Читать книгу The Orchard of Tears - Sax Rohmer - Страница 10

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A trellis-covered path canopied with roses led up to the door of Dovelands Cottage. On the left was a low lichened wall, and on the right a bed of flowers bordering a trimly kept lawn, which faced the rustic porch. Dovelands Cottage was entirely screened from the view of anyone passing along Babylon Lane by a high and dense privet hedge, which carried on its unbroken barrier to the end of the tiny orchard and kitchen-garden flanking the bungalow building on the left.

As Paul opened the white gate a cattle-bell attached to it jangled warningly, and out into the porch Mrs. Duveen came to meet them. She was a tiny woman, having a complexion like a shrivelled pippin, and the general appearance of a Zingari, for she wore huge ear-rings and possessed shrewd eyes of Oriental shape and colour. There was a bluish tinge about her lips, and she had a trick of pressing one labour-gnarled hand to her breast. She curtsied quaintly.

Paul greeted her with the charming courtesy which he observed towards everyone.

"Mrs. Duveen, I believe? I am Paul Mario, and this is Captain Courtier, who has a message to give to you. I fear we may have come at an awkward hour, but Captain Courtier's time is unfortunately limited."

Mrs. Duveen repeated the curtsey. "Will it please you to step in, sirs," she said, her eyes fixed upon Don's face in a sort of eager scrutiny. "It is surely kind of you to come, sir"—to Don.

They entered a small living room, stuffy because of the characteristically closed windows, but marked by a neatness of its appointments for which the gipsy appearance of Mrs. Duveen had not prepared them. There were several unframed drawings in pastel and water-colour, of birds and animals, upon the walls, and above the little mantelshelf hung a gleaming German helmet, surmounted by a golden eagle. On the mantelshelf itself were fuses, bombs and shell-cases, a china clock under a glass dome, and a cabinet photograph of a handsome man in the uniform of a sergeant of Irish Guards. Before the clock, and resting against it so as to occupy the place of honour, was a silver cigarette case.

Don's eyes, as his gaze fell on this last ornament, grew unaccountably misty, and he turned aside, staring out of the low window. Mrs. Duveen, who throughout the time that she had been placing chairs for her visitors (first dusting the seats with her apron) had watched the captain constantly, at the same moment burst into tears.

"God bless you for coming, sir," she sobbed. "Michael loved the ground you walked on, and he'd have been a happy man to-day to have seen you here in his own house."

Don made no reply, continuing to stare out of the window, and Mrs. Duveen cried, silently now. Presently Paul caught his friend's eye and mutely conveying warning of his intention, rose.

"Your grief does you honour, Mrs. Duveen," he said. "Your husband was one I should have been proud to call my friend, and I envy Captain Courtier the memory of such a comrade. There are confidences upon which it is not proper that I should intrude; therefore, with your permission, I am going to admire your charming garden until you wish me to rejoin you."

Bareheaded, he stepped out through the porch and on to the trim lawn, noting in passing that the home-made bookshelf beside the door bore copies of Shakespeare, Homer, Horace and other volumes rarely found in a workman's abode. Lémpriére's Classical Dictionary was there, and Kipling's Jungle Book, Darwin's Origin of Species, and Selous' Romance of Insect Life. Assuredly, Sergeant Duveen had been a strange man.

Some twenty minutes later the widow came out, followed by Don. Mrs. Duveen's eyes were red, but she had recovered her composure, and now held in her hand the silver cigarette case from the mantelpiece.

"May I show you this, sir," she said, repeating her quaint curtsey to Paul. "Michael valued it more than anything he possessed."

Paul took the case from her hand and examined the inscription:

To Sergeant Michael Duveen,

—Company, Irish Guards,

from Captain Donald Courtier,

in memory of February 9th, 1916.

Opening the case, he found it to contain a photograph of Don. The latter, who was watching him, spoke:

"My affairs would have terminated on February the ninth, Paul, if Duveen had not been there. He was pipped twice."

"His honour doesn't tell you, sir," added Mrs. Duveen, "that he brought Michael in on his back with the bullets thick around him."

"Oh! oh!" cried Don gaily. "So that's the story, is it! Well, never mind, Mrs. Duveen; it was all in the day's work. What the Sergeant did deserved the V.C., and he'd have had it if I could have got it for him. What I did was no more than the duty of a stretcher-bearer."

Mrs. Duveen shook her head, smiling wanly, the thin hand pressed to her breast. "I'm sorry you couldn't meet Flamby, sir," she said. "She should have been home before this."

"No matter," replied Don. "I shall look forward to meeting her on my next visit."

They took their departure, Mrs. Duveen accompanying them to the gate and watching Don as long as he remained in sight.

"Did you observe the drawings on the wall?" he asked Paul, as they pursued their way along Babylon Lane.

"I did. They were original and seemed to be interesting."

"Remarkably so; and they are the work of our wood nymph."

"Really! Where can she have acquired her art?"

"From her father, I gather. Paul, I am keenly disappointed to have missed Flamby. The child of such singularly ill-assorted parents could not well fail to be unusual. I wonder if the girl suspects that her father was not what he seemed? Mrs. Duveen has always taken the fact for granted that her husband was a nobleman in disguise! It may account for her adoration of a man who seems to have led her a hell of a life. I have placed in her hands a certain locket which Duveen wore attached to a chain about his neck; I believe that it contains evidence of his real identity, but he clearly intended his wife to remain in perpetual ignorance of this, for the locket is never to be opened except by Flamby, and only by Flamby on the day of her wedding. I fear this popular-novel theme will offend your æsthetic sensibilities, Paul!"

"My dear fellow, I am rapidly approaching the conclusion that life is made up more of melodrama than of psychological hair-splitting and that the penmen dear to the servants' hall more truly portray it than Henry James ever hoped to do or Meredith attempted. The art of to-day is the art of deliberate avoidance of the violent, and many critics persist in confusing it with truth. There is nothing precious about selfish, covetous, lustful humanity; therefore, good literature creates a refined humanity of its own, which converses in polished periods and never comes to blows."

"What of Madame Caligula? And what of the critics who hailed Francesca of the Lilies as a tragedy worthy to name with Othello!"

"Primitive passions are acceptable if clothed in doublet and hose, Don. My quarrel with to-day is that it pretends to have lived them down."

"Let us give credit where credit is due. Prussia has not hesitated to proclaim her sympathy with the primitive. Did you observe an eagle-crowned helmet above Mrs. Duveen's fireplace?"

"Yes; you know its history?"

"Some part of its history. It was worn by a huge Prussian officer, who, together with his staff, was surprised and captured during the operations of March 1st, 1916; a delightful little coup. I believe I told you that Sergeant Duveen had been degraded, but had afterwards recovered his stripes?"

"You did, yes."

"It was this incident which led to his losing them. He was taking particulars of rank and so forth of the prisoners, and this imposing fellow with the golden helmet stood in front of all the others, arms folded, head aloft, disdainfully surveying his surroundings. He spoke perfect English and when Duveen asked him his name and rank and requested him to hand over the sword he was wearing, he bluntly refused to have any dealings whatever with a 'damned common sergeant.' Those were his own words.

"Duveen very patiently pointed out that he was merely performing a duty for which he had been detailed and added that he resented the Prussian's language and should have resented it from one of his own officers. He then repeated the request. The Prussian replied that if he had him in his own lines he would tie him to a gun and flog him to death.

"Duveen stood up and walked around the empty case which was doing service as a table. He stepped up to take the sword which the other had refused to surrender; whereupon the Prussian very promptly and skilfully knocked him down. Immediately some of the boys made a rush, but Duveen, staggering to his feet, waved them back. He deliberately unbuttoned his tunic, took off his cap and unhitching his braces, fastened his belt around his waist. To everybody's surprise the lordly Prussian did likewise. A ring was formed and a fight began that would have brought in the roof of the National Sporting Club!

"Feeling ran high against the Prussian, but he was a bigger man than Duveen and a magnificent boxer. Excited betting was in full swing when I appeared on the scene. Of course my duty was plain. But I had young Conroy with me and he pulled me aside before the men saw us.

"'Five to one in fivers on the sergeant!' he said.

"I declined the bet, for I knew something of Duveen's form; but I did not interrupt the fight! And, by gad! it was a splendid fight! It lasted for seventeen minutes without an interval, and Duveen could never have stayed another two, I'll swear, when the Prussian made the mistake of closing with him. I knew it was finished then. Duveen got in his pet hook with the right and fairly lifted his opponent out of the sentient world.

"I felt like cheering; but before I could retire Duveen turned, a bloody sight, and looked at me, out of puffy eyes. He sprang to attention, and 'I am your prisoner, sir,' said he.

"That left me no way out, and I had to put him under arrest. Just as he was staggering off between his guards the Prussian recovered consciousness and managed to get upon his feet. His gaze falling on Duveen, he held out one huge hand to him—"

"Good! he was a sportsman after all!"

"Duveen took it—and the Prussian, grasping that dangerous right of the sergeant's in his iron grip, struck him under the ear with his left and knocked him insensible across the improvised table!"

Paul pulled up in the roadway, his dark eyes flashing: "The swine!" he exclaimed—"the—ee swine!"

"I had all my work cut out then to keep the men off the fellow. But finally a car came for him he was the Grand Duke of Something or other—and he was driven back to the base. He had resumed his golden helmet, and he sat, in spite of his bloody face, scornfully glancing at the hostile group about the car, like a conquering pagan emperor. Then the car moved off out of the heap of rubbish, once a village, amid which the incident had taken place. At the same moment, a brick, accurately thrown, sent the golden helmet spinning into the road!

"Search was made for it, but the helmet was never found. I don't know who threw the brick, Paul (Duveen was under arrest at the time), but that is the helmet above his widow's mantelpiece! The men who have witnessed incidents of this kind will no longer continue to believe in the veneer of modern life, for they will know that the true savage lies hidden somewhere underneath."

They were come to the end of Babylon Lane and stood now upon the London road. Above the cornfield on the right hovered a sweet-voiced lark and the wild hedges were astir with active bird life. Velvet bees droned on their way and the air was laden with the fragrance of an English summer. Along the road flashed a motor bicycle, bearing a khaki-clad messenger and above the distant town flew a Farman biplane gleaming in the sunlight. The remote strains of a military band were audible.

"The Roman road," mused Don, "constructed in the misty unimaginable past, for war, and used by us to-day—for war. Oh, lud! in a week I shall be in the thick of it again. Babylon Hall? Who resides at that imposing mansion, Paul?"

They stood before the open gates of a fine Georgian building, lying far back from the road amid neatly striped lawns and well-kept gardens.

"The celebrated Jules Thessaly, I believe," replied Paul; "but I have never met him."

"Jules Thessaly! Really? I met him only three months ago near Bethune (a neighbourhood which I always associate with Milady and the headsman in The Three Musketeers)."

"What was he doing in Bethune?"

"What does he do anywhere? He was visiting the French and British fronts, accompanied by an imposing array of 'Staffs.' He has tremendous influence of some kind—financial probably."

"An interesting character. I hope we may meet. By the way, do you manage to do much work nowadays? I rarely see your name."

"It is impossible to do anything but war stuff, Paul, when one is in the middle of it. You saw the set of drawings I did for The Courier?"

"Yes; I thought them fine. I have them in album form. They were excellently noticed throughout the press."

Don's face assumed an expression of whimsical disgust. "There is a certain type of critic," he said "who properly ought to have been a wardrobe dealer: he is eternally reaching down the 'mantle' of somebody or other and assuring the victim of his kindness that it fits him like a glove. Now no man can make a show in a second-hand outfit, and an artist is lost when folks begin to talk about the 'mantle' of somebody or other having 'fallen upon him.' A critic can do nothing so unkind as to brand a poor poet 'The Australian Kipling,' a painter 'The Welsh Whistler,' or a comedian 'The George Robey of South Africa.' The man is doomed."

"And what particular offender has inspired this outburst?"

"Some silly ass who has dubbed me 'the Dana Gibson of the trenches'! It's a miserable outrage; my work isn't a scrap like Gibson's; it's not so well drawn, for one thing, and it doesn't even remotely resemble his in form. But never mind. When I come back I'll show 'em! What I particularly want to ask you, Paul, is to get in touch with Duveen's girl; she has really remarkable talent. I have never seen such an insight into wild life as is exhibited in her rough drawings. I fear I shall be unable to come down here again. There are hosts of sisters, cousins and aunts, all of whom expect to be taken to the latest musical play or for a week-end to Brighton: that's how we victimised bachelors spend our hard-earned leave! But I promised Duveen I would do all in my power for his daughter. It would be intolerable for a girl of that kind to be left to run wild here, and I am fortunately well placed to help her as she chances to be a fellow-painter. Will you find out all about her, Paul, and let me know if we can arrange for her to study properly?"

"You really consider that she has talent?"

"My dear fellow! go and inspect her work for yourself. Considering her limited opportunities, it is wonderful."

"Rely upon me, Don. She shall have her chance."

Don grasped his arm. "Tell Mrs. Duveen that she will receive a special allowance on account of her husband's services," he said, bending towards Paul. "Don't worry about expenses. You understand?"

"My dear Don, of course I understand. But I insist upon sharing this protégée with you. Oh, I shall take no refusal. My gratitude to the man who saved my best pal must find an outlet! So say no more. Do you return to London to-night?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But you must arrange to spend a day, or at any rate an evening, with me in town before my leave expires. Are you thinking of taking up your residence at Hatton Towers?"

Paul made a gesture of indecision. "It is a lovely old place," he said; "but I feel that I need to be in touch with the pulse of life, if I am to diagnose its ailments. Latterly London has become distasteful to me; it seems like a huge mirror reflecting all the horrors, the shams, the vices of the poor scarred world. To retire to Hatton in the companionship of Yvonne would be delightful, but would also be desertion. No idle chance brought us together to-day, Don; it was that Kismet to which the Arab ascribes every act of life. I was hesitating on a brink; you pushed me over; and at this very hour I am falling into the arms of Fate. I believe it is my appointed task to sow the seed of truth; a mighty task, but because at last I realise its dimensions I begin to have confidence that I may succeed."

Don stood still in the road, facing Paul. "Choose your seed with care, Paul, for generations yet unborn will eat of its fruit."