Читать книгу The Golden Butterfly - Walter Besant - Страница 16

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"By my modesty,

The jewel in my dower, I would not wish

Any companion in the world but you."

Jack Dunquerque was no more remarkable for shrinking modesty than any other British youth of his era; but he felt some little qualms as he walked towards Bloomsbury the day after Mrs. Cassilis's dinner to avail himself of Phillis's invitation.

Was it coquetry, or was it simplicity?

She said she would be glad to see him at luncheon. Who else would be there?

Probably a Mrs. Jagenal—doubtless the wife of the heavy man who brought Miss Fleming to the party; herself a solid person in black silk and a big gold chain; motherly with the illiterate Dryad.

"Houses mighty respectable," he thought, penetrating into Carnarvon Square. "Large incomes; comfortable quarters; admirable port, most likely, in most of them; claret certainly good, too—none of your Gladstone tap; sherry probably rather coarse. Must ask for Mrs. Jagenal, I suppose."

He did ask for Mrs. Jagenal, and was informed by Jane that there was no such person, and that, as she presently explained with warmth, no such person was desired by the household. Jack Dunquerque thereupon asked for Mr. Jagenal. The maid asked which Mr. Jagenal. Jack replied in the most irritating manner possible—the Socratic—by asking another question. The fact that Socrates went about perpetually asking questions is quite enough to account for the joy with which an exasperated mob witnessed his judicial murder. The Athenians bore for a good many years with his maddening questions—as to whether this way or that way or how—and finally lost patience. Hence the little bowl of drink.

Quoth Jack, "How many are there of them?"

Jane looked at the caller with suspicion. He seemed a gentleman, but appearances are deceptive. Suppose he came for what he could pick up? The twins' umbrellas were in the hall, and their great-coats. He laughed, and showed an honest front; but who can trust a London stranger? Jane remembered the silver spoons now on the luncheon-table, and began to think of shutting the door in his face.

"You can't be a friend of the family," she said, "else you'd know the three Mr. Jagenals by name, and not come here showing your ignorance by asking for Mrs. Jagenal. Mrs. Jagenal indeed! Perhaps you'd better call in the evening and see Mr. Joseph."

"I am not a friend of the family," he replied meekly. "I wish I was. But Miss Fleming expects me at this hour. Will you take in my card?"

He stepped into the hall, and felt as if the fortress was won. Phillis was waiting for him in the dining-room, where, he observed, luncheon was laid for two. Was he, then, about to be entertained by the young lady alone?

If she looked dainty in her white evening dress, she was far daintier in her half-mourning grey frock, which fitted so tightly to her slender figure, and was set off by the narrow black ribbon round her neck which was her only ornament; for she carried neither watch nor chain, and wore neither ear-rings nor finger-rings. This heiress was as innocent of jewelry as any little milliner girl of Bond Street, and far more happy, because she did not wish to wear any.

"I thought you would come about this time," she said, with the kindliest welcome in her eyes; "and I waited for you here. Let us sit down and take luncheon."

Mr. Abraham Dyson never had any visitors except for dinner or luncheon; so that Phillis naturally associated an early call with eating.

"I always have luncheon by myself," explained the young hostess; "so that it is delightful to have some one who can talk."

She sat at the head of the table, Jack taking his seat at the side. She looked fresh, bright, and animated. The sight of her beauty even affected Jack's appetite, although it was an excellent luncheon.

"This curried fowl," she went on. "It was made for Mr. Jagenal's brothers; but they came down late, and were rather cross. We could not persuade them to eat anything this morning."

"Are they home for the holidays?"

Phillis burst out laughing—such a fresh, bright, spontaneous laugh. Jack laughed too, and then wondered why he did it.

"Home for the holidays! They are always home, and it is always a holiday with them."

"Do you not allow them to lunch with you?"

She laughed again.

"They do not breakfast till ten or eleven."

Jack felt a little fogged, and waited for further information.

"Will you take beer or claret? No, thank you; no curry for me. Jane, Mr. Dunquerque will take a glass of beer. How beautiful!" she went on, looking steadily in the young man's face, to his confusion—"how beautiful it must be to meet a man whose life you have saved! I should like—once—just once—to do a single great action, and dream of it ever after."

"But mine was not a great action. I shot a bear which was following Mr. Beck and meant mischief; that is all."

"But you might have missed," said Phillis, with justice. "And then Mr. Beck would have been killed."

Might have missed! How many V.C.'s we should have but for that simple possibility! Might have missed! And then Gilead Beck would have been clawed, and the Golden Butterfly destroyed, and this history never have reached beyond its first chapter. Above all, Phillis might never have known Jack Dunquerque.

"And you are always alone in this great house?" he asked, to change the subject.

"Only in the day-time. Mr. Joseph and I breakfast at eight. Then I walk with him as far as his office in Lincoln's Inn-Fields, now that I know the way. At first he used to send one of his clerks back with me, for fear of my being lost. But I felt sorry for the poor young man having to walk all the way with a girl like me, and so I told him, after the second day, that I was sure he longed to be at his writing, and I would go home by myself."

"No doubt," said Jack, "he was rejoiced to go back to his pleasant and exciting work. All lawyers' clerks are so well paid, and so happy in their occupation, that they prefer it even to walking with a—a—a Dryad."

Phillis was dimly conscious that there was more in these words than a literal statement. She was as yet unacquainted with the figures of speech which consist of saying one thing and meaning another, and she made a mental note of the fact that lawyers' clerks are a happy and contented race. It adds something to one's happiness to know that others are also happy.

"And the boys—Mr. Jagenal's brothers?"

"They are always asleep from two to six. Then they come down to dinner, and talk of the work they have done. Don't you know them? Oh, they are not boys at all! One is Cornelius. He is a great poet. He is writing a long epic poem called the Upheaving of Ælfred. Humphrey, his brother, says it will be the greatest work of this century. But I do not think very much is done. Humphrey is a great artist, you know. He is engaged on a splendid picture—at least it will be splendid when it is finished. At present nothing is on the canvas. He says he is studying the groups. Cornelius says it will be the finest artistic achievement of the age. Will you have some more beer? Jane, give Mr. Dunquerque a glass of sherry. And now let us go into the drawing-room, and you shall tell me all about my guardian, Lawrence Colquhoun."

In the hall a thought struck the girl.

"Come with me," she said; "I will introduce you to the Poet and the Painter. You shall see them at work."

Her eyes danced with delight as she ran up the stairs, turning to see if her guest followed. She stopped at a door, the handle of which she turned with great care. Jack mounted the stairs after her.

It was a large and well-furnished room. Rows of books stood in order on the shelves. A bright fire burned on the hearth. A portfolio was on the table, with a clean inkstand and an unsullied blotting-pad. By the fire sat, in a deep and very comfortable easy-chair, the poet, sound asleep.

"There!" she whispered. "In the portfolio is the great poem. Look at it."

"We ought not to look at manuscripts, ought we?"

"Not if there is anything written. But there isn't. Of course, I may always turn over any pages, because I cannot read."

She turned them over. Nothing but blank sheets, white in virgin purity.

Cornelius sat with his head a little forward, breathing rather noisily.

"Isn't it hard work?" laughed the girl. "Poor fellow, isn't it exhaustive work? Let me introduce you. Mr. Cornelius Jagenal, Mr. Ronald Dunquerque." Jack bowed to the sleeping bard. "Now you know each other. That is what Mr. Dyson used always to say. Hush! we might wake him up and interrupt—the Work. Come away, and I will show you the Artist."

Another room equally well furnished, but in a different manner. There were "properties": drinking-glasses of a deep ruby red, luminous and splendid, standing on the shelves; flasks of a dull rich green; a model in armour; a lay figure, with a shawl thrown over the head and looped up under the arm; a few swords hanging upon the walls; curtains that caught the light and spread it over the room in softened colouring; and by the fire a couch, on which lay, sleeping, Humphrey with the wealth of silky beard.

There was an easel, and on it a canvas. This was as blank as Cornelius's sheets of paper.

"Permit me again," said the girl. "Mr. Humphrey Jagenal, Mr. Ronald Dunquerque. Now you know each other."

Jack bowed low to the genius.

Phillis, her eyes afloat with fun, beckoned the young man to the table. Pencil and paper lay there. She sat down and drew the sleeping painter in a dozen swift strokes. Then she looked up, laughing:

"Is that like him?"

Jack could hardly repress a cry of admiration.

"I am glad you think it good. Please write underneath, 'The Artist at work.' Thank you. Is that it? We will now pin it on the canvas. Think what he will say when he wakes up and sees it."

They stole out again as softly as a pair of burglars.

"Now you have seen the Twins. They are really very nice, but they drink too much wine, and sit up late. In the morning they are sometimes troublesome, when they won't take their breakfast; but in the evening, after dinner, they are quite tractable. And you see how they spend their day."

"Do they never do any work at all?"

"I will tell you what I think," she replied gravely. "Mr. Dyson used to tell me of men who are so vain that they are ashamed to give the world anything but what they know to be the best. And the best only comes by successive effort. So they wait and wait, till the time goes by, and they cannot even produce second-rate work. I think the Twins belong to that class of people."

By this time they were in the drawing-room.

"And now," said Phillis, "you are going to tell me all about my guardian."

"Tell me something more about yourself first," said Jack, not caring to bring Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun into the conversation just yet. "You said last night that you would show me your drawings."

"They are only pencil and pen-and-ink sketches." Phillis put a small portfolio on the table and opened it. "This morning Mr. Joseph took me to see an exhibition of paintings. Most of the artists in that exhibition cannot draw, but some can—and then—Oh!"

"They cannot draw better than you, Miss Fleming, I am quite sure."

She shook her head as Jack spoke, turning over the sketches.

"It seems so strange to be called Miss Fleming. Everybody used to call me Phillis."

"Was—was everybody young?" Jack asked, with an impertinence beyond his years.

"No; everybody was old. I suppose young people always call each other by their christian names. Yours seems to be rather stiff. Ronald, Ronald—I am afraid I do not like it very much."

"My brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins and kinsfolk—the people who pay my debts and therefore love me most—call me Ronald. But everybody else calls me Jack."

"Jack!" she murmured. "What a pretty name Jack is! May I call you Jack?"

"If you only would!" he cried, with a quick flushing of his cheek. "If you only would! Not when other people are present, but all to ourselves, when we are together like this. That is, if you do not mind."

Could the Serpent, when he cajoled Eve, have begun in a more subtle and artful manner? One is ashamed for Jack Dunquerque.

"I shall always call you Jack, then, unless when people like Mrs. Cassilis are present."

"And what am I to call you?"

"My name is Phillis, you know." But she knew, because her French maid had told her, that some girls have names of endearment, and she hesitated a little, in hope that Jack would find one for her.

He did. She looked him so frankly and freely in the face that he took courage, and said with a bold heart:

"Phillis is a very sweet name. You know the song, 'Phillis is my only joy?' I ought to call you Miranda, the Princess of the Enchanted Island. But it would be prettier to call you Phil."

"Phil!" Her lips parted in a smile of themselves as she shaped the name. It is a name which admits of expression. You may lengthen it out if you like; you may shorten it you like. "Phil! That is very pretty. No one ever called me Phil before."

"And we will be great friends, shall we not?"

"Yes, great friends. I have never had a friend at all."

"Let us shake hands over our promise. Phil, say, 'Jack Dunquerque, I will try to like you, and I will be your friend.'"

"Jack Dunquerque," she placed her hands, both of them, in his and began to repeat, looking in his face quite earnestly and solemnly, "I will try—that is nonsense, because I do like you very much already; and I will always be your friend, if you will be mine and will let me."

Then he, with a voice that shook a little, because he knew that this was very irregular and even wrong, but that the girl was altogether lovable, and a maiden to be desired, and a queen among girls, and too beautiful to be resisted, said his say:

"Phil, I think you are the most charming girl I have ever seen in all my life. Let me be your friend always, Phil. Let me"—here he stopped, with a guilty tremor in his voice—"I hope—I hope—that you will always go on liking me more and more."

He held both her pretty shapely hands in his own. She was standing a little back, with her face turned up to his, and a bright fearless smile upon her lips and in her eyes. Oh, the eyes that smile before the lips!

"Some people seal a bargain," he went on, hesitating and stammering, "after the manner of the—the—early Christians—with a kiss. Shall we, Phil?"

Before she caught the meaning of his words he stooped and drew her gently towards him. Then he suddenly released her. For all in a moment the woman within her, unknown till that instant, was roused into life, and she shrank back—without the kiss.

Jack hung his head in silence. Phil, in silence, too, stood opposite him, her eyes upon the ground.

She looked up stealthily and trembled.

Jack Dunquerque was troubled as he met her look.

"Forgive me, Phil," he said humbly. "It was wrong—I ought not. Only forgive me, and tell me we shall be friends all the same."

"Yes," she replied, not quite knowing what she said; "I forgive you. But, Jack, please don't do it again."

Then he returned to the drawings, sitting at the table, while she stood over him and told him what they were.

There was no diffidence or mock-modesty at all about her. The drawings were her life, and represented her inmost thoughts. She had never shown them all together to a single person, and now she was laying them all open before the young man whom yesterday she had met for the first time.

It seemed to him as if she were baring her very soul for him to read.

"I like to do them," she said, "because then I can recall everything that I have done or seen. Look! Here is the dear old house at Highgate, where I stayed for thirteen years without once going beyond its walls. Ah, how long ago it seems, and yet it is only a week since I came away! And everything is so different to me now."

"You were happy there, Phil?"

"Yes; but not so happy as I am now. I did not know you then, Jack."

He beat down the temptation to take her in his arms and kiss her a thousand times. He tried to sit calmly critical over the drawings. But his hand shook.

"Tell me about it all," he said softly.

"These are the sketches of my Highgate life. Stay; this one does not belong to this set. It is a likeness of you, which I drew last night when I came home."

"Did you really draw one of me? Let me have it. Do let me have it."

"It was meant for your face. But I could do a better one now. See, this is Mr. Beck, the American gentleman; and this is Captain Ladds. This is Mr. Cassilis."

They were the roughest unfinished things, but she had seized the likeness in every one.

Jack kept his own portrait in his hand.

"Let me keep it."

"Please, no; I want that one for myself."

Once more, and for the last time in his life, a little distrust crossed Jack Dunquerque's mind. Could this girl, after all, be only the most accomplished of all coquettes? He looked up at her face as she stood beside him, and then abused himself for treachery to love.

"It is like me," he said, looking at the pencil portrait; "but you have made me too handsome."

She shook her head.

"You are very handsome, I think," she said gravely.

He was not, strictly speaking, handsome at all. He was rather an ugly youth, having no regularity of features. And it was a difficult face to draw, because he wore no beard—nothing but a light moustache to help it out.

"Phil, if you begin to flatter me you will spoil me; and I shall not be half so good a friend when I am spoiled. Won't you give this to me?"

"No; I keep my portfolio all to myself. But I will draw a better one, if you like, of you, and finish it up properly, like this."

She showed him a pencil-drawing of a face which Rembrandt himself would have loved to paint. It was the face of an old man, wrinkled and crows-footed.

"That is my guardian, Mr. Dyson. I will draw you in the same style. Poor dear guardian! I think he was very fond of me."

Another thought struck the young man.

"Phil, will you instead make me a drawing—of your own face?"

"But can you not do it for yourself?"

"I? Phil, I could not even draw a haystack."

"What a misfortune! It seems worse than not being able to read."

"Draw me a picture of yourself, Phil."

She considered.

"Nobody ever asked me to do that yet. And I never drew my own face. It would be nice, too, to think that you had a likeness of me, particularly as you cannot draw yourself. Jack, would you mind if it were not much like me?"

"I should prefer it like you. Please try. Give me yourself as you are now. Do not be afraid of making it too pretty."

"I will try to make it like. Here is Mrs. Cassilis. She did not think it was very good."

"Phil, you are a genius. Do you know that? I hold you to your promise. You will draw a portrait of yourself, and I will frame it and hang it up—no, I won't do that; I will keep it myself, and look at it when no one is with me."

"That seems very pleasant," said Phil, reflecting. "I should like to think that you are looking at me sometimes. Jack, I only met you yesterday, and we are old friends already."

"Yes; quite old familiar friends, are we not? Now tell all about yourself."

She obeyed. It was remarkable how readily she obeyed the orders of this new friend, and told him all about her life with Mr. Dyson—the garden and paddock, out of which she never went, even to church; the pony, the quiet house, and the quiet life with the old man who taught her by talking; her drawing and her music; and her simple wonder what life was like outside the gates.

"Did you never go to church, Phil?"

"No; we had prayers at home; and on Sunday evenings I sang hymns."

Clearly her religions education had been grossly neglected. "Never heard of a Ritualist," thought Jack, with a feeling of gladness. "Doesn't know anything about vestments; isn't learned in school feasts; and never attended a tea-meeting. This girl is a Phænix." Why—why was he a Younger Son?

"And is Mr. Cassilis a relation of yours?"

"No; Mr. Cassilis is Mr. Dyson's nephew. All Mr. Dyson's fortune is left to found an institution for educating girls as I was educated——"

"Without reading or writing?"

"I suppose so. Only, you see, it is most unfortunate that my own education is incomplete, and they cannot carry out the testator's wishes, Mr. Jagenal tells me, because they have not been able to find the concluding chapters of his book. Mr. Dyson wrote a book on it, and the last chapter was called the 'Coping-stone.' I do not know what they will do about it. Mr. Cassilis wants to have the money divided among the relations, I know. Isn't it odd? And he has so much already."

"And I have got none."

"O Jack! take some of mine—do! I know I have such a lot somewhere; and I never spend anything."

"You are very good, Phil; but that will hardly be right. But do you know it is five o'clock? We have been talking for three hours. I must go—alas, I must go!"

"And you have told me nothing at all yet about Mr. Colquhoun."

"When I see you next I will tell you what I know of him. Good-bye, Phil."

"Jack, come and see me again soon."

"When may I come? Not to-morrow—that would be too soon. The day after. Phil, make me the likeness, and send it to me by post. I forgot you cannot write."

He wrote his address on a sheet of foolscap.

"Fold it in that, with this address outside, and post it to me. Come again, Phil? I should like to come every day, and stay all day." He pressed her hand and was gone.

Phillis remained standing where he left her. What had happened to her? Why did she feel so oppressed? Why did the tears crowd her eyes? Five o'clock. It wanted an hour of dinner, when she would have to talk to the Twin brethren. She gathered up her drawings and retreated to her own room. As she passed Humphrey's door, she heard him saying to Jane:

"The tea, Jane? Have I really been asleep? A most extraordinary thing for me."

"Now he will see the drawing of the 'Artist at Work,'" thought Phillis. But she did not laugh at the idea, as she had done when she perpetrated the joke. She had suddenly grown graver.

She began her own likeness at once. But she could not satisfy herself. She tore up half a dozen beginnings. Then she changed her mind. She drew a little group of two. One was a young man, tall, shapely, gallant, with a queer attractive face, who held the hands of a girl in his, and was bending over her. Somehow a look of love, a strange and new expression, which she had never seen before in human eyes, lay in his. She blushed while she drew her own face looking up in that other, and yet she drew it faithfully, and was only half conscious how sweet a face she drew and how like it was to her own. Nor could she understand why she felt ashamed.

"Come again soon, Jack."

The words rang in the young man's ears, but they rang like bells of accusation and reproach. This girl, so sweet, so fresh, so unconventional, what would she think when she learned, as she must learn some day, how great was his sin against her? And what would Lawrence Colquhoun say! And what would the lawyer say? And what would the world say?

The worst was that his repentance would not take the proper course. He did not repent of taking her hands—he trembled and thrilled when he thought of it—he only repented of the swiftness with which the thing was done, and was afraid of the consequences.

"And I am only a Younger Son, Tommy"—he made his plaint to Ladds, who received a full confession of the whole—"only a Younger Son, with four hundred a year. And she's got fifty thousand. They will say I wanted her money. I wish she had nothing but the sweet grey dress——"

"Jack, don't blaspheme. Goodness sometimes palls; beauty always fades; grey dresses certainly wear out; figures alter for the worse; the funds remain. I am always thankful for the thought which inspired Ladds' Perfect Cocoa. The only true Fragrance. Aroma and Nutrition."

Humphrey did not discover the little sketch before dinner, so that his conversation was as animated and as artistic as usual. At two o'clock in the morning he discovered it. And at three o'clock the Twins, after discussing the picture with its scoffing legend in all its bearings, went to bed sorrowful.