Читать книгу The Divine Fire - Sinclair May - Страница 27

Table of Contents

It was the afternoon of Saturday the fourth that Mr. Rickman, looking up from his table, saw a brilliant apparition coming across the lawn. He dreaded afternoon callers, he dreaded the post, he dreaded every person and every thing which reminded him that Lucia Harden had a life that he knew not and that knew not him.

"Lucia—Lucia!" Mr. Rickman looked up and saw the brilliant apparition standing in the south window. "Lu-chee-a!—" it pleaded. "You can't say you're out when I can see perfectly well that you're in."

"Go away Kitty, I'm busy."

"You've no business to be busy at five o'clock in the afternoon."

Miss Kitty Palliser's body was outside the window, but her head, crowned with a marvellous double-peaked hat of Parma violets, was already within the room.

"I'm dying of thirst," she said; "take me in and be kind to me and give me tea."

Lucia rose and went to the window, reluctant but resigned. Scraps of their conversation floated down to Mr. Rickman's end of the room.

"Yes, you may well look at my hat."

"I wasn't looking at it, I was looking through it."

"Well, if you can see through my hat, Lucia, you can see through me. What do you think of it?"

"Of the hat? Oh, the hat is a poem."

"Isn't it? Did you ever see anything so inspired, so impassioned?"

"Inspired, but—don't you think—just a little, a little meaningless?"

"Meaningless? It's packed with meaning."

"I should like to know what it means."

"If it means nothing else it means that I've been going to and fro the whole blessed afternoon, paying calls in Harmouth for my sins."

"Poor Kitty."

"The last three times I paid calls in Harmouth," said poor Kitty, "I sported a cycling skirt, the blousiest of blouses, and a tam-o'shanter over my left ear. Of course everybody was in. So I thought if I went like this—brand new frock—swagger hat—white gloves—that everybody would be out."

"And were they?"

"No. Just like my luck—they were all—all in!"

"And yet you have the audacity to come here and ask for tea?"

"For Goodness' sake, don't talk of tea."

"I thought you were so thirsty."

"So I am. I thirst for amusement."

"Kitty! You've been amusing yourself all afternoon—at other people's expense."

"Yes. It's cheap—awfully cheap, but fatiguing. I don't want to amuse myself; I want to be amused."

Mr. Rickman took a longer look at the brilliant apparition.

Now, at a little distance, Miss Palliser passed as merely an ordinary specimen of a brilliant but conventional type. This effect was an illusion produced by her irreproachably correct attire. As she drew nearer it became apparent that convention could never have had very much to do with her. Tailor and milliner were responsible for the general correctness of Miss Palliser's appearance, Miss Palliser herself for the riot and confusion of the details. Her coat, flung open, displayed a tangle of laces disposed after her own fancy. Her skirts, so flawless and sedate, swept as if inspired by the storm of her long-legged impetuous stride. Under her too, too fashionable hat her brown hair was twisted in a way entirely her own; and fashion had left untouched the wild originality of her face. Bumpy brows, jutting eyebrows, and nose long in the bridge, wide in the nostril, tilted in a gentle gradient; a wide full-lipped nervous mouth, and no chin to speak of. A thin face lit by restless greenish eyes; stag-like, dog-like, humorous and alert.

Miss Palliser sent the gaze of those eyes round the room. The hungry, Satanic humour in them roved, seeking what it might devour. It fell upon Mr. Rickman.

"What have you got there?"

Miss Harden's reply was inaudible.

"Let me in. I want to look at it."

"Don't, Kitty." Apparently an explanation followed from Miss Harden. It also was inaudible.

"Lu-chee-a.! Where is Miss Roots, B.A.?"

"Please, please, Kitty. Do go into the morning-room."

This painful scene was cut short by Robert, who announced that tea was served.

"Oh joy!" said Miss Palliser, and disappeared.

Lucia, following, found her examining the tea-tray.

"Only two cups," said Miss Palliser. "Isn't it going to get any tea then?"

"Isn't what going to get any tea?"

"It. The man thing you keep in there."

"Yes. But it doesn't get it here."

"I think you might ask it in. It might amuse me."

Lucia ignored the suggestion.

"I haven't talked," said Miss Palliser, "to a man thing for ages."

"It hasn't come to be talked to. It's much too busy."

"Mayn't it come in, just for a treat?"

Lucia shook her head.

"What's it like? Is it nice to look at?"

"No—yes—no."

"What? Haven't you made up your mind yet?"

"I haven't thought about it."

"Lucia, you're a perfect dog in the manger. You don't care a rap about the creature yourself, and yet you refuse to share it with your friend. I put it to you. Here we are, you and I, living in a howling wilderness untrodden by the foot of man, where even curates are at a premium—is it right, is it fair of you, to have a presentable man-thing in the house and to keep it to yourself?"

"Well—you see, it—it isn't so very presentable."

"Rubbish, I saw it. It looked perfectly all right."

"That," said Lucia, "is illusion. You haven't heard it speak."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing—nothing. Only it isn't exactly what you'd call a gentleman."

"Oh. Well, I think you might have told me that before."

"I've been trying to tell you."

Kitty reflected a moment. "So it's making a catalogue, is it? Whose bright idea is that?"

"It was grandpapa's. It's mine now." She did not mention that it was also Horace Jewdwine's.

"And what will your little papa say?"

"He won't say anything. He never does. The library's mine—mine to do as I like with."

"You've broken the spell. Isn't there some weird legend about women never inheriting it?"

"Well, they never have. I shall be the first."

"I say, if I were you, I should feel a little creepy."

"I do—sometimes. That's one reason why I want to get this thing made in my lifetime, before I go away."

"Good gracious. You're not going away to die."

"I don't know what I'm going away to do. Anyhow, the catalogue will be done. All ready for Horace when he steps into my shoes."

"Unless—happy thought—you marry him. That, I suppose, is another pair of shoes?"

There was a pause, during which Miss Palliser gazed thoughtfully at her friend.

"What have you been doing to yourself? You look most awfully tired."

"I've been sitting up rather late the last few nights, cataloguing."

"What on earth did you do that for?"

"Because I want to finish by the twenty-seventh."

There was a pause while Miss Palliser ate tea-cake.

"Is Horace coming down before you go?"

"No. He's too busy. Besides, he never comes when father isn't here."

"Oh dear no, he doesn't think it proper. It's odd," said Miss Palliser, looking down at her tea-cake with an air of profound philosophic reflection. "You can't ask your cousin to stay with you, because it's improper; but it isn't improper to sit up making catalogues with young Mr. Thing-um-a-jig till all hours of the night."

"Why should it be improper?"

"For Goodness' sake don't ask me. How should I know? Don't you find yourself wishing sometimes that Mr. Thing-um-a-jig was Mr. Jewdwine?"

"More tea, Kitty?"

"Rather! I'm going into the library to choose a book when I've finished my tea. I shall take the opportunity of observing for myself whether Mr.—Mr.—"

"Mr. Savage Keith Rickman."

"Good Lord deliver us! Whether Mr. Savage Keith Rickman is a proper person for you to know. That reminds me. Dearest, do you know what they talk about in Harmouth? They talk about you. Conversation jiggers round you like a silly moth round a candle. Would you like to know what Harmouth thinks of you?"

"No. I haven't the smallest curiosity."

"I shall tell you all the same, because it's good for you to see yourself as others see you. They say, dear, that you do put on such a thundering lot of side. They say that attitude is absurd in one so young. They say you ought to marry, that if you don't marry you can't possibly hope to keep it up, and they say you never will marry if you continue to be so exclusive. Exclusive was the word. But before I left they'd married you to Mr. Jewdwine. You see dear, you're so exclusive that you're bound to marry into your own family, no other family being good enough."

"It's certainly a new light on my character."

"I ought to tell you that Mrs. Crampton takes a charitable view. She says she doesn't believe you really mean it, dear, she thinks that you are only very, very shy. She has heard so much about you, and is dying to know you. Don't be frightened, Lucia, I was most discreet."

"How did you show your discretion?"

"I told her not to die. I tried to persuade her that she wouldn't love you so much if she did know you."

"Kitty, that wasn't very kind."

"It was the kindest thing I could think of. It must soothe her to feel that this exclusiveness doesn't imply any reflection on her social position, but merely a weird unaccountable dislike. How is it that some people can't understand that your social position is like your digestion or the nose on your face, you're never aware of either, unless there's something wrong with it."

"Kitty, you're not in a nice mood this afternoon."

"I know I'm not. I've been in Harmouth. Lucy, there are moments when I loathe my fellow-creatures."

"Poor things. Whatever have they been doing now?"

"Oh, I don't know. The same old thing. They make my life a burden to me?"

"But how?"

"They're always bothering me, always trying to get at you through me. They're always asking me to tea to meet people in the hope that I'll ask them back to meet you. I'm worn out with keeping them off you. Some day all Harmouth will come bursting into your drawing-room over my prostrate form, flattened out upon the door-mat."

"Never mind."

"I wouldn't, sweetheart, if they really cared about you. But they don't. If you lost your money and your social position to-morrow they wouldn't care a rap. That's why I hate them."

"Why do you visit them if you hate them?"

"Because, as I told you, I hunger and thirst for amusement, and they do amuse me when they don't make me ill."

"Dear Kitty, I'm sure they're nicer than you think. Most people are, you know."

"If you think so, why don't you visit them?" snapped Kitty.

"I would, if—"

"If they ceased to be amusing; if they broke their legs or lost their money, or if they got paralytic strokes, or something. You'd visit them in their affliction, but not in the ordinary playful circumstances of life. That's because you're an angel. I," said Miss Palliser sententiously, "am not. Why do I always come to you when I feel most hopelessly the other thing?"

Lucia said something that had a very soothing effect; it sounded like "Skittles!" but the word was "Kitti-kin!"

"Lucy, I shouldn't be such a bad sort if I lived with you. I've been here exactly twenty minutes, and I've laid in enough goodness to last me for a week. And now," said Miss Palliser with decision, "I'm going."

Lucia looked up in some trepidation.

"Where are you going to?"

"I am going—to choose that book."

"Oh, Kitty, do be careful."

"I am always careful," said Miss Palliser, "in choosing a book."

In about ten minutes' time she returned. Her chastened mood had vanished.

"Lucia," said she, "you have an immense regard for that young man."

"How do you know that I have an immense regard for him?"

"I suppose you expect me to say that I can tell by your manner. I can't. Your manner is perfection. It's by Robert's manner that I judged. Robert's manner is not perfection; for a footman, you know, it's a shade too eager, too emotional."

"That, to my mind, is the charm of Robert."

"Still, there are drawbacks. A footman's face ought not to betray the feelings of his mistress. That's how I knew that Mabel Flosser was cooling off—by the increasing frostiness of Blundell. I shall feel sure of you, Lucia, as long as Robert continues to struggle against his fascinating smile. Take my advice—if you should ever cherish a secret passion, get rid of Robert, for, sure as fate, he'll give you away. Perhaps," she added meditatively, it was a little mean of me."

"Kitty, what have you been up to?"

"It was your fault. You shouldn't be so mysterious. Wishing to ascertain your real opinion of Mr. Savage Keith Rickman, I watched Robert as he was bringing in his tea."

"I hope he was properly attentive."

"Attentive isn't the word for it. He may have felt that my eye was upon him, and so got flustered, but it struck me that he overdid the thing. He waited on Mr. Rickman as if he positively loved him. That won't do, you know. He'll be raising fatal hopes in the bosom of the Savage Keith. Let us hope that Mr. Rickman is not observant."

"He is, as it happens, excessively observant."

"So I found out. I found out all sorts of things."

"What things?"

"Well, in the first place, that he is conscientious. He doesn't waste time. He writes with one hand while he takes his tea with the other; which of course is very clever of him. He's marvellously ambidexterous so long as he doesn't know you're looking at him. Unfortunately, my eye arrested him in the double act. Lucy, my eye must have some horrible malignant power, for it instantly gave him St. Vitus's dance. Have you ever noticed anything peculiar about my eye?"

"What a shame."

"Yes. I'm afraid he'll have to do a little re-copying."

"Oh, Kitty, why couldn't you leave the poor thing in peace?"

"There wasn't any peace to leave him in. Really, you'd have thought that taking afternoon tea was an offence within the meaning of the Act. He couldn't have been more excited if I'd caught him in his bath. Mr. Rickman suffers from excess of modesty."

"Mr. Rickman could hardly say the same of you. You might have had the decency to go away."

"There wouldn't have been any decency in going away. Flight would have argued that I shared the theory of his guilt. I stayed where I was for two seconds just to reassure him; then I went away—to the other end of the room."

"You should have gone away altogether."

"Why? The library is big enough for two. It's so big that you could take a bath or do a murder at one end without anybody being aware of it at the other. I went away; I wandered round the bookcases; I even hummed a tune, not so much to show that I was at my ease as to set him at his."

"In fact, you behaved as like a dreadful young person as you possibly could."

"I thought that would set him at his ease sooner than anything. I did it on purpose. I am nothing if not subtle. You would have crushed him with a delicate and ladylike retreat; I left him as happy as he could be, smiling dreamily to himself over the catalogue."

"And then?"

"Then, I admit, I felt it might be time to go. But before I went I made another discovery. You know, Lucia, he really is rather nice to look at. Adieu, my exclusive one."