Читать книгу: «The Golden Butterfly», страница 4

CHAPTER IV
"To taste the freshness of the morning air."

Phillis retreated to her own room at her accustomed hour of ten. Her nerves were excited; her brain was troubled with the events of this day of emancipation. She was actually in the world, the great world of which her guardian had told her, the world where history was made, where wicked kings, as Mr. Dyson perpetually impressed upon her, made war their play and the people their playthings. She was in the world where all those things were done of which she had only heard as yet. She had seen the streets of London, or some of them – those streets along which had ridden the knights whose pictures she loved to draw, the princesses and queens whose stories Mr. Dyson had taught her; where the business of the world was carried on, and where there flowed up and down the ceaseless stream of those whom necessity spurs to action. As a matter of narrow fact, she had seen nothing but that part of London which lies between Highgate Hill and Carnarvon Square; but to her it seemed the City, the centre of all life, the heart of civilisation. She regretted only that she had not been able to discern the Tower of London. That might be, however, close to Mr. Jagenal's house, and she would look for it in the morning.

What a day! She sat before her fire and tried to picture it all over again. Horses, carriages, carts, and people rushing to and fro; shops filled with the most wonderful exhibition of precious things; eccentric people with pipes, who trundled carts piled with yellow oranges; gentlemen in blue with helmets, who lounged negligently along the streets; boys who ran and whistled; boys who ran and shouted; boys who ran and sold papers; always boys – where were all the girls? Where were they all going? and what were they all wishing to do?

In the evening the world appeared to narrow itself. It consisted of dinner with three elderly gentlemen; one of whom was thoughtful about herself, spoke kindly to her, and asked her about her past life; while the other two – and here she laughed – talked unintelligently about Art and themselves, and sometimes praised each other.

Then she opened her sketch-book and began to draw the portraits of her new friends. And first she produced a faithful effigies of the twins. This took her nearly an hour to draw, but when finished it made a pretty picture. The brethren stood with arms intertwined like two children, with eyes gazing fondly into each other's and heads thrown back, in the attitude of poetic and artistic meditation which they mostly affected. A clever sketch, and she was more than satisfied when she held it up to the light and looked at it, before placing it in her portfolio.

"Mr. Humphrey said I had the eye of an artist," she murmured. "I wonder what he will say when he sees this."

Then she drew the portrait of Joseph. This was easy. She drew him sitting a little forward, playing with his watch-chain, looking at her with deep grave eyes.

Then she closed her eyes and began to recall the endless moving panorama of the London streets. But this she could not draw. There came no image to her mind, only a series of blurred pictures running into each other.

Then she closed her sketch-book, put up her pencils, and went to bed. It was twelve o'clock. Joseph was still thinking over the terms of Mr. Dyson's will and the chapter on the Coping-stone. The twins were taking their third split soda – it was brotherly to divide a bottle, and the mixture was less likely to be unfairly diluted.

Phillis went to bed, but she could not sleep. The steps of the passers-by, the strange room, the excitement of the day kept her awake. She was like some fair yacht suddenly launched from the dock where she had grown slowly to her perfect shape, upon the waters of the harbour, which she takes for the waters of the great ocean.

She looked round her bedroom in Carnarvon Square, and because it was not Highgate, thought it must be the vast, shelterless and unpitying world of which she had so often heard, and at thought of which, brave as she was, she had so often shuddered.

It was nearly three when she fairly slept, and then she had a strange dream. She thought that she was part of the great procession which never ended all day long in the streets, only sometimes a little more crowded and sometimes a little thinner. She pushed and hastened with the rest. She would have liked to stay and examine the glittering things exhibited – the gold and jewelry, the dainty cakes and delicate fruits, the gorgeous dresses in the windows – but she could not. All pushed on, and she with them; there had been no beginning of the rush, and there seemed to be no end. Faces turned round and glared at her – faces which she marked for a moment – they were the same which she had seen in the morning; faces hard and faces hungry; faces cruel and faces forbidding; faces that were bent on doing something desperate – every kind of face except a sweet face. That is a rare thing for a stranger to find in a London street. The soft sweet faces belong to the country. She wondered why they all looked at her so curiously. Perhaps because she was a stranger.

Presently there was a sort of hue and cry and everybody began running, she with them. Oddly enough, they all ran after her. Why? Was that also because she was a stranger? Only the younger men ran, but the rest looked on. The twins, however were both running among the pursuers. The women pointed and flouted at her; the older men nodded, wagged their heads, and laughed. Faster they ran and faster she fled; they distanced, she and her pursuers the crowd behind; they passed beyond the streets and into country fields, where hedges took the place of the brilliant windows; they were somehow back in the old Highgate paddock which had been so long her only outer world. The pursuers were reduced to three or four, among them, by some odd chance, the twin brethren and as one, but who she could not tell, caught up with her and laid his hand upon hers, and she could run no longer and could resist no more, but fell, not with terror at all, but rather a sense of relief and gladness, into a clutch which was like an embrace of a lover for softness and strength, she saw in front of her dead old Abraham Dyson, who clapped his hands and cried, "Well run, well won! The Coping-stone, my Phillis, of your education!"

She woke with a start, and sat up looking round the room. Her dream was so vivid that she saw the group before her very eyes in the twilight – herself, with a figure, dim and undistinguishable in the twilight, leaning over her; and a little distance off old Abraham Dyson himself, standing, as she best remembered him, upright, and with his hands upon his stick. He laughed and wagged his head and nodded it as he said: "Well run, well won, my Phillis; it is the Coping-stone!"

This was a very remarkable dream for a young lady of nineteen. Had she told it to Joseph Jagenal it might have led his thoughts into a new channel.

She rubbed her eyes, and the vision disappeared. Then she laid her head again upon the pillow, just a little frightened at her ghosts, and presently dropped off to sleep.

This time she had no more dreams; but she awoke soon after it was daybreak, being still unquiet in her new surroundings.

And now she remembered everything with a rush. She had left Highgate; she was in Carnarvon Square; she was in Mr. Joseph Jagenal's house; she had been introduced to two gentlemen, one of whom was said to have a child-like nature all aglow with the flame of genius, while the other was described as a great, a noble fellow, to know whom was a Privilege and to converse with whom was an Education.

She laughed when she thought of the pair. Like Nebuchadnezzar, she had forgotten her dream. Unlike that king, she did not care to recall it.

The past was gone. A new life was about to begin. And the April sun was shining full upon her window-blinds.

Phillis sprang from her bed and tore open the curtains with eager hand. Perhaps facing her might be the Tower of London. Perhaps the Thames, the silver Thames, with London Bridge. Perhaps St. Paul's Cathedral, "which Christopher Wren built in place of the old one destroyed by the Great Fire." Phillis's facts in history were short and decisive like the above.

No Tower of London at all. No St. Paul's Cathedral. No silver Thames. Only a great square with houses all round. Carnarvon Square at dawn. Not, perhaps, a fairy piece, but wonderful in its novelty to this newly emancipated cloistered nun, with whom a vivid sense of the beautiful had grown up by degrees in her mind, fed only in the pictures supplied by the imagination. She knew the trees that grew in Lord Manfield's park, beyond the paddock; she could catch in fine days a glimpse of the vast city that stretches itself out from the feet of breezy Highgate; she knew the flowers of her own garden; and for the rest – she imagined it. River, lake, mountain, forest, and field, she knew them only by talk with her guardian. And the mighty ocean she knew because her French maid had crossed it when she quitted fair Normandy, and told her again and again of the horrors encountered by those who go down to the sea in ships.

So that a second garden was a new revelation. Besides it was bright and pretty. There were the first flowers of spring, gay tulips and pretty things, whose name she did not know or could not make out from the window. The shrubs and trees were green with the first sweet chlorine foliage of April, clear and fresh from the broken buds which lay thick upon the ground, the tender leaflets as yet all unsullied by the London smoke.

The pavement was deserted, because it was as yet too early for any one, even a milk-boy, to be out. The only living person to be seen was a gardener, already at work among the plants.

A great yearning came over her to be out in the open air and among the flowers. At Highgate she rose at all hours; worked in the garden; saddled and rode her pony in the field; and amused herself in a thousand ways before the household rose, subject to no restraint or law but one – that she was not to open the front-door, or venture herself in the outer world.

"Mr. Jagenal said I was to do as I liked," she said, hesitating. "It cannot be wrong to go out of the front-door now. Besides," reasoning here like a casuist, "perhaps it is the back-door which leads to that garden."

In a quarter of an hour she was ready. She was not one of those young ladies who, because no one is looking at them, neglect their personal appearance. On the contrary, she always dressed for herself; therefore, she always dressed well.

This morning she wore a morning costume, all one colour, and I think it was gray, but am not quite certain. It was in the graceful fashion of last year, lying in long curved lines, and fitting closely to her slender and tall figure. A black ribbon was tied round her neck, and in her hat – the hats of last year did not suit every kind of face, but they suited the face of Phillis Fleming – she wore one of those bright little birds whose destruction for the purposes of fashion we all deplore. In her hand she carried, as if she were still at Highgate and going to saddle her pony, a small riding-whip. And thus she opened the door, and slid down the stairs of the great silent house as stealthily and almost as fearfully as the Lady Godiva on a certain memorable day. It was a ghostly feeling which came over her when she ran across the broad hall, and listened to the pattering of her own feet upon the oilcloth. The broad daylight streamed through the réverbère; but yet the place seemed only half lit up. The closed doors on either hand looked as if dreadful things lurked behind them. With something like a shudder she let down the door-chain, unbarred the bolts, and opened the door. As she passed through she was aware of a great rush across the hall behind her. It was Cæsar, the mastiff. Awakened by a noise as of one burgling, he crept swiftly and silently up the kitchen-stairs, with intent to do a desperate deed of valour, and found to his rapturous joy that it was only the young lady, she who came the night before, and that she was going out for an early morning walk – a thing he, for his part, had not been permitted to do for many, many moons, not since he had been brought – a puppy yet, and innocent – to the heart of London.

No one out at all except themselves. What joy! Phillis shut the door very carefully behind her, looked up and down the street, and then running down the steps, seized the happy Cæsar by the paws and danced round and round with him upon the pavement. Then they both ran a race. She ran like Atalanta, but Cæsar led till the finish, when out of a courtesy more than Castilian, he allowed himself to be beaten, and Phillis won by a neck. This result pleased them both, and Phillis discovered that her race had brought her quite to the end of one side of the square. And then, looking about her, she perceived that a gate of the garden was open, and went in, followed by Cæsar, now in the seventh heaven. This was better, better, than leading a pair of twins who sometimes tied knots with their legs. The gate was left open by the under-gardener, who had arisen thus early in the morning with a view to carrying off some of the finer tulips for himself. They raced and chased each other up and down the gravel walks between the lilacs and laburnums bursting into blossom. Presently they came to the under-gardener himself, who was busy potting a selection of the tulips. He stared as if at a ghost. Half-past five in the morning, and a young lady, with a dog, looking at him!

He stiffened his upper lip, and put the spade before the flower-pots.

"Beg pardon, miss. No dogs allowed. On the rules, miss."

"William," she replied – for she was experienced in undergardeners, knew that they always answer to the name of William, also that they are exposed to peculiar temptations in the way of bulb – "William, for whom you are potting those tulips?"

Then, because the poor youth's face was suffused and his countenance was "unto himself for a betrayal," she whistled – actually whistled – to Cæsar, and ran on laughing.

"Here's a rum start," said William. "A young lady as knows my name, what I'm up to and all, coming here at five o clock in the blessed morning when all young ladies as I ever heard of has got their noses in their pillowses – else 'tain't no good being a young lady. Ketches me a disposin' of the toolups. With a dawg, and whistles like a young nobleman."

He began putting back the flowers.

"No knowin' who she mayn't tell, nor what she mayn't say. It's dangerous, William."

By different roads, Montaigne wrote, we arrive at the same end. William's choice of the path of virtue was in this case due to Phillis's early visit.

CHAPTER V
"Te duce Cæsar."

Tired of running, the girl began to walk. It was an April morning, when the east wind for once had forgotten to blow. Walking, she whistled one of the ditties that she knew. She had a very superior mode of performing on that natural piccolo-flute, the human mouth; it was a way of her own, not at all like the full round whistle of the street-boy, with as much volume as in a bottle of '51 port, as full of unmeaning sound as a later poem of Robert Browning's, and as unmelodious as the instrument on which that poet has always played. Quite the contrary. Phillis's whistle was of a curious delicacy and of a bullfinch-like note, only more flexible. She trilled out an old English ditty, "When Love was young," first simply, and then with variations. Presently, forgetting that she was not in the old paddock, she began to sing it in her fresh young voice, William the under-gardener and Cæsar the dog her only audience. They were differently affected. William grew sad, thinking of his sins. The dog wagged his tail and rushed round and round the singer by way of appreciation. Music saddens the guilty, but maketh glad those who are clear of conscience.

It was half past six when she became aware that she was getting hungry. In the old times it was easy to descend to the kitchen and make what Indian people call a chota hazri, a little breakfast for herself. Now she was not certain whether, supposing the servants were about, her visit would be well received; or, supposing they were not yet up, she should know where to find the kettle, the tea, and the firewood.

She left the garden, followed by Cæsar, who was also growing hungry after his morning walk, and resolved on going straight home.

There were two objections to this.

First, she did not know one house from another, and they were all alike. Second, she did not know the number, and could not have read it had she known it.

Mr. Jagenal's door was painted a dark brown; so were they all. Mr. Jagenal's door had a knocker; so had they all. Could she go all round the square knocking at every door, and waking up the people to ask if Mr. Jagenal lived there? She knew little of the world, but it did occur to her that it would seem unconventional for a young lady to "knock in" at six in the morning. She did not, most unfortunately, think of asking William the under-gardener.

She turned to the dog.

"Now, Cæsar," she said, "take me home."

Cæsar wagged his tail, nodded his head, and started off before her at a smart walk, looking round now and then to see that his charge was following.

"Lucky," said Phillis, "that I thought of the dog."

Cæsar proceeded with great solemnity to cross the road, and began to march down the side of the square, Phillis expecting him to stop at every house. But he did not. Arrived at the corner where Carnarvon Street strikes off the square he turned aside, and looking round to see that his convoy was steering the same course, he trudged sturdily down that thoroughfare.

"This cannot be right," thought Phillis. But she was loath to leave the dog, for to lose him would be to lose everything, and she followed. Perhaps he knew of a back way. Perhaps he would take her for a little walk, and show her the Tower of London.

Cæsar, no longer running and bounding around her, walked on with the air of one who has an important business on hand, and means to carry it through. Carnarvon Street is long, and of the half-dismal, half-genteel order of Bloomsbury, Cæsar walked halfway down the street. Then he suddenly came to a dead stop. It was in front of a tavern, the Carnarvon Arms, the door of which, for it was an early house, was already open, and the potboy was taking down the shutters. The fact that the shutters were only half down made the dog at first suspect that there was something wrong. The house, as he knew it, always had the shutters down and the portals open. As, however, there seemed no unlawfulness of licensed hours to consider, the dog marched into the bar without so much as looking to see if Phillis was following, and immediately lay down with his head on his paws.

"Why does he go in there?" said Phillis. "And what is the place?"

She pushed the door, which, as usual in such establishments, hung half open by means of a leathern strap, and looked in. Nobody in the place but Cæsar. She entered, and tried to understand where she was. A smell of stale beer and stale tobacco hanging about the room smote her senses, and made her sick and faint. She saw the bottles and glasses, the taps and the counters, and she understood – she was in a drinking-place, one of the wicked dens of which her guardian sometimes spoke. She was in a tavern, that is, a place where workmen spend their earnings and leave their families to starve. She looked round her with curiosity and a little fear.

Presently she became aware of the early-risen potboy, who, having taken down the shutters, was proceeding about his usual work behind the bar, when his eyes fell upon the astonishing sight of a young lady, a real young lady, as he saw at once, standing in the Bottle and Jug department. He then observed the dog, and comprehended that she was come there after Cæsar, and not for purposes of refreshment.

"Why, miss," he said, "Cæsar thinks he's out with the two gentlemen. He brings them here regular, you see, every morning, and they takes their little glass, don't they, Cæsar?"

Probably – thought watchful Phillis, anxious to learn, – probably a custom of polite life which Mr. Dyson had neglected to teach her. And yet he always spoke with such bitterness of public-houses.

"Will you take a drop of somethink, miss?" asked the polite assistant, tapping the handles hospitably. "What shall it be?"

"I should like – " said Phillis.

"To be sure, it's full early," the man went on, "for a young lady and all. But Lor' bless your 'art, it's never none too early for most, when they've got the coin. Give it a name, miss, and there, the guvnor he isn't hup, and we won't chalk it down to you, nor never ask you for the money. On'y give it a name."

"Thank you very much," said Phillis. "I should like to have a cup of tea, if I could take it outside."

He shook his head, a gesture of disappointment.

"It can't be had here. Tea!" – as if he had thought better things of so much beauty – "Tea! Swipes! After all, miss, it's your way, and no doubt you don't know no better. There's a Early Caufy-'ouse a little way up the street. You must find it for yourself, because the dawg he don't know it; knows nothink about Tea, that dawg. You go out, miss, and Cæsar he'll go to."

Phillis thanked him again for his attention, and followed his advice. Cæsar instantly got up and sallied forth with her. Instead, however, of returning to the square, he went straight on down Carnarvon Street, still leading the way. Turning first to the right and then to the left, he conducted Phillis through what seemed a labyrinth of streets. These were mostly streets of private houses, not of the best, but rather of the seediest. It was now nearly seven o'clock, and the signs of life were apparent. The paper-boy was beginning, with the milk-man, his rounds; the postman's foot was preparing for the first turn on his daily treadmill of doorsteps and double knocks. The workmen, paid by time, were strolling to their hours of idleness with bags of tools; windows were thrown open here and there; and an early servant might be seen rejoicing to bang her mats at the street-door. Phillis tried to retain her faith in Cæsar, and followed obediently. It was easy to see that the dog knew where he was going, and had a distinct purpose in his mind. It was to be hoped, she thought, that his purpose included a return home as soon as possible, because she was getting a little tired.

Streets – always streets. Who were the people who lived in them all? Could there be in every house the family life of which Mr. Dyson used to tell her – the life she had never seen, but which he promised she should one day see – the sweet life where father and mother and children live together and share their joys and sorrows? She began to look into the windows as she walked along, in the hope of catching a hasty glance at so much of the family life as might be seen so early in the morning.

She passed one house where the family were distinctly visible gathered together in the front kitchen. She stopped and looked down through the iron railings. The children were seated at the table. The mother was engaged in some cooking operations at the fire. Were they about to sing a hymn and to have family prayers before their breakfast? Not at this house apparently, for the woman suddenly turned from her occupation at the fire and, without any adequate motive that Phillis could discern, began boxing the children's ears all round. Instantly there arose a mighty cry from those alike who had already been boxed and those who sat expectant of their turn. Evidently this was one of the houses where the family life was not a complete success. The scene jarred on Phillis, upsetting her pretty little Arcadian castle of domestic happiness. She felt disappointed, and hurried on after her conductor.

It is sad to relate that Cæsar presently entered another public-house. This time Phillis went in after him with no hesitation at all. She encountered the landlord in person, who greeted the dog, asked him what he was doing so early, and then explained to Miss Fleming that he was accustomed to call at the house every day about noon, accompanied by two gentlemen, who had their little whack and then went away; and that she only had to go through the form of coming and departing in order to get Cæsar out too.

"Little whack," thought Phillis. "Little glass! What a lot of customs and expressions I have to learn!"

For those interested in the sagacity of dogs, or in comparative psychology, it may be noted as a remarkable thing that when Cæsar came out of that second public-house he hesitated, as one struck suddenly with a grievous doubt. Had he been doing right? He took a few steps in advance, then he looked round and stopped, then he looked up and down the street. Finally he came back to Phillis, and asked for instructions with a wistful gaze.

Phillis turned round and said, "Home, Cæsar." Then, after barking twice, Cæsar led the way back again with alacrity and renewed confidence.

He not only led the way home, but he chose a short cut known only to himself. Perhaps he thought his charge might be tired; perhaps he wished to show her some further varieties of English life.

In the districts surrounding Bloomsbury are courts which few know except the policeman; even that dauntless functionary is chary of venturing himself into them, except in couples, and then he would rather stay outside, if only out of respect to a playful custom, of old standing, prevalent among the inhabitants. They keep flower-pots on their first and second floors, and when a policeman passes through the court they drop them over. If no one is hurt, there is no need of an apology; if a constable receives the projectile on his head or shoulder, it is a deplorable accident which those who have caused it are the first to publicly lament. It was through a succession of these courts that the dog led Phillis.

Those of the men who had work to do were by this time gone to do it. Those who had none, together with those who felt strongly on the subject of Adam's curse and therefore wished for none, stayed at home and smoked pipes, leaning against the doorposts. The ideal heaven of these noble Englishmen is for ever to lean against doorposts and for ever to smoke pipes in a land where it is always balmy morning, and where there are "houses" handy into which they can slouch from time to time for a drink.

The ladies, their consorts, were mostly engaged in such household occupations as could be carried on out of doors and within conversation reach of each other. The court was therefore musical with sweet feminine voices.

The children played together – no officer of the London School Board having yet ventured to face those awful flower-pots – in a continuous stream along the central line of the courts. Phillis observed that the same game was universal, and that the players were apparently all of the same age.

She also remarked a few things which struck her as worth noting. The language of the men differed considerably from that used by Mr. Dyson, and their pronunciation seemed to her to lack delicacy. The difference most prominent at first was the employment of a single adjective to qualify everything – an observance so universal as to arrest at once the attention of a stranger. The women, it was also apparent, were all engaged in singing together a kind of chorus of lamentation, in irregular strophe and antistrophe, on the wicked ways of their men.

Rough as were the natives of this place, no one molested Phillis. The men stared at her and exchanged criticisms on her personal appearance. These were complimentary, although not poetically expressed. The women stared harder, but said nothing until she had passed by. Then they made remarks which would have been unpleasant had they been audible. The children alone took no notice of her. The immunity from insult which belongs to young ladies in English thoroughfares depends, I fear, more upon force of public opinion than upon individual chivalry. Una could trust herself alone with her lion: she can only trust herself among the roughs of London when they are congregated in numbers. Nor, I think, the spectacle of goodness and purity, combined with beauty, produce in their rude breasts, by comparison with themselves, those feelings of shame, opening up the way to repentance, which are expected by self-conscious maidens ministering in the paths of Dorcas.

Phillis walked along with steadfast eyes, watching everything and afraid of nothing, because she knew of no cause for fear. The dog, decreasing the distance between them, marched a few feet in advance, right through the middle of the children, who fell back and formed a lane for them to pass. Once Phillis stopped to look at a child – a great-eyed, soft-faced, curly-haired, beautiful boy. She spoke to him, asked him his name, held out her hand to him. The fathers and the mothers looked on and watched for the result, which would probably take the form of coin.

The boy prefaced his reply with an oath of great fulness and rich flavour. Phillis had never heard the phrase before, but it sounded unmusically on her ear. Then he held out his hand and demanded a copper. The watchful parents and guardians on the door-steps murmured approval, and all the children shouted together like the men of Ephesus.

At this juncture Cæsar looked round. He mastered the situation in a moment, surrounded and isolated his convoy by a rapid movement almost simultaneous in flank and rear; barked angrily at the children, who threatened to close in en masse and make short work of poor Phillis; and gave her clearly to understand once for all that she was to follow him with silent and unquestioning docility.

She obeyed, and they came out of the courts and into the squares. Phillis began to hope that the Tower of London would presently heave in sight, or at least the silver Thames with London Bridge; but they did not.