Читать книгу The Usurper - William J. Locke - Страница 7

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They became great friends. Jasper stood towards the young poet in the double relation of guide and disciple. The dreamer in him saw to the heart of the matter in Bunny’s work, and he never lost the awed reverence for the genius that could interpret in magical words the vague formless impressions that had haunted him from boyhood. In this wise the young man was to him as the angels. On the other hand the concrete experience of a hard life passed amid crude elementals made him conscious of a wisdom far exceeding Bunny’s. The boy beheld the earth and cried aloud that it belonged to him; the man knew, with the knowledge that comes of living, that he belonged, for all his divine gift, to the earth, to its joys and its sufferings, its hopes and its despairs.

It was good to have his fresh laughter in the dull house, to listen to his enthusiasms, to warm the heart in his sunny illusions. An imperfectly educated man, Jasper was amazed at the other’s literary range, which seemed boundless. He regarded him almost as the rustics in Goldsmith’s poem did the village schoolmaster. Even Cudby owned to a rival in Shakespearean knowledge. The two would engage in excited duels, capping obscure quotations from the plays and sonnets, while Jasper would sit in amused and silent wonder. It was good, also, to have the boy’s frank and absolutely disinterested friendship. The fact that one represented zero and the other infinity in the scale of wealth never seemed to strike Bunny as one that could make any possible difference in their relations. He had the pride of the infernal hierarchy. Jasper knew that the first hint of patronage would set him ablaze. He had walked up and down the library gesticulating in fine wrath because Lady Illingham had sent him a ten pound note. How dared she? He was a man with his work in the world to do, not a beggar to live upon alms! It was insulting. He had sent the cheque to the Royal Literary Fund as a donation from the Countess of Illingham. This was not the only indication that Jasper received of his young friend’s magnificent independence. The friendship therefore was entirely sincere, and Jasper, who had sedulously shunned all intimate companionship save that of Cudby, felt his heart open gratefully to the long-denied comfort.

The months passed. Jasper learned the many stairs that led up to the two back-rooms which Bunny occupied at the top of a house in Great Coram Street.

On the occasion of such visits Bunny would empty the one dilapidated armchair of books and biscuit tins for his guest, and entertain him with cheap whisky drunk out of cracked and dubious tumblers and watered from his bedroom water-bottle. He did the honours of his limited establishment with the simple air of a young prince. A few years before, when he lived in his Cornish home with its liveried servants and stableful of horses, he would have offered his father’s hospitality with the same unthinking ease. The fact that his father died hopelessly involved, leaving him just thirty pounds a year out of the estate, was an accident that did not affect Bunny at all in his relations with men and women. When he cut the cake with a paper knife and handed it to Jasper on the lid of a biscuit-tin, his only apology was for fresh inkstains on the ivory. Personally, he explained, he liked the flavour of ink; but it was an acquired taste. And Jasper, a man of simple habits who had not accustomed his palate to the differentiation of fine flavours, drank the oily whisky and ate the cheap cake with as much relish as his host.

As time passed on, the friendship had consequences involving closer relations with Lady Alicia. Jasper’s appreciation of Bunny warmed her heart towards him. The friendship which she had so gracefully offered passed into a feeling stronger than the original pretty sentiment, and imperceptibly a pleasant fireside intimacy grew up between them, Bunny being the connecting link. They devised schemes for his good, and, as Cudby said, formed a sort of Wild Animal Protection Society. But while their schemes generally came to naught, owing to the impossibility of inducing the wild animal to be protected, his recalcitrancy only awakened fresh sympathies, such as spring from a partnership in failure. Jasper viewed the intimacy somewhat fatalistically. It was written that his life should cross this woman’s, and he accepted the inevitable. Yet the common interest formed a neutral ground between his heart and Lady Alicia, whereon they could meet without battle. And therein lay exceeding comfort. He could talk with her alone in the charming confidence of the fireside without holding guard over his words and looks lest the struggling passion should escape them.

Possibly their friendship was not of as much account to Bunny as to Jasper. It is the way of youth to take its friendships, like its fortunes, lightly. Besides, he lived in a queer world of his own, peopled with visionary shapes and lit with an elusive glory and murmuring with strange songs. He had his ambitions, his dreams. He let himself be loved by his friends in the happy and unconscious egotism of his twenty years. The future was his, full of golden promise. Jasper Vellacot had but the grey, haunting past that arose and spread itself in impenetrable mist before the future. It was a joy to stand with the young man on the mountain top and watch the rise of the young man’s sun. Thus, from the nature of things, the friendship could not be the same to Bunny. But his clear healthy mind saw the straight simplicity, the sincerity, the large-heartedness, and the underlying sadness of the man of millions, and on his side the impulse of affection was sincere and strong.

The discreet messenger entered a sleepy House of Commons one March afternoon and handed Jasper Mr. Bonamy Tredgold’s card. Scottish railroad business lulled members to repose. Jasper went out into the lobby to be pounced upon by the owner of the card and greeted excitedly.

“How jolly of you to come out at once! I couldn’t wait—I’ve got it, you know. Was close by in the Strand, so I came down straight to tell you.”

“Your mind is confused, Bunny,” remarked Jasper, with his hands in his pockets. “I’m not in it. Try again. But first, why don’t you wear your overcoat this diabolical weather?”

“Oh, confound the overcoat! I’ll call for it on my way home. I didn’t come to talk about overcoats. I’ve settled it with Campion.”

“Campion?”

“Yes, Campion. But where do you live? The one and only Lester Campion, one of the leading theatrical managers in London. But perhaps I didn’t tell you about it? It’s an order for a play, a poetical one-act play,—in verse, you know. Contract signed. We haggled over terms a bit—It’s beastly, isn’t it? But even a chap who writes poetry must live. It’s ripping, Vellacot. You see, a one-act play is the thin end of the wedge. Then will come a great poetical four-acter. And it may be the torch that will rekindle the poetic drama in England. The vista seems infinite. Never mind the metaphors. I’m so happy that I can mix them like drinks. It’s splendid, isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s splendid. I’m delighted. Have you told Lady Alicia?”

“Lady Alicia?” echoed Bunny, sharply. “No. How could I, seeing that I’ve rushed forthwith to you.”

“I’ll send her a wire from here.”

“No. I’ll write. Women don’t understand wires. She’ll jump to the conclusion that a new ‘Hamlet’ is going to be produced the day after to-morrow. I’m not a cynic. It’s only her way, and I’m doing it for her good.”

He laughed, tilted back his round felt hat, and rested, his hands behind him, on his umbrella, round the point of which a little pool of water collected on the flagstones. His dark face was flushed with excitement and the walk through the wind and rain. He looked to Jasper like a young conqueror unconscious of the responsibilities of his empire. He could be forgiven—such was the fascination of his youth—for his disregard of royal ladies, even of the royalest and most high-enthroned one. A paternal rebuke, however, for convention’s sake, hovered on Jasper’s lips. Bunny forestalled it by a quick change of attitude.

“I wonder if you could give me a tremendous treat?” said he. “To mark the occasion. Could you dine with me? You never have, you know. You are not busy here, are you? I looked at the Orders of the Day on purpose. They seem dulness petrified. Do come.”

“Very well. I can be free till ten, when I must be back here. But why not dine with me?”

“That wouldn’t be the same thing at all. I know what you’re thinking of. You imagine that I’ve pawned my overcoat. I haven’t. I was with Fuller when the rain came on; he was out in a thin suit, with a cough like the neighing of the White Horse of Death, so I sent him home in my coat. Besides, Campion has given me an advance, and I’ve heaps of money at home.” He had become perfectly frank in such matters.

“Very well,” laughed Jasper. “It will be delightful. I tell you what—you’ll take me to—the—that place you’re always talking about—”

“Antonelli’s—the Hôtel Bomboni? It’s awfully primitive, you know,” said Bunny, deprecatingly.

“So am I primitive, Bunny. Haven’t you found that out yet? I’ve been meaning to ask you to take me there for weeks.”

“Well, your indigestion will be upon your own head. But the food is not so bad when once you’ve got outside it,” he added.

It was raining so heavily that Jasper, contrary to his habits of personal economy, took a cab. It was his duty to his constituents, he explained gaily, a politician with a sore throat being a vain thing. Bunny was too much accustomed to the frugalities of the millionaire to wonder at the apology. Indeed, it was these very frugalities that made the odd comradeship possible. It was hard to realise that the man who lived in a plain house in Gower Street, and dined off plain joint and sweet, had all the luxuries of the earth at his command, and wielded the enormous power of wealth that no one could estimate. In ordinary intercourse he forgot the fact.

The cab turned up a small street off Old Compton Street, Soho, and stopped at a door over which “Hôtel Bomboni” was inscribed in black letters on a large semi−circular white glass fascia that had seen better days. A cat performed its toilette leisurely on the threshold, and made way for the visitors with an air of aggrieved surprise. A glass door in the dark short passage admitted them into the restaurant. It was a low room, lit with gas and tarnished and blackened with gas. There were half a dozen small tables, two of which were occupied by somewhat seedy nondescripts, male and female. A very young waiter, with elaborately curled hair, wide collar, narrow black tie, and dingy linen, conversed in a posture of elegant ease with the occupants of the table next the door. An older waiter, in dingier linen, greasy and perspiring, hurried to and fro with plates and dishes. In a parlour at the back a glimpse could be obtained of a man in dirty shirt-sleeves, sitting by a table, and the click of dominoes proclaimed his occupation. A counter, with dishes of sad fruit and pallid pastry, and an array of liqueur bottles, ran half-way the length of the room. Behind it stood an exceedingly attractive girl, neatly dressed in black, to whom Bunny, as he entered, bowed politely. It was a dingy, fly-blown, decaying little restaurant, and the girl struck an odd note of life and freshness—like a dewy dark rose on a dust-heap.

“You would have it,” laughed Bunny, as they took their seats. “Here, Giuseppe!”

The perspiring waiter, a low-browed fellow, with a servile, flabby face, shuffled up. What did Messer Tregolo desire? There was soupe aux oignons—very good. There was stufatino milanaise, ossabucco, rosbif. He hadn’t seen Messer Tregolo for two days. The Signorina had been asking after him. Perhaps he would like an omelette aux rognons. Bunny, who had been scanning the bill of fare, cut his suggestions short by ordering the dinner. Giuseppe went away, wiping his forehead with his napkin.

“That’s the greasiest varlet unhung,” remarked Bunny. “I’m sure he’s an awful scoundrel. He looks as if he had stepped out of some Vision of Sin. You could imagine him as a confidential scullion of the Borgias.”

Jasper smiled indulgently. His young friend’s expressions of likes and dislikes were generally forcible.

“They seem to know you here,” he said.

“Oh yes. I often come. I found out the place a little while ago. That’s the proprietor, Antonelli, in there playing dominoes. He’s always at it. Heaven knows how the thing is run. I think the unspeakable Giuseppe does most of it. And Vittoria—the demoiselle du comptoir—she’s old Antonelli’s niece. And this thing waddling in here is the cat. I’ve christened him Corpo di Bacco. The other waiter’s name is Auguste. Now you know the whole family.”

Giuseppe arrived with the soup. Bunny ordered half a flask of Chianti. He expatiated on the merits of the wine of the country. You got all the oil, earth, and acidity of the Italian character. And it was true red wine withal. Besides, the wickerwork base always made him think of Keats’s ode. Jasper had forgotten it. How did it run? Bunny laid down his spoon and repeated some lines in the reverential monotone which a poet seems instinctively to adopt when reciting verse. He started off on lyrical eulogy of Keats. The man sang colour. He intoxicated you with the swirl of luminous reds, woke you with the ripple of blues, made you tremulous with the frosty shiver of whites, and then drowned you in tumultuous seas of purple. Jasper pointed out that meanwhile his fish was getting cold. He damned the fish in his youthful way, ate it hurriedly, eager to talk. Joyous life radiated from him like warmth from the sun. Jasper took him back to the new play. Had he an idea? Bunny pushed aside his plate.

“It’s all going to be colour and wine and music,” said he. “I want to send the blood rushing back into the anæmic veins of the modern stage. Don’t you see what a pallid thing it is? Oh, if I could only do it! I’ve got a story. Love. Young love. Passion, glow, a touch of tragedy behind to sweep the thing along. Everything is to be elemental. No subtleties, no perplexities of mood. Just the old, eternal natural passions of love and hate, and the joy of coming together of the fierce man and the fierce woman. For strip us and that’s what we are,—the modernest and most complex of us. Any man worth this wine would rush through hell-fire to get the woman he wanted, and a woman would crawl through it to her man with the flames licking her breasts—I’ve got it all dancing, floating about inside me. If I only can get it out as I want! But we never do, I’m afraid. It’s like this poulet en casserole. Has it never struck you how poulet en casserole appeals to the imagination? One thinks of ambrosial tender delights coming out of that earthenware pan—and when one gets it, it’s the same tough old hen. Giuseppe! I ordered fowl and you’ve given us emu.”

“If there is a mistake, I will ask the signorina,” said Giuseppe, politely.

“My dear boy, it’s delicious,” said Jasper. “It’s as tender a chicken as I’ve ever eaten.”

“You needn’t trouble the signorina, Giuseppe. This gentleman is kind. He calls it chicken. You’re awfully good, Vellacot. Do you know, I’d sooner eat hen than chicken. It seems such a shame to cut a young life short, before it has had its fling,—before it has taken its fill of sunshine and freedom and love and happiness. And I hate eating larks. It’s like running a spit through joy incarnate and roasting it with lard. It’s like converting the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ into soup. By the way, did it ever strike you how the genius can turn this soup of human affairs into the ‘Moonlight Sonata’?”

“That’s what you seem to be trying to do every day of your life, Bunny,” said Jasper. “That’s what being a poet means, I think. Here’s to the play.”

He lifted up his wineglass and drank. Bunny acknowledged the toast. There was a little silence, during which he fingered the stem of his coarse glass and reflected. Then he lifted up his head in his quick way.

“You are so much older than I am, Vellacot. Do you think I make too much of youth? I know intellectually that a man of forty is young still, but I can’t realise it. It seems as if everything were behind you at forty. I wish I could always remain three and twenty. Tell me if I am simply silly.”

“Yes and no,” said Jasper, looking at the young man with the wistful expression in his eyes. “Perhaps it is the advantage of forty that it teaches us the relativity of things. You will be young at sixty. I was elderly at nineteen. It depends upon what you’ve got to feed on. When you die—”

“I hate death,” interrupted Bunny. “Should I have to die, I’ll die, I hope, like a gentleman; but I hate it. My God! Vellacot, there is so much to do in the world.”

And as Jasper saw him flushed with youth and hope, with the sinewy young body of the athlete (had not Bunny been the hope of his College eleven at Cambridge before his career there closed?) and the frank, clear-cut face of the artist, he thought that never did the shadow of Death hover so far from human creature.

“For the always young there is ever so much to do,” said he. “For the always old there is little. You will find more to do—of the things that matter—at eighty than I do to-day. And when you die at eighty you’ll complain that you’ve been cut off like the chicken you were talking about, whereas I—”

He finished the sentence with a shrug and a sip of the Chianti. Bunny burst out fervently,—

“You? You’ve got a whole wide world full of misery to alleviate. Look at the thousands that bless your name now—the thousands who would be the poorer and unhappier if you died to-morrow! It makes my brain reel sometimes to think what a god you must feel yourself to be!”

“Only a pitiful god out of the machine, Bunny,” said Jasper. “A stage property, lowered down into the world, against my will and against my nature, by the Great Scene-shifter.”

“It strikes me,” said Bunny, “that we have our wine sad, as they say in France. We oughtn’t to, you know. Just hold this stuff up to the light and look through it. Look at the flames of ruby, the red, lucent mysteries of it. Doesn’t it suggest the promise of glory? And if one sees it in this cheap stuff, what mustn’t it be in ‘the true, the blushful Hippocrene,’ that has lain years and years and years in the cool earth, till it’s like love, ‘a spirit all compact of fire.’ By the way, how is Cudby?”

Jasper’s duller brain could never quite follow the other’s quick sequence of ideas. Why Cudby should have come into Bunny’s head à propos of the colour of cheap Chianti, he was at a loss to determine. However, he gave sober news of the little man. He was very well. Had been cursing the ignorance of second-hand booksellers, having been lured into a pilgrimage to Canterbury by an advertisement of a first folio of Shakespeare, to find it only the reprint of 1807.

“But why a man should hanker after a first folio, when he can get a decent edition of all Shakespeare’s works for three or four shillings, is much more of a mystery to me than the Trinity,” said Jasper.

“Your bibliophile is an angel with a bee in his—halo,” said Bunny, oracularly.

They talked on. The dinner drew to a close. Bunny ordered coffee and kümmel, and drew out his cigarette case. Jasper smoked his pipe. The nondescripts at the other tables had departed. They were alone in the frowsy, gas-lit room. Antonelli of the sombre shirt-sleeves was still in evidence through the door leading into the back-parlour, and the click of dominoes still broke the silence. The young woman behind the counter, who had interrupted her reading to give Giuseppe the bottle of kümmel, sat on her stool for some time watching Bunny and his friend. At last she swung out of the narrow space and crossed the restaurant.

“Good-evening, Bon Ami,” she said, coming up to the table. “I hope you’ve had a good dinner.”

“Excellent,” said Jasper, kindly answering for his host. “I’ve put myself into Mr. Tredgold’s hands and he has made me fare sumptuously.”

“That is well,” said the girl, “for we don’t go in for much purple and fine linen at the Hôtel Bomboni.”

“You read your Bible,” said Jasper, amused at the quick reference.

“I read all good literature I can come across, even Bon Ami’s poetry.”

She had the most curious accent in the world. It was half Cockney, half Italian. The vowels were pure. The consonants had the London throatiness. The intonation was Neapolitan and languorous. The last sentence was not sarcastic, but a playful lazy caress.

“This is Miss Vittoria Antonelli,” said Bunny, by way of introduction.

Vittoria held out to Jasper a delicate brown hand.

“It’s quite an event for Bon Ami to have a friend to dinner,” she said. “He generally sits over there,” pointing to a table under the lee of the counter, “like a hermit.”

As she stood there, with the light of the gas-bracket of the wall shining full in her face, Jasper saw that she was exceedingly beautiful. Olive skin, with the flush of health beneath; great lustrous brown-black eyes; a wealth of hair; rich lips; full young figure. She had a proud way of holding herself, her bust thrown out. She looked alive, glowingly alive. Bunny’s words flashed across his mind,—“the fierce man and the fierce woman.” Here was a pair physically mated, with all the divine fire and splendour of youth. He smiled to himself at the foolish notion.

The young Juno bade them good-evening. She had to get her supper.

“What does she call you?” asked Jasper.

“It amuses her to pun upon my name, Bonamy,” said Bunny.

“Oh, I see,” said Jasper.

“It’s miraculous how she has managed to cultivate herself as she has done,” said Bunny, lighting a fresh cigarette.

“A handsome girl,” said Jasper.

“She has walked straight out of one of Andrea del Sarto’s canvases,” said Bunny.

As Jasper had very dim notions concerning the artist mentioned, he acquiesced vaguely. The talk continued for a few minutes. He looked at his watch. It was half-past nine.

“I am due at the House,” said he. “Would you care to hear the debate? A Poor-Law question. I may speak.”

Bunny excused himself. Practical politics were not in his line. When the hated stroke of thirty sounded, then he would fling himself into statistics and stony facts. Till then he would go on living in the air.

“Then come a bit of the way with me,” said Jasper, in whom weariness had not killed a little teasing spirit. But Bunny had good reason for declining. He would sit there for awhile longer and rough out the idea of his play. Jasper smiled and rose from the table. Bunny helped him on with his overcoat, accompanied him to the door.

“Good-night, my dear boy,” said he, shaking hands. “You’ve given me a capital dinner and a delightful evening. And now—well, ‘gather ye rosebuds while ye may,’ Bunny, but keep a lookout for the thorns.”