Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘Ill-mannered brute!’ exclaimed Logotheti in such a tone that Schreiermeyer must certainly have heard the words, though he did not even turn his head.

  ‘I must speak to you at once,’ he was saying to Margaret, very hurriedly, as he led her away. ‘It is all bosh, nonsense, stupid stuff, I tell you! Rubbish!’

  ‘What is rubbish?’ asked Margaret in surprise, just as they reached the other side of the stage. ‘My singing?’

  ‘Stuff! You sing well enough. You know it too, you know it quite well! Good. Are you satisfied with the contract we signed?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ answered Margaret, more and more surprised at his manner.

  ‘Ah, very good. Because, I tell you, if you are not pleased, it is just the same. I will make you stick to it, whether you like it or not. Understand?’

  Margaret drew herself up, and looked at him coldly.

  ‘If I carry out my contract,’ she said, ‘it will be because I signed my name to it, not because you can force me to do anything against my will.’

  Schreiermeyer turned a little pale and glared through his glasses.

  ‘Ah, you are proud, eh? You say to yourself, “First I am a lady, and then I am a singer that is going to be a prima donna.” But the law is on my side. The law will give me heavy damages, enormous damages, if you fail to appear according to contract. You think because you have money in your throat somebody will pay me my damages if you go to somebody else. You don’t know the law, my lady! I can get an injunction to prevent you from singing anywhere in Europe, pending suit. The other man will have to pay me before you can open your beautiful mouth to let the money out! Just remember that! You take my advice. You be an artist first and a lady afterwards when you have plenty of time, and you stick to old Schreiermeyer, and he’ll stick to you. No nonsense, now, no stupid stuff! Eh?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea what you are driving at,’ said Margaret. ‘I have made an agreement with you, and unless I lose my voice during the next month I shall sing wherever you expect me to.’

  ‘All right, because if you don’t, I’ll make you dance from here to Jerusalem,’ answered Schreiermeyer, glaring again.

  ‘Do you know that you are quite the rudest and most brutal person I ever met?’ inquired Margaret, raising her eyebrows.

  But Schreiermeyer now smiled in the most pleasant manner possible, ceased glaring, spread out his palms and put his head on one side as he answered her, apparently much pleased by her estimate of him.

  ‘Ah, you are not phlegmatic, like Logotheti! We shall be good friends. I shall be rude to you when I am in a rage, and tell you the truth, and you shall call me many bad names. Then we shall be perfectly good friends. You will say, “Bah! it is only old Schreiermeyer!” and I shall say, “Pshaw! Cordova may call me a brute, but she is the greatest soprano in the world, what does it matter?” Do you see? We are going to be good friends!’

  It was impossible not to laugh at his way of putting it; impossible, too, not to feel that behind his strange manner, his brutal speeches and his serio-comic rage there was the character of a man who would keep his word and who expected others to do the same. There might even be lurking somewhere in him a streak of generosity.

  ‘Good friends?’ he repeated, with an interrogation.

  ‘Yes, good friends,’ Margaret answered, taking his hand frankly and still smiling.

  ‘I like you,’ said Schreiermeyer, looking at her with sudden thoughtfulness, as if he had just discovered something.

  And then without a word he turned on his heel and disappeared as quickly as he had come, his head sinking between his shoulders till the collar of the snuff-coloured overcoat he wore in spite of the warm weather was almost up to the brim of his hat behind.

  Logotheti and little Madame De Rosa came up to Margaret at once. The other singers were already filing out, eager to get into the fresh air.

  ‘The Signora,’ said Logotheti, ‘says she will come and lunch with me. Will you come too? I daresay we shall find something ready, and then, if you like, I’ll run you out to Mrs. Rushmore’s in the motor car.’

  Margaret hesitated a moment, and looked from one to the other. She was very hungry, and the prospect of a luxurious luncheon was much more alluring than that of the rather scrappy sort of meal she had expected to get at a Bouillon Duval. As ‘Miss Donne,’ a fortnight ago, she would certainly not have thought of going to Logotheti’s house, except with Mrs. Rushmore; but as the proposal tempted her she found it easy to tell herself that since she was a real artist she could go where she pleased, that people would gossip about her wherever she went, and that what she did was nobody’s business. And surely, for an artist, Madame De Rosa was a chaperon of sufficient weight. Moreover, Margaret was curious to see the place where the man lived. He interested her in spite of herself, and since Lushington had insisted on going off, though she had begged him to stay, she felt just a little reckless.

  ‘Do come!’ said Logotheti.

  The two words were spoken in just the right tone, neither as if his life depended on her answer, nor as if he were asking her to do something just a little risky, which would be amusing; but quite naturally, as if he would be really glad should she accept, but by no means overwhelmed with despair if she refused.

  ‘Thank you,’ she answered. ‘It’s very nice of you to ask us. I’ll come.’

  Logotheti smiled pleasantly, but looked away, perhaps not caring that she should see his eyes, even in the uncertain light. The three hastened to leave the theatre, for the stage was already full of workmen, the Egyptian palm was moving in one direction, the Commendatore’s white horse was joggling away uneasily in another, and the steps of somebody’s enchanted palace were being dragged forward into place. All was noise, dust and apparent confusion.

  Margaret expected that Logotheti’s house would somehow correspond with his own outward appearance and would be architecturally over-dressed, inside and out, but in this she was greatly mistaken. It was evidently a new house, in a quarter where many houses were new and where some were not in the most perfect taste, though none were monstrosities. It was not exceptionally big, and was certainly not showy; on the whole, it had the unmistakable air of having been built by a good architect, of the very best materials and in a way to last as long as hewn stone can. Such beauty as it had lay in its proportions and not in any sort of ornament, for it was in fact rather plainer than most of its neighbours in the Boulevard Péreire.

  The big door opened noiselessly just as the car came up, but Logotheti, who drove himself, did not turn in.

  ‘It’s rather a tight fit,’ he explained, as he stopped by the curbstone.

  He gave his hand to Margaret to get down. As her foot touched the pavement a man who was walking very fast, with his head down, made a step to one side, to get out of the way, and then, recognising her and the Greek, lifted his hat hastily and would have passed on. She started with an exclamation of surprise, for it was Lushington, whom she had supposed to be in London. Logotheti spoke first, calling to him in English.

  ‘Hollo! Lushington — I say!’

  Lushington stopped instantly and turned half round, with an exclamation intended to express an imaginary surprise, for he had recognised all three at first sight.

  ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed coldly. ‘Is that you? How are you?’

  Margaret offered her hand as he did not put out his. She was a little surprised to see that he did not change colour when he took it, as he always used to do when they met; he did not seem in the least shy, now, and there was a hard look in his eyes.

  ‘All right?’ he said, with a cool interrogation, and he turned to Logotheti before Margaret could give any answer.

  ‘Come in and lunch, my dear fellow,’ said the Greek affably.

  ‘I never lunch — thanks all the same.’ He moved to go on, nodding a good-bye.

  ‘Are you here for long?’ asked Margaret, forcing him to stop again.

  ‘That depends on what you call long. I leave this even
ing.’

  ‘I should call that a very short time!’ Margaret tried to laugh a little, with a lingering hope that he might unbend.

  ‘It’s quite long enough for me, thank you,’ he answered roughly. ‘Good-bye!’

  He lifted his hat again and walked off very fast. Margaret’s face fell, and Logotheti saw the change of expression.

  ‘He’s an awfully good fellow in spite of his shyness,’ he said quietly. ‘I wish we could have made him stay.’

  ‘Yes,’ Margaret answered, in a preoccupied tone.

  She was wondering whether Logotheti had guessed that there had been anything between her and Lushington. Logotheti ushered his guests in under the main entrance.

  ‘Do you know Mr. Lushington well?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, in a way. I once published a little book, and he wrote a very nice article about it in a London Review. You did not know I was a man of letters, did you?’ Logotheti laughed quietly. ‘My book was not very long — only about a hundred pages, I think. But Lushington made out that it wasn’t all rubbish, and I was always grateful to him.’

  ‘What was your book about?’ asked Margaret, as they entered the house.

  ‘Oh, nothing that would interest you — the pronunciation of Greek. Will you take off your hat?’

  At every step, at every turn, Margaret realised how much she had been mistaken in thinking that anything in Logotheti’s house could be in bad taste. There was perfect harmony everywhere, and a great deal of simplicity. The man alone offended her eye a little, the man himself, with his resplendent tie, his jewellery and his patent leather shoes; and even so, it was only the outward man, in so far as she could not help seeing him and contrasting his appearance with his surroundings. For he was as tactful and quiet, and as modest about himself as ever; he did not exhibit the conquering air which many men would have found it impossible not to assume under the circumstances; he showed himself just as anxious to please little Madame De Rosa as Margaret herself, and talked to both indiscriminately. If Margaret at first felt that she was doing something a little eccentric, not to say compromising, in accepting the invitation, the sensation had completely worn off before luncheon was half over, and she was as much at her ease as she could have been in Mrs. Rushmore’s own house. She felt as if she had known Logotheti all her life, as if she understood him thoroughly and was not displeased that he should understand her.

  They went into the next room for coffee.

  ‘You used to like my Zara maraschino,’ said Logotheti to Madame De Rosa.

  He took a decanter from a large case, filled a good-sized liqueur glass for her and set it beside her cup.

  ‘It is the most delicious thing in the world,’ cried the little woman, sipping it eagerly.

  ‘May I not have some, too?’ asked Margaret.

  ‘Not on any account,’ answered Logotheti, putting the decanter back on the other side. ‘It’s very bad for the voice, you know.’

  ‘I never heard that,’ said Madame De Rosa, laughing. ‘I adore it! But as my singing days are over it does not matter at all. Oh, how good it is!’

  She sipped it again and again, with all sorts of little cries and sighs of satisfaction.

  Logotheti and Margaret looked on, smiling at her childish delight.

  ‘Do you think I might have a little more?’ she asked, presently. ‘Only half a glass!’

  Logotheti filled the glass again, though she laughingly protested that half a glass was all she wanted. But he took none himself.

  Margaret saw a picture at the other end of the room which attracted her attention, and she rose to go and look at it. Logotheti followed her, but Madame De Rosa, who had established her small person in the most comfortable arm-chair in the room, was too much interested in the maraschino to move. Margaret stood in silence before the painting for a few moments, and Logotheti waited for her to speak, watching her as he always did when she was not looking.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, at last. ‘It’s quite beautiful, but I don’t understand it.’

  ‘Nor do I, in the least,’ answered Logotheti. ‘I found it in Italy two years ago. It’s what they call an encaustic painting, like the Muse of Cortona, probably of the time of Tiberius. It is painted on a slab of slate three inches thick, and burnt in by a process that is lost. You might put it into the fire and leave it there without doing it any harm. That much I know, for I found it built into a baker’s oven. But I can tell you no more about it. I have some pretty good things here, but this is quite my best picture. It is very like somebody, too — uncommonly like! Do you see the resemblance?’

  ‘No. I suppose I don’t know the person.’

  Logotheti laughed and took up a little mirror set in an old Spanish frame.

  ‘Look at yourself,’ he said. ‘The picture is the image of you.’

  ‘Of me?’ Margaret took the glass, and her cheek flushed a little as she looked at herself and then at the picture, and realised that the likeness was not imaginary.

  ‘In future,’ said Logotheti, ‘I shall tell people that it is a portrait of you.’

  ‘Of me? Oh please, no!’ cried Margaret anxiously, and blushing deeper. ‘Don’t!’

  Logotheti laughed.

  ‘Did you think I was in earnest?’ he asked.

  The painting represented the head and shoulders of a woman — perhaps of a goddess, though it had that strangely living look about the eyes and mouth which belongs to all good portraits that are like the originals. The woman’s head was thrown back, her deep-set eyes were looking up with an expression of strange longing, the rich hair flowed down over her bare neck, where one beautiful hand caught it and seemed to press the tangled locks upon her heart.

  The picture’s beauty was the beauty of life, for the features were not technically faultless. The lips glowed with burning breath, the twining hair was alive and elastic, the after-light of a profound and secret pleasure lingered in the liquid eyes, blending with the shadow of pain just past but passionately desired again.

  Margaret gazed at the painting a few seconds, for it fascinated her against her will. Then she laid down the small looking-glass and turned away rather abruptly.

  ‘I don’t like to look at it,’ she said, avoiding Logotheti’s eyes. ‘I think it must be time to be going,’ she added. ‘Mrs. Rushmore will be wondering where I am.’

  She went back across the room a little way with Logotheti by her side. Suddenly he stopped and laughed softly.

  ‘By Jove!’ he exclaimed under his breath, pointing to the arm-chair in which Madame De Rosa was sitting. ‘She’s fast asleep!’

  She was sleeping as peacefully as a cat after a meal, half curled up in the big chair, her head turned to one side and her cheek buried in a cushion of Rhodes tapestry. Margaret stood and looked at her with curiosity and some amusement.

  ‘She’s not generally a very sleepy person,’ said the young girl.

  ‘The emotions of your first rehearsal have tired her out,’ said Logotheti. ‘They don’t seem to have affected you at all,’ he added. ‘Shall we wake her?’

  Margaret hesitated, and then bent down and touched the sleeping woman’s arm gently, and called her by name in a low tone; but without the slightest result.

  ‘She must be very tired,’ Margaret said in a tone of sympathy. ‘After all, it’s not so very late. We had better let her sleep a few minutes longer, poor thing.’

  Logotheti bent his head gravely.

  ‘We’ll make up the time with the motor in going to Versailles,’ he said.

  By unspoken consent, they moved away and sat down at some distance from Madame De Rosa’s chair, at the end of the room opposite to the picture. Logotheti did not speak at once, but sat leaning forward, his wrists resting on his knees, his hands hanging down limply, his eyes bent on the carpet. As she sat, Margaret could see the top of his head; there was a sort of fascination about his preternaturally glossy black hair, and the faultless parting made it look like the wig on a barber’s doll. She thought of
Lushington and idly wondered whether she was always to be admired by men with phenomenally smooth hair.

  ‘What are you thinking of?’ Logotheti asked, looking up suddenly and smiling as he met her eyes.

  She laughed low.

  ‘I was wondering how you kept your hair so smooth!’ she answered.

  ‘I should look like a savage if I did not,’ he said. ‘My only chance of seeming civilised is to overdo the outward fashions of civilisation. If I wore rough clothes like an Englishman, and did not smooth my hair and let my man do all sorts of things to my moustache to keep it flat, I should look like a pirate. And if I looked like a Greek pirate you would have hesitated about coming to lunch with me to-day. Do you see? There is a method in my bad taste.’

  Margaret looked at him a moment and then laughed again.

  ‘So that’s it, is it? How ingenious! Do you know that I have wondered at the way you dress, ever since I met you?’

  ‘I’m flattered. But think a moment. I daresay you wonder why I wear a lot of jewellery, too. Of course it’s in bad taste. I quite agree with you. But the world is often nearer to first principles than you realise. A man who wears a ruby in his tie worth ten thousand pounds is not suspected of wanting to get other people’s money as soon as he makes acquaintance. On the contrary, they are much more likely to try to get his, and are rather inclined to think him a fool for showing that he has so much. It is always an advantage to be thought a fool when one is not. If one is clever it is much better to have it believed that one is merely lucky. In business everybody likes lucky people, but every one avoids a clever man. It is one of the elements of success to remember that!’

  ‘You won’t easily persuade any one that you are a foolish person,’ said Margaret.

  ‘It would be much harder if I did not take pains,’ he answered gravely. ‘Now you know my secret, but don’t betray me.’

  ‘Not for worlds!’

  They both laughed a little, and their eyes met.