams from the parrot.

“Would you care to see them?” asked Hildé, still looking down at Harewood. “I will go with you when I have taken away the cups.”

“Never mind the cups,” said Yolette; “I will take them. It is time to change the water for the birds, Hildé.”

Hildé went into the kitchen with the cups, and returned carrying a pitcher of fresh water. Harewood followed her, bowing to Yolette. She and Bourke were standing on either side of the lioness, pulling her ears and rubbing her hair the wrong way—attentions which Schéhèrazade majestically ignored.

Presently Yolette laid her head against the creature’s cheek, murmuring alternate terms of endearment and reproof. The lioness closed her eyes and purred ecstatically.

“What is her name?” asked Bourke.

“Schéhèrazade. Her father’s name was Djebe. His father’s name was Ghenghis Kahn. I have the pedigree in a book. I will show it to you some day. I am sure you think this is a strange household—full of lions and monkeys and birds. As for me, I should be very lonely without them; I have lived in the midst of them ever since I can remember, except when Hildé and I were at the Ursalines,” she continued, pulling Schéhèrazade’s toes. “Although we keep a bird store, Hildé and I can’t bear to sell our birds. We grow so fond of them—but, of course, we are obliged to sell them. We have sold none at all since the war began, although every week we have a place at the bird market by the Hôtel de Ville. Tell me, monsieur, were you frightened when you first saw Schéhèrazade?”

“Scared to death,” admitted Bourke gravely.

Yolette dragged Schéhèrazade’s big lazy head up to her own face and laughed gaily. “I meant to tell you about my lion, but I forgot. You must like her—won’t you?”

Bourke patted the lion’s paws discreetly. He was pleased to find that she had no claws.

“Of course I shall like her; I am quite in love with her now,” he said with a little more confidence for this discovery—“only—I hope she’ll know me in the dark—”

Yolette laughed again.

“Perhaps you and Monsieur Harewood had better give me back the latchkeys, then—”

“No,” said Bourke, “I think we’ll retain them, if you will just remind her that late suppers produce indigestion. And—er—will you show me where she keeps herself at night?”

Yolette, greatly amused, assented, rising lightly, and dragging Schéhèrazade with her. Bourke followed through the kitchen, along a hallway and out into a garden full of trees and paths, surrounded by high stucco walls. A stone trough filled with very clear running water stood in the deep grass under the shadow of the wall. Beyond this stretched a tangle of grass, roses and fruit trees.

“This is Schéhèrazade’s playground,” said the girl, picking up a big painted rubber ball. Straightening up, she tossed the ball out into the grass with the charming awkwardness that attacks the gentler sex when throwing or catching anything.

The lioness, much gratified, bounded after the ball, seized it, patted it first with one paw, then with the other, and finally lay down, biting the ball and scratching it with her hind toes.

Bourke observed this pleasing performance in silence. When Schéhèrazade gambolled and frisked he nodded approval; when she loped heavily off to a thicket of rose bushes, carrying the ball in her mouth, he expressed himself as edified. But, to tell the truth, he was far from experiencing that sense of repose in the company of Schéhèrazade that he felt was expected of him.

“It’s a fine lion,” he said after a moment or two; “but perhaps one needs time to appreciate lions. Shall we go and examine the birds?”

Yolette smiled and said yes, and led the way into the bird store.

Harewood and Hildé, standing together by the window, looked up quickly as Yolette entered. At the same moment Hildé dropped the pitcher of water.

“Why, Hildé,” exclaimed Yolette, “you have broken our blue pitcher! Dear me! Look at the floor!”

Hildé’s consternation and Harewood’s forced gaiety jarred on Bourke. He looked at Hildé’s flushed face, then at his comrade, who returned his glance mutinously. Yolette brought a mop: Hildé, with a breathless smile at her sister, picked up a fragment of the pitcher’s handle and held it at arm’s length until Harewood took it and set himself to gather up the other scattered bits of blue china.

“You see,” he said lightly. “I’ve just been bitten by the squirrel and the monkey, and I was courting further mutilation from the parrot yonder when the pitcher fell and saved me. Mademoiselle, I am very sorry that my salvation was at the expense of your pitcher.”

“Your salvation is expensive, but we must have it,” said Bourke; there was a touch of sarcasm in his voice that made Harewood’s ears tingle. Yolette said, innocently: “Monsieur Harewood, the birds and creatures did not know you; therefore, they were frightened and they bit. My sister should have told you about the parrot.”

“I can’t help it,” said Hildé, avoiding Bourke’s eyes. “Monsieur Harewood will not wait to become acquainted; he attempts to conquer everything at once, and birds and squirrels don’t like that.”

Bourke transferred his gaze to Harewood.

At that moment Mehemet Ali, the gray and scarlet African parrot, climbed down from his perch, bit Harewood, and climbed back again, flapping his wings and shrieking with joy.

“Now,” said Harewood, “I suppose I may be received into the family circle. Everything has bitten me—except that jackdaw. Does he bite, mademoiselle?”

Hildé seemed more distressed than there appeared reason for, and said “No” in such a discouraged voice that both Yolette and Bourke laughed outright.

“Won’t you introduce me, too?” said Bourke. “Won’t you take me around to be bitten?”

“Not now,” said Yolette. “I must find Red Riding Hood and go to the kitchen.” She took Hildé’s hand and they moved towards the door.

“Luncheon at one?” asked Bourke.

“At one, monsieur,” and they vanished with a light swish of skirts, closing the door that led to the kitchen beyond.

Bourke and Harewood walked out to the front door and sat down on the step.

After a short period of meditation Bourke said: “Jim, do you agree with me in saying that our hostesses are as innocent as two white kittens?”

“Why white kittens?” asked Harewood, argumentatively, and added, “of course they are.”

“Well,” continued Bourke, “because they are so innocent, it would be a shame to disturb them—I mean to attempt any fool flirtation. Wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t see why you say that to me,” said Harewood, sharply.

“I only meant—for myself as well as you—that we’ve got to be careful. You know as well as I do that what is called flirtation in America is not understood in France. They would take anything like that seriously.”

Harewood was silent.

“Of course, I’m more or less susceptible to a pretty face,” continued Bourke; “so are you, if your reputation doesn’t belie you—”

“Let my reputation alone,” interrupted Harewood.

“Yes, it’s not a subject for analytical discussion. As I say, I’m not insensible myself; but in this case we—in short—we absolutely must not make asses of ourselves.”

“What’s the matter with you,” enquired Harewood, crossly.

“The matter is, that I think we had better be clear about this situation from the beginning. Heaven knows we shall be busy enough with our own affairs—and they will be with theirs, and as for our leisure hours, if we have any, don’t you think we can employ them more safely than in hanging around two dangerously pretty girls?”

“Can’t a man talk to them without making love to them?” demanded Harewood, hotly.

“Can you?” asked Bourke in his turn.

Harewood shrugged his shoulders. “I can behave myself,” he observed, “if I try.”

“You never have,” retorted Bourke. “It’s as natural to you to make love as it is to breathe. You never are serious and you usually make mischief some way or other. You can’t say I ever interfered before, but I tell you, Jim, I think it would be a damned shame to trouble the peace of mind of Hildé Chalais.”

“So do I,” said Harewood. “Let’s drop the subject.”

They stood up, looking at each other. Harewood coloured and laughed.

“I can’t help it,” he said, “I’ve gone too far already, Cecil.”

“Already?” cried Bourke, incredulously.

“Yes!”

“Good heavens!” groaned Bourke, “you don’t mean to say you’ve begun already?”

“Yes, I’m sorry; it was thoughtless—”

“You—you haven’t made love to her in these few minutes? Jim, it’s impossible!”

Harewood moved uneasily.

“Have you?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Seriously?”

“Not very.”

“You—you didn’t kiss her?”

Harewood was silent.

Bourke looked at him in amazement.

“Not Hildé?”

Harewood did not answer.

After a moment’s silence Bourke sat down on the steps and swore under his breath. Harewood stood by, restless and ashamed.

“You understand, Cecil,” he said, in a low voice, “that was a confession—not a boast. I’m damned sorry—she looked so dainty and sweet—you know how thoughtless I am about such things—”

“O, hang it all!” burst out Bourke, “what do I care! If a girl lets a man kiss her like that—by Jove, she can take the consequences!”

Harewood wanted to speak, but Bourke interrupted him.

“I was mistaken in the girl, that’s all. She looks as innocent as a white kitten behind a milk jug—and she is—just as innocent. They’re all alike, anyway. Go on and spoon, if you choose; it’s none of my business.”

Harewood murmured; “Cecil, you don’t think—”

“No,” interrupted Bourke, “I don’t think you’re a blackguard, Jim, but it’s a selfish pastime, this useless awakening of a woman’s heart. What I fear is that you and Hildé will get into a desperate love affair, and it will perhaps leave one of you unhappy. And that won’t be you, you know, Jim.”

“I don’t know,” said the other: a queer light flashed in his eyes for a moment, then he laughed. “Anyway, don’t take it seriously. We were standing close together when that damned monkey bit me. Hildé cried ‘Oh!’ so prettily and looked so grieved—and I—I just put my arm around her waist; then she looked at me so—well—so—so—O, the devil! how do I know; let’s forget it, won’t you? There are some things a man ought to shut up about.”

“I don’t ask your confidence,” said Cecil, morosely.

“You’re the only man who has ever had it. As for this child—the whole incident was innocent and harmless enough. I’ve half forgotten it; and she will, completely, in no time at all.”

“All right,” said Bourke; “here come Winston and Sutherland. They’re on time; it’s just ten.”