Mounting the few steps, he paused idly a moment on the verge of this green "God's-acre" to read a perpendicular slab on a wall, and his face broadened into a smile as he followed the absurdly elaborate biography of a rich, self-made merchant who had taught himself to read. "Reader, go thou and do likewise," was the delicious bull at the end. As he turned away, the smile still lingering about his lips, he saw a dainty figure tripping down the stony graveyard path, and though he was somehow startled to find her still in black, there was no mistaking Mrs. Glamorys. She ran to meet him with a glad cry, which filled his eyes with happy tears.
"How good of you to remember!" she said, as she took the bouquet from his unresisting hand, and turned again on her footsteps. He followed her wonderingly across the uneven road towards a narrow aisle of graves on the left. In another instant she had stooped before a shining white stone, and laid his bouquet reverently upon it. As he reached her side, he saw that his flowers were almost lost in the vast mass of floral offerings with which the grave of the woman beater was bestrewn.
"How good of you to remember the anniversary," she murmured again.
"How could I forget it?" he stammered, astonished. "Is not this the end of the terrible twelve-month?"
The soft gratitude died out of her face. "Oh, is that what you were thinking of?"
"What else?" he murmured, pale with conflicting emotions.
"What else! I think decency demanded that this day, at least, should be sacred to his memory. Oh, what brutes men are!" And she burst into tears.
His patient breast revolted at last. "You said he was the brute!" he retorted, outraged.
"Is that your chivalry to the dead? Oh, my poor Harold, my poor Harold!"
For once her tears could not extinguish the flame of his anger. "But you told me he beat you," he cried.
"And if he did, I dare say I deserved it. Oh, my darling, my darling!" She laid her face on the stone and sobbed.
John Lefolle stood by in silent torture. As he helplessly watched her white throat swell and fall with the sobs, he was suddenly struck by the absence of the black velvet band-the truer mourning she had worn in the lifetime of the so lamented. A faint scar, only perceptible to his conscious eye, added to his painful bewilderment.
At last she rose and walked unsteadily forward. He followed her in mute misery. In a moment or two they found themselves on the outskirts of the deserted heath. How beautiful stretched the gorsy rolling country! The sun was setting in great burning furrows of gold and green-a panorama to take one's breath away. The beauty and peace of Nature passed into the poet's soul.
"Forgive me, dearest," he begged, taking her hand.
She drew it away sharply. "I cannot forgive you. You have shown yourself in your true colours."
Her unreasonableness angered him again. "What do you mean? I only came in accordance with our long-standing arrangement. You have put me off long enough."
"It is fortunate I did put you off long enough to discover what you are."
He gasped. He thought of all the weary months of waiting, all the long comedy of telegrams and express letters, the far-off flirtations of the cosy corner, the baffled elopement to Paris. "Then you won't marry me?"
"I cannot marry a man I neither love nor respect."
"You don't love me!" Her spontaneous kiss in his sober Oxford study seemed to burn on his angry lips.
"No, I never loved you."
He took her by the arms and turned her round roughly. "Look me in the face and dare to say you have never loved me."
His memory was buzzing with passionate phrases from her endless letters. They stung like a swarm of bees. The sunset was like blood-red mist before his eyes.
"I have never loved you," she said obstinately.
"You-!" His grasp on her arms tightened. He shook her.
"You are bruising me," she cried.
His grasp fell from her arms as though they were red-hot. He had become a woman beater.
THE ETERNAL FEMININE
He wore a curious costume, representing the devil carrying off his corpse; but I recognised him at once as the lesser lion of a London evening party last season. Then he had just returned from a Polar expedition, and wore the glacier of civilisation on his breast. To-night he was among the maddest of the mad, dancing savagely with the Bacchantes of the Latin Quarter at the art students' ball, and some of his fellow-Americans told me that he was the best marine painter in the atelier which he had joined. More they did not pause to tell me, for they were anxious to celebrate this night of nights, when, in that fine spirit of equality born of belonging to two Republics, the artist lowers himself to the level of his model.
The young Arctic explorer, so entirely at home in this more tropical clime, had relapsed into respectability when I spoke to him. He was sitting at a supper-table smoking a cigarette, and gazing somewhat sadly-it seemed to me-at the pandemoniac phantasmagoria of screaming dancers, the glittering cosmopolitan chaos that multiplied itself riotously in the mirrored walls of the great flaring ball-room, where under-dressed women, waving many-coloured paper lanterns, rode on the shoulders of grotesquely clad men prancing to joyous music. For some time he had been trying hard to get some one to take the money for his supper; but the frenzied waiters suspected he was clamouring for something to eat, and would not be cajoled into attention.
Moved by an impulse of mischief, I went up to him and clapped him on his corpse, which he wore behind.
There was a death-mask of papier-mache on the back of his head with appropriate funereal drapings down the body.
"I'll take your money," I said.
He started, and turned his devil upon me. The face was made Mephistophelian, and the front half of him wore scarlet.
"Thanks," he said, laughing roguishly, when he recognised me. "It's darned queer that Paris should be the place where they refuse to take the devil's money."
I suggested smilingly that it was the corpse they fought shy of.
"I guess not," he retorted. "It's dead men's money that keeps this place lively. I wish I'd had the chance of some anyhow; but a rolling stone gathers no moss, they say-not even from graveyards, I suppose."
He spoke disconsolately, in a tone more befitting the back than the front of him, and quite out of accord with the reckless revelry around him.
"Oh! you'll make lots of money with your pictures," I said heartily.
He shook his head. "That's the chap who's going to scoop in the dollars," he said, indicating a brawny Frenchman attired in a blanket that girdled his loins, and black feathers that decorated his hair. "That fellow's got the touch of Velasquez. You should see the portrait he's doing for the Salon."
"Well, I don't see much art in his costume, anyhow," I retorted. "Yours is an inspiration of genius."
"Yes; so prophetic, don't you know," he replied modestly. "But you are not the only one who has complimented me. To it I owe the proudest moment of my life-when I shook hands with a European prince." And he laughed with returning merriment.
"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "With which?"
"Ah! I see your admiration for my rig is mounting. No; it wasn't with the Prince of Wales-confess your admiration is going down already. Come, you shall guess. Je vous le donne en trois."
After teasing me a little he told me it was the Kronprinds of Denmark. "At the Kunstner Karneval in Copenhagen," he explained briefly. His front face had grown sad again.
"Did you study art in Copenhagen?" I inquired.
"Yes, before I joined that expedition," he said. "It was from there I started."
"Yes, of course," I replied. "I remember now. It was a Danish expedition. But what made you chuck up your studies so suddenly?"
"Oh! I don't know. I guess I was just about sick of most things. My stars! Look at that little gypsy-girl dancing the can-can; isn't she fresh? Isn't she wonderful? How awful to think she'll be used up in a year or two!"
"I suppose there was a woman-the eternal feminine," I said, sticking him to the point, fo
r I was more interested in him than in the seething saturnalia, our common sobriety amid which seemed somehow to raise our casual acquaintanceship to the plane of confidential friendship.
"Yes, I suppose there was a woman," he echoed in low tones. "The eternal feminine!" And a strange unfathomable light leapt into his eyes, which he raised slightly towards the gilded ceiling, where countless lustres glittered.
"Deceived you, eh?" I said lightly.
His expression changed. "Deceived me, as you say," he murmured, with a faint, sad smile, that made me conjure up a vision of a passionate lovely face with cruel eyes.
"Won't you tell me about it?" I asked, as I tendered him a fresh cigarette, for while we spoke his half-smoked one had been snatched from his mouth by a beautiful Maenad, who whirled off puffing it.
"I reckon you'll be making copy out of it," he said, his smile growing whimsical.
"If it's good enough," I replied candidly. "That's why I am here."
"What a lovely excuse! But there's nothing in my affair to make a story of."
I smiled majestically.
"You stick to your art-leave me to manage mine." And I put a light to his cigarette.
"Ah, but you'll be disappointed this time, I warrant," he said laughingly, as the smoke circled round his diabolically handsome face. Then, becoming serious again, he went on: "It's so terribly plebeian, yet it all befell through that very Kunstner Karneval. I was telling you of when I first wore this composite costume which gained me the smile of royalty. It was a very swell affair, of course, not a bit like this, but it was given in hell."
"In hell!" I cried, startled.
"Yes. Underverden they call it in their lingo. The ball-room of the palace (the Palaeet, an old disused mansion) was got up to represent the infernal regions-you tumble?-and everybody had to dress appropriately. That was what gave me the idea of this costume. The staircase up which you entered was made the mouth of a great dragon, and as you trod on the first step his eye gleamed blazes and brimstone. There were great monsters all about, and dark grottoes radiating around; and when you took your dame into one of them, your tread flooded them with light. If, however, the cavalier modestly conducted his mistress into one of the lighted caves, virtue was rewarded by instantaneous darkness."
"That was really artistic," I said, laughing.
"You bet! The artists spent any amount of money over the affair. The whole of Hades bristled with ingenious devices in every corner. I had got a couple of tickets, and had designed the dress of my best girl, as well as my own, and the morning before (there being little work done in the studios that day, as you may well imagine) I called upon her to see her try it on. To my chagrin I found she was down with influenza, or something of that sort appropriate to the bitter winter we were having. And it did freeze that year, by Jove!-so hard that Denmark and Sweden were united-to their mutual disgust, I fancy-by a broad causeway of ice. I remember, as I walked back from the girl's house towards the town along the Langelinie, my mortification was somewhat allayed by the picturesque appearance of the Sound, in whose white expanse boats of every species and colour were embedded, looking like trapped creatures unable to stir oar or sail. But as I left the Promenade and came into the narrow old streets of the town, with their cobblestones and their quaint, many-windowed houses, my ill-humour returned. I had had some trouble in getting the second ticket, and now it looked as if I should get left. I went over in my mind the girls I could ask, and what with not caring more for one than for another, and not knowing which were booked already, and what with the imminence of the ball, I felt the little brains I had getting addled in my head. At last, in sheer despair, I had what is called a happy thought. I resolved to ask the first girl of my acquaintance I met in my walk. Instantly my spirits rose like a thermometer in a Turkish bath. The clouds of irresolution rolled away, and the touch of adventure made my walk joyous again. I peered eagerly into every female face I met, but it was not till I approached the market-place that I knew my fate. Then, turning a corner, I came suddenly and violently face to face with Froeken Jensen."
He paused and relit his cigarette, and the maddening music of brass instruments and brazen creatures, which his story had shut out, crashed again upon my ears. "I reckon if you were telling this, you'd stop here," he said, "and put down 'to be continued in our next.'" There seemed a trace of huskiness in his flippant tones, as if he were trying to keep under some genuine emotion.
"Never you mind," I returned, smiling. "You're not a writer, anyhow, so just keep straight on."
"Well, Froeken Jensen was absolutely the ugliest girl I have seen in all my globe-trottings.... On second thoughts, that is the place to stop, isn't it?"
"Not at all; it's only in long novels one stops for refreshment. So go ahead, and-I say-do cut your interruptions a la Fielding and Thackeray. C'est vieux jeu."
"All right, don't get mad. Froeken Jensen had the most irregular and ungainly features that ever crippled a woman's career; her nose was-But no! I won't describe her, poor girl. She was about twenty-six years old, but one of those girls whose years no one counts, who are old maids at seventeen. Well, you can fancy what a fix I was in. It was no good pretending to myself that I hadn't seen her, for we nearly bowled each other over-she was coming along quick trot with a basket on her arm-and it seemed kind of shuffling to back out of my promise to her, though she didn't know anything about it. It was like betting with yourself and wanting to cheat yourself when you lost. I felt I should never trust myself again, if I turned welsher-that's the word, isn't it?"
"It's like Jephtha," I said. "He swore, you know, he would sacrifice the first creature that he saw on his triumphant return from the wars, and his daughter came out and had to be sacrificed."
"Thank you for the compliment," he said, with a grimace. "But I'm not up in the classics, so the comparison didn't strike me. But what did strike me, after the first moment of annoyance, was the humour of the situation. I turned and walked beside her-under cover of an elaborate apology for my dashing behaviour. She seemed quite concerned at my regret, and insisted that it was she that had dashed-it was her marketing-day, and she was late. You must know she kept a boarding-house for art and university students, and it was there that I had made her acquaintance, when I went to dine once or twice with a studio chum who was quartered there. I had never exchanged two sentences with her before, as you can well imagine. She was not inviting to the artistic eye; indeed, I rather wondered how my friend could tolerate her at the head of the table, till he jestingly told me it was reckoned off the bill. The place was indeed suited to the student's pocket. But this morning I was surprised at the sprightliness of her share in the dialogue of mutual apologies. Her mind seemed as alert as her step, her voice was pleasing and gentle, and there was a refreshing gaiety in her attitude towards the situation.
"'But I am quite sure it was my fault,' I wound up rather lamely at last, 'and, if you will allow me to make you amends, I shall be pleased to send you a ticket for the ball to-morrow night.'
"She stood still. 'For the Kunstner Karneval!' she cried eagerly, while her poor absurd face lit up.
"'Yes, Froeken; and I shall be happy to escort you there if you will give me the pleasure.'
"She looked at me with sudden suspicion-the idea that I was chaffing her must have crossed her mind. I felt myself flushing furiously, feeling somehow half-guilty by my secret thoughts of her a few moments ago. We had arrived at the Amagertorv-the market-place-and I recollect getting a sudden impression of the quaint stalls and the picturesque Amager-women-one with a preternaturally hideous face-and the frozen canal in the middle, with the ice-bound fruit-boats from the islands, and the red sails of the Norwegian boats, and the Egyptian architecture of Thorwaldsen's Museum in the background, making up my mind to paint it all, in the brief instant before I added in my most convincing tones, 'The Kronprinds will be there.'
"Her incredulous expression became tempered by wistfulness, and with an inspiration I drew out the ticket and
thrust it into her hand. I saw her eyes fill with tears as she turned her head away and examined some vegetables.
"'You will excuse me,' she said presently, holding the ticket limply in her hand, 'but I fear it is impossible for me to accept your kind invitation. You see I have so much to do, and my children will be so uncomfortable without me.'
"'Your children will be at the ball to a man,' I retorted.
"'But I haven't any fancy costume,' she pleaded, and tendered me the ticket back. It struck me-almost with a pang-that her hand was bare of glove, and the work-a-day costume she was wearing was ill adapted to the rigour of the weather.
"'Oh! Come anyhow,' I said. 'Ordinary evening dress. Of course, you will need a mask.'
"I saw her lip twitch at this unfortunate way of putting it, and hastened to affect unconsciousness of my blunder.
"'She wouldn't,' I added with feigned jocularity, nodding towards the preternaturally hideous Amager-woman.
"'Poor old thing,' she said gently. 'I shall be sorry when she dies.'
"'Why?' I murmured.
"'Because then I shall be the ugliest woman in Copenhagen,' she answered gaily.
"Something in that remark sent a thrill down my backbone-there seemed an infinite pathos and lovableness in her courageous recognition of facts. It dispensed me from the painful necessity of pretending to be unaware of her ugliness-nay, gave it almost a cachet-made it as possible a topic of light conversation as beauty itself. I pressed her more fervently to come, and at last she consented, stipulating only that I should call for her rather late, after she had quite finished her household duties and the other boarders had gone off to the ball.
"Well, I took her to the ball (it was as brilliant and gay as this without being riotous), and-will you believe it?-she made quite a little sensation. With a black domino covering her impossible face, and a simple evening dress, she looked as distinguee as my best girl would have done. Her skin was good, and her figure, freed from the distracting companionship of her face, was rather elegant, while the lively humour of her conversation had now fair play. She danced well, too, with a natural grace. I believe she enjoyed her incog. almost as much as the ball, and I began to feel quite like a fairy godmother who was giving poor little Cinderella an outing, and to regret that I had not the power to make her beautiful for ever, or at least to make life one eternal fancy ball, at which silk masks might veil the horrors of reality. I dare say, too, she got a certain kudos through dancing so much with me, for, as I have told you ad nauseam, this lovely costume of mine was the hit of the evening, and the Kronprinds asked for the honour of an introduction to me. It was rather funny-the circuitous etiquette. I had to be first introduced to his aide-de-camp. This was done through an actress of the Kongelige Theatre, with whom I had been polking (he knew all the soubrettes, that aide-de-camp!). Then he introduced me to the Kronprinds, and I held out my hand and shook his royal paw heartily. He was very gracious to me, learning I was an American, and complimented me on my dress and my dancing, and I answered him affably; and the natives, gathered round at a respectful distance, eyed me with reverent curiosity. But at last, when the music struck up again, I said, 'Excuse me, I am engaged for this waltz!' and hurried off to dance with my Cinderella, much to the amazement of the Danes, who wondered audibly what mighty foreign potentate His Royal Highness had been making himself agreeable to."
The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes Page 8
