Читать книгу The Golden Butterfly - Walter Besant - Страница 14

"Like the hazel twig.

As straight and slender."

Perhaps her eyes were weak; but no, her eyes were sparkling with the "right Promethean fire." Perhaps she was of weak intellect; but that was ridiculous.

Then the lady who had read the book began to ask more questions. I do not know anything more irritating than to be asked questions about your own book.

"Will you tell us, Mr. Dunquerque, if the story of the bear-hunt is a true one, or did you make it up?"

"We made up nothing. That story is perfectly true. And the man's name was Beck."

"Curious," said Mr. Cassilis. "An American named Beck, Mr. Gilead P. Beck, is in London now, and has been recommended to me. He is extremely rich. I think, my dear, that you invited him to dinner to-day?'

"Yes. He found he could not come at the last moment. He will be here in the evening."

"Then you will see the very man," said Jack, "unless there is more than one Gilead P. Beck, which is hardly likely."

"This man has practically an unlimited credit," said the host.

"And talks, I suppose, like, well, like the stage Americans, I suppose," said his wife.

"You know," Jack explained, "that the stage American is all nonsense. The educated American talks a great deal better than we do. He can string his sentences together; we can only bark."

"Perhaps our bark is better than their bite," Ladds remarked.

"A man who has unlimited credit may talk as he pleases," said Mr. Cassilis dogmatically.

The two solemn young men murmured assent.

"And he always did say that he was going to have luck. He carried about a Golden Butterfly in a box."

"How deeply interesting!" replied the lady who had read the book. "And is that other story true, that you found an English traveller living all alone in a deserted city?"

"Quite true."

"Really. And who was it? Anybody one has met?"

"I do not know whether you have ever met him. His name is Lawrence Colquhoun."

Mrs. Cassilis flushed suddenly, and then her pale face became paler.

"Lawrence Colquhoun, formerly of ours," said Ladds, looking at her.

Mrs. Cassilis read the look to ask what business it was of hers, and why she changed colour at his name.

"Colquhoun!" she said softly. Then she raised her voice and addressed her husband: "My dear, it is an old friend of mine of whom we are speaking, Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun."

"Yes!" he had forgotten the name. "What did he do? I think I remember——" He stopped, for he remembered to have heard his wife's name in connection with this man. He felt a sudden pang of jealousy, a quite new and rather curious sensation. It passed, but yet he rejoiced that the man was out of England.

"He is my guardian," Phillis said to Ladds. "And you actually know him? Will you tell me something about him presently?"

When the men followed, half an hour later, they found the four ladies sitting in a large semi-circle round the fire. The centre of the space so formed was occupied by a gentleman who held a cup of tea in one hand and declaimed with the other. That is to say, he was speaking in measured tones, and as if he were addressing a large room instead of four ladies: and his right hand and arm performed a pump-handle movement to assist and grace his delivery. He had a face so grave that it seemed as if smiles were impossible; he was apparently about forty years of age. Mrs. Cassilis was not listening much. She was considering, as she looked at her visitor, how far he might be useful to her evenings. Phillis was catching every word that fell from the stranger's lips. Here was an experience quite new and startling. She knew of America; Mr. Dyson, born not so very many years after the War of Independence, and while the memory of its humiliations was fresh in the mind of the nation, always thought and spoke of Americans as England's hereditary and implacable enemies. Yet here was one of the race talking amicably, and making no hostile demonstrations whatever. So that another of her collection of early impressions evidently needed reconsideration.

When he saw the group at the door, Mr. Gilead Beck—for it was he—strode hastily across the room, and putting aside Mr. Cassilis, seized Jack Dunquerque by the hand and wrung it for several moments.

"You have not forgotten me!" he said. "You remember that lucky shot? You still think of that Grisly?"

"Of course I do," said Jack; "I shall never forget him."

"Nor shall I, sir; never." And then he went through the friendly ceremony with Ladds.

"You are the other man, sir?"

"I always am the other man," said Ladds, for the second time that evening. "How are you, Mr. Beck, and how is the Golden Butterfly?"

"That Inseck, captain, is a special instrument working under Providence for my welfare. He slumbers at my hotel, the Langham, in a fire-proof safe."

Then he seized Jack Dunquerque's arm, and led him to the circle round the fire.

"Ladies, this young gentleman is my preserver. He saved my life. It is owing to Mr. Dunquerque that Gilead P. Beck has the pleasure of being in this drawing-room."

"O Mr. Dunquerque," said the lady who had read the book, "that is not in the volume!"

"Clawed I should have been, mauled I should have been, rubbed out I should have been, on that green and grassy spot, but for the crack of Mr. Dunquerque's rifle. You will not believe me, ladies, but I thought it was the crack of doom."

"It was a most charming, picturesque spot in which to be clawed," said Jack, laughing. "You could not have selected a more delightful place for the purpose."

"There air moments," said Mr. Beck, looking round the room solemnly, and letting his eyes rest on Phillis, who gazed at him with an excitement and interest she could hardly control—"there air moments when the soul is dead to poetry. One of those moments is when you feel the breath of a Grisly on your cheek. Even you, young lady, would, at such a moment, lose your interest in the beauty of Nature."

Phillis started when he addressed her.

"Did he save your life?" she asked, with flashing eyes.

Jack Dunquerque blushed as this fair creature turned to him with looks of such admiration and respect as the queen of the tournament bestowed upon the victor of the fight. So Desdemona gazed upon the Moor when he spake

"Of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field."

Mrs. Cassilis affected a diversion by introducing her husband to Mr. Beck.

"Mr. Cassilis, sir," he said, "I have a letter for you from one of our most prominent bankers. And I called in the City this afternoon to give it you. But I was unfortunate. Sir, I hope that we shall become better acquainted. And I am proud, sir, I am proud of making the acquaintance of a man who has the privilege of life partnership with Mrs. Cassilis. That is a great privilege, sir, and I hope you value it."

"Hum—yes; thank you, Mr. Beck," replied Mr. Cassilis, in a tone which conveyed to the sharp-eared Phillis the idea that he thought considerable value ought to be attached to the fact of having a life partnership with him. "And how do you like our country?"

The worst of going to America, if you are an Englishman, or of crossing to England, if you are an American is that you can never escape that most searching and comprehensive question.

Said Mr. Gilead Beck:

"Well, sir, a dollar goes a long way in this country—especially in cigars and drinks."

"In drinks!" Phillis listened. The other ladies shot glances at each other.

"Phillis, my dear"—Mrs. Cassilis crossed the room and interrupted her rapt attention—"let me introduce Mr. Ronald Dunquerque. Do you think you could play something?"

She bowed to the young hero with sparkling eyes and rose to comply with the invitation. He followed her to the piano. She played in that sweet spontaneous manner which the women who have only been taught hear with despair; she touched the keys as if she loved them and as if they understood her; she played one or two of the "Songs without Words;" and then, starting a simple melody, she began to sing, without being asked, a simple old ballad. Her tone was low at first, because she did not know the room, not because she was afraid; but it gradually rose as she felt her power, till the room filled with the volumes of her rich contralto voice. Jack Dunquerque stood beside her. She looked up in his face with eyes that smiled a welcome while she went on singing.

"You told us you could not read," said the young man when she finished.

"It is quite true, Mr. Dunquerque. I cannot."

"How, then, can you play and sing?"

"Oh, I play by ear and by memory. That is nothing wonderful."

"Won't you go on playing?"

She obeyed, talking in low, measured tones, in time with the air.

"I think you know my guardian, Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun. Will you tell me all about him? I have never seen him yet."

This unprincipled young man saw his chance, and promptly seized the opportunity.

"I should like to very much, but one cannot talk here before all these people. If you will allow me to call to-morrow, I will gladly tell you all I know about him."

"You had better come at luncheon-time," she replied, "and then I shall be very glad to see you."

Mr. Abraham Dyson usually told his friends to come at luncheon-time, so she could not be wrong. Also, she knew by this time that the Twins were always asleep at two o'clock, so that she would be alone; and it was pleasant to think of a talk, sola cum solo, with this interesting specimen of newly-discovered humanity—a young man who had actually saved another man's life.

"Is she an outrageous flirt?" thought Jack, "or is she deliciously and wonderfully simple?"

On the way home he discussed the problem with Ladds.

"I don't care which it is," he concluded, "I must see her again. Ladds, old man, I believe I could fall in love with that girl. 'Ask me no more, for at a touch I yield.' Did you notice her, Tommy? Did you see her sweet eyes—I must say she has the sweetest eyes in all the world—looking with a pretty wonder at our quaint Yankee friend? Did you see her trying to take an interest in the twaddle of old Cassilis? Did you——"

"Have we eyes?" Ladds growled. "Is the heart at five and thirty a log?"

"And her figure, tall and slender, lissom and gracieuse. And her face, 'the silent war of lilies and of roses.' How I love the brunette faces! They are never insipid."

"Do you remember the half-caste Spanish girl in Manilla?"

"Ladds, don't dare to mention that girl beside this adorable angel of purity. I have found out her Christian name—it is Phillis—rhymes to lilies; and am going to call at her house to-morrow—Carnarvon Square."

"And I am going to have half an hour in the smoking-room," said Ladds, as they arrived at the portals of the club.

"So am I," said Jack. "You know what Othello says of Desdemona:

"'O thou weed,

Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet

That the sense aches at thee!'

"I mean Phillis Fleming, of course, not your confounded tobacco."