Читать книгу The Golden Butterfly - Walter Besant - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Joseph and His Brethren.

The largest and most solid of all the substantial houses in Carnarvon Square, Bloomsbury, is Number Fifteen, which, by reason of its corner position (Mulgrave Street intersecting it at right angles at this point), has been enabled to stretch itself out at the back. It is a house which a man who wanted to convey the idea of a solid income without ostentation or attempt at fashion would find the very thing to assist his purpose. The ladies of such a house would not desire to belong to the world farther west; they would respect the Church, law, and medicine; they would look on the City with favourable eyes when it was represented by a partner in an old firm; they would have sound notions of material comfort; they would read solid books, and would take their pleasure calmly. One always, somehow, in looking at a house wonders first of what sort its women are. There were, however, no women at Number Fifteen at all, except the maids. Its occupants consisted of three brothers, all unmarried. They were named respectively Cornelius, Humphrey, and Joseph Jagenal. Cornelius and Humphrey were twins. Joseph was their junior by ten years. Cornelius and Humphrey were fifty—Joseph was forty. People who did not know this thought that Joseph was fifty and his brethren forty.

When the Venerable the Archdeacon of Market Basing, the well-known author of Sermons on the Duty of Tithe-Offerings, the Lesbia of Catullus, and a Treatise on the Right Use of the Anapæst in Greek Iambic Verse, died, it was found that he had bequeathed his little savings, worth altogether about £500 a year, to his three sons in the following proportions: the twins, he said, possessed genius; they would make their mark in the world, but they must be protected. They received the yearly sum of £200 apiece, and it was placed in the hands of trustees to prevent their losing it; the younger was to have the rest, without trustees, because, his father said, "Joseph is a dull boy and will keep it." It was a wise distribution of the money. Cornelius, then nineteen, left Oxford immediately, and went to Heidelberg, where he called himself a poet, studied metaphysics, drank beer, and learned to fence. Humphrey, for his part, deserted Cambridge—their father having chosen that they should not be rivals—and announced his intention of devoting his life to Art. He took up his residence in Rome. Joseph stayed at school, having no other choice. When the boy was sixteen, his guardians articled him to a solicitor. Joseph was dull, but he was methodical, exact, and endowed with a retentive memory. He had also an excellent manner, and the "appearance of age," as port wine advertisers say, before he was out of his articles. At twenty-five, Joseph Jagenal was a partner; at thirty-five, he was the working partner; at forty, he was the senior partner in the great Lincoln's-Inn firm of Shaw, Fairlight, and Jagenal, the confidential advisers of as many respectable county people as any firm in London.

When he was twenty-five, and became a partner, the brethren returned to England simultaneously, and were good enough to live with him and upon him. They had their £200 a year each, and expensive tastes. Joseph, who had made a thousand for his share the first year of his admission to the firm, had no expensive tastes, and a profound respect for genius. He took in the twins joyfully, and they stayed with him. When his senior partner died, and Mr. Fairlight retired, so that Joseph's income was largely increased, they made him move from Torrington Square, where the houses are small, to Carnarvon Square, and regulated his household for him on the broadest and most liberal scale. Needless to say, no part of the little income, which barely served the twins with pocket-money and their menus plaisirs, went towards the housekeeping. Cornelius, poet and philosopher, superintended the dinner and daily interviewed the cook. Humphrey, the devotee of art, who furnished the rooms according to the latest designs of the most correct taste, was in command of the cellar. Cornelius took the best sitting-room for himself, provided it with books, easy-chairs, and an immense study-table with countless drawers. He called it carelessly his Workshop. The room on the first floor overlooking Mulgrave Street, and consequently with a north aspect, was appropriated by Humphrey. He called it his Studio, and furnished it in character, not forgetting the easy-chairs. Joseph had the back room behind the dining-room for himself; it was not called a study or a library, but Mr. Joseph's room. He sat in it alone every evening, at work. There was also a drawing-room, but it was never used. They dined together at half-past six: Cornelius sat at the head, and Humphrey at the foot, Joseph at one side. Art and Intellect, thus happily met together and housed under one roof, talked to each other. Joseph ate his dinner in silence. Art held his glass to the light, and flashed into enthusiasm over the matchless sparkle, the divine hues, the incomparable radiance, of the wine. Intellect, with a sigh, as one who regrets the loss of a sense, congratulated his brother on his vivid passion for colour, and, taking another glass, discoursed on the æsthetic aspects of a vintage wine. Joseph drank one glass of claret, after which he retired to his den, and left the brethren to finish the bottle. After dinner the twins sometimes went to the theatre, or they repaired arm-in-arm to their club—the Renaissance, now past its prime and a little fogyish; mostly they sat in the Studio or in the Workshop, in two arm-chairs, with a table between them, smoked pipes, and drank brandy and potash-water. They went to bed at any time they felt sleepy—perhaps at twelve, and perhaps at three. Joseph went to bed at half-past ten. The brethren generally breakfasted at eleven, Joseph at eight. After breakfast, unless on rainy days, a uniform custom was observed. Cornelius, poet and philosopher, went to the window and looked out.

Humphrey, artist, and therefore a man of intuitive sympathies, followed him. Then he patted Cornelius on the shoulder, and shook his head.

"Brother, I know your thought. You want to drag me from my work; you think it has been too much for me lately. You are too anxious about me."

Cornelius smiled.

"Not on my own account too, Humphrey?"

"True—on your account. Let us go out at once, brother. Ah, why did you choose so vast a subject?"

Cornelius was engaged—had been engaged for twenty years—upon an epic poem, entitled the Upheaving of Ælfred. The school he belonged to would not, of course, demean themselves by speaking of Alfred. To them Edward was Eadward, Edgar was Eadgar, and old Canute was Knut. In the same way Cicero became Kikero, Virgil was Vergil, and Socrates was spelt, as by the illiterate bargee, with a k. So the French prigs of the ante-Boileau period sought to make their trumpery pedantries pass for current coin. So, too, Chapelain was in labour with the Pucelle for thirty years; and when it came—But Cornelius Jagenal could not be compared with Chapelain, because he had as yet brought forth nothing. He sat with what he and his called "English" books all round him; in other words, he had all the Anglo-Saxon literature on his shelves, and was amassing, as he said, material.

Humphrey, on the other hand, was engaged on a painting, the composition of which offered difficulties which, for nearly twenty years, had proved insuperable. He was painting, he said, the "Birth of the Renaissance." It was a subject which required a great outlay in properties, Venetian glass, Italian jewelry, mediæval furniture, copies of paintings—everything necessary to make this work a masterpiece—he bought at Joseph's expense. Up to the present no one had been allowed to see the first rough drawings.

"Where's Cæsar?" Humphrey would say, leading the way to the hall. "Cæsar! Why, here he is. Cæsar must actually have heard us proposing to go out."

Cornelius called the dog Kaysar, and he refused to answer to it; so that conversation between him and Cornelius was impossible.

There never was a pair more attached to each other than these twin brethren. They sallied forth each morning at twelve, arm-in-arm, with an open and undisguised admiration for each other which was touching. Before them marched Cæsar, who was of mastiff breed, leading the way. Cornelius, the poet, was dressed with as much care as if he were still a young man of five-and-twenty, in a semi-youthful and wholly-æsthetic costume, in which only the general air, and not the colour, revealed the man of delicate perceptions. Humphrey, the artist, greatly daring, affected a warm brown velvet with a crimson-purple ribbon. Both carried flowers. Cornelius had gloves; Humphrey a cigar. Cornelius was smooth-faced, save for a light fringe on the upper lip. Humphrey wore a heavy moustache and a full long silky beard of a delicately-shaded brown, inclining when the sun shone upon it to a suspicion of auburn. Both were of the same height, rather below the middle; they had features so much alike that, but for the hair on the face of one, it would have been difficult to distinguish between them. Both were thin, pale of face, and both had, by some fatality, the end of their delicately-carved noses slightly tipped with red. Perhaps this was due to the daily and nightly brandy-and-water. And in the airy careless carriage of the two men, their sunny faces and elastic tread, it was impossible to suppose that they were fifty and Joseph only forty.

To be sure, Joseph was a heavy man, stout of build, broad in frame, sturdy in the under-jaw; while his brothers were slight shadowy men. And, to be sure, Joseph had worked all his life, while his brothers never did a stroke. They were born to consume the fruits which Joseph was born to cultivate.

Outside the house the poet heaved a heavy sigh, as if the weight of the epic was for the moment off his mind. The artist looked round with a critical eye on the lights and shadows of the great commonplace square.

"Even in London," he murmured, "Nature is too strong for man. Did you ever, my dear Cornelius, catch a more brilliant effect of sunshine than that upon the lilac yonder?"

Time, end of April; season forward, lilacs on the point of bursting into flower; sky dotted with swift-flying clouds, alternate withdrawals and bursts of sunshine.

"I really must," said Humphrey, "try to fix that effect."

His brother took the arm of the artist and drew him gently away.

In front marched Cæsar.

Presently the poet looked round. They were out of the square by this time.

"Where is Kaysar?" he said, with an air of surprise. "Surely, brother Humphrey, the dog can't be in the Carnarvon Arms?"

"I'll go and see," said Humphrey, with alacrity.

He entered the bar of the tavern, and his brother waited outside. After two or three minutes, the poet, as if tired of waiting, followed the artist into the bar. He found him with a glass of brandy-and-water cold.

"I had," he explained, "a feeling of faintness. Perhaps this spring air is chilly. One cannot be too careful."

"Quite right," said the poet. "I almost think—yes, I really do feel—ah! Thank you, my dear."

The girl, as if anticipating his wants, set before him a "four" of brandy and the cold water. Perhaps she had seen the face before. As for the dog, he was lying down with his head on his paws. Perhaps he knew there would be no immediate necessity for moving.

They walked in the direction of the Park, arm-in-arm, affectionately.

It might have been a quarter of an hour after leaving the Carnarvon Arms when the poet stopped and gasped—

"Humphrey, my dear brother, advise me. What would you do if you had a sharp and sudden pain like a knife inside you?"

Humphrey replied promptly:

"If I had a sharp and sudden pain like a knife inside me, I should take a small glass of brandy neat. Mind, no spoiling the effect with water."

Cornelius looked at his brother with admiration.

"Such readiness of resource!" he murmured, pressing his arm.

"I think I see—ah, yes—Kaysar—he's gone in before us. The sagacity of that dog is more remarkable than anything I ever read." He took his small glass of brandy neat.

The artist, looking on, said he might as well have one at the same time. Not, he added, that he felt any immediate want of the stimulant, but he might; and at all times prevention is better than cure.

It was two o'clock when they returned to Carnarvon Square. They walked arm-in-arm, with perhaps even a greater show of confiding affection than had appeared at starting. There was the slightest possible lurch in their walk, and both looked solemn and heavy with thought.

In the hall the artist looked at his watch.

"Pa—pasht two. Corneliush, Work——"

He marched to the Studio with a resolute air, and, arrived there, drew an easy-chair before the fire, sat himself in it, and went fast asleep.

The poet sought the workshop. On the table lay the portfolio of papers, outside which was emblazoned on parchment, with dainty scroll-work by the hands of his brother the artist, the title of his poem:

AN EPIC IN TWENTY-FOUR CANTOS.

By Cornelius Jagenal.

He gazed at it fondly for a few minutes; vaguely took up a pen, as if he intended to finish the work on the spot; and then with a sigh, thought being to much for brain, he slipped into his arm-chair, put up his feet, and was asleep in two minutes. At half-past five, one of the maids—they kept no footman in Carnarvon Square—brought him tea.

"I have been dozing, have I, Jane?" he asked. "Very singular thing for me to do."

We are but the creatures of habit. The brethren took the same walk every day, made the same remarks, with an occasional variation, and took the same morning drams; they spent the middle of the day in sleep, they woke up for the afternoon tea, and they never failed to call Jane's attention to the singularity of the fact that they had been asleep. This day Jane lingered instead of going away when the tea was finished.

"Did master tell you, sir," she asked, "that Miss Fleming was coming to-day?"

It was an irritating thing that, although Cornelius ordered the dinner and sat at the head of the table, although Humphrey was in sole command of the wine-cellar, the servants always called Joseph the master. Great is the authority of him who keeps the bag; the power of the penniless twins was a shadowy and visionary thing.

The master had told his brothers that Miss Fleming would probably have to come to the house, but no date was fixed.

"Miss Fleming came this afternoon, sir," said Jane, "with a French maid. She's in Mr. Joseph's room now."

"Oh, tell Mr. Humphrey, Jane, and we will dress for dinner. Tell Mr. Humphrey, also, that perhaps Miss Fleming would like a glass of champagne to-day."

Jane told the artist.

"Always thoughtful," said Humphrey, with enthusiasm. "Cornelius is for ever thinking of others' comfort. To be sure Miss Fleming shall have a glass of champagne."

He brought up two bottles, such was his anxiety to give full expression to his brother's wishes.

When the dinner-bell rang, the brethren emerged simultaneously from their rooms, and descended the stairs together, arm-in-arm. Perhaps in expectation of dinner, perhaps in anticipation of the champagne, perhaps with pleasure at the prospect of meeting with Joseph's ward, the faces of both were lit with a sunny smile, and their eyes with a radiant light, which looked like the real and genuine enthusiasm of humanity. It was a pity that Humphrey wore a beard, or that Cornelius did not; otherwise it would have been difficult to distinguish between this pair so much alike—these youthful twins of fifty, who almost looked like five-and-twenty.