Читать книгу: «The Belovéd Vagabond», страница 11
It was about this time that Madame Boin seeing in Paragot an attractive adjunct to her establishment and, with a Frenchwoman's business instinct, desiring to make it permanent, paralysed him by an offer of marriage.
"Madame," said he, as soon as he had recovered, "if I accepted the great honour which you propose, you would doubtless require me to abandon certain personal habits which are dear to me, and also to trim my hair and beard and cut my finger-nails of whose fantastic length I am inordinately proud."
"I think I should ask you to cut your nails," said Madame Boin reflectively.
"Then, Madame," said Paragot, "it would be impossible. Shorn of these adornments I should lose the power of conversation and I should be a helpless and useless Samson on your hands."
"I don't see what long nails have to do with talking," argued Madame Boin.
"They give one the necessary thirst," replied Paragot.
"My son," said he when relating to me this adventure, "do not cultivate a habit of affability towards widows of the lower middle classes. There was once a murderer's widow of Prague – "
"I know," said I.
"How?"
"There was an old stocking."
"I forgot," said he, and his laughing face darkened and I saw that he fell to thinking of Joanna.
Although much of my leisure was absorbed by the companionship of my beloved Master and Blanquette, I yet had an individual life of my own. I made dozens of acquaintances and one or two friends. I had not a care in the world. Bisard, the great man attached to the life school in Janot's atelier, proclaimed me one of the best of my year, and sent my heart leaping sky-high. I worked early and late. I also played the fool as (worse luck) only boyhood can. With my fellows, arm in arm through the streets, I shouted imbecile songs. I went to all kinds of reprehensible places – to the bals du quartier, for instance, where we danced with simple-minded damsels who thought choucroute garnie a generous supper and a bottle of vin cacheté as setting the seal of all that was most distinguished upon the host. With the first five francs that I made by selling a drawing I treated Fanchette, the little model I kissed on the stairs, to a trip to Saint-Cloud. Five francs went prodigiously far in those days. They had to, as some of us were desperately poor and could afford but one meal a day. Fortunate youth that I was, whenever money ran short, instead of borrowing or starving, I had only to climb to Blanquette and open my mouth like a young bird and she filled it with nice fat things. Poor sandalled Cazalet of the yellow hair, on the other hand, lived sometimes for a week on dry bread and water. It was partly his own fault; for had he chosen to make saleable drawings he too might have had five francs wherewith to take Fanchette to Saint-Cloud. Pretty little Pierrettes in frills and pointed caps are more attractive to the cheap purchaser than ugly souls writhing in torment; and really they are quite as artistic. We quarrelled fiercely over this one day, and he challenged me to a duel. I replied that I had no money to buy pistols. Neither had he, he retorted, but I could borrow a sabre. He himself had one. His father had been an officer. Whereupon the studio bawled in gleeful unison "Voici le sabre, le sabre de mon père," and dragged us in tumult to the Café opposite where we swore eternal friendship over grogs américains.
From this I do not mean you to infer that I was a devil of a fellow, the mention of whose name spread a hush over godly families. God wot! I did little harm. I only ate what Murger calls "the Blessed bread of gaiety," the food of youth. Remember, too, it was the first time in my life that I had companions of my own age. Indeed, so nearly had I modelled myself on Paragot the ever young, that my comrades laughed at my old fashioned ideas, and I found myself hopelessly behind the times. Youth hops an inch sideways and thinks it has leaped a mile ahead. All is vanity, even youth.
'Tis a pleasant vanity though, on which the wise smile with regretful indulgence; and therein lay the wisdom of Paragot.
"Ah! confounded little cock-sparrow – I haven't seen you for a week," he said one morning, shaking me by the shoulders till my teeth chattered. "What about the other little sparrow you neglected me for on Sunday? Is she at least good-looking? A model? And she is a good girl and supports her widowed mother and ten brothers and sisters, I suppose? And she calls herself Fanchette? Narcisse, the lady of Monsieur Asticot's affections has the singular name of Fanchette."
Whereupon Narcisse uncurled himself from slumber and planted himself on his hindquarters in front of me and grinned at me with lolling tongue.
"But she is quite a different kind of girl from all the other models!" I cried eagerly.
"What does she pose for?"
"Well – of course – you know how it is – " I stammered, reddening.
Paragot laughed and quoted something in Latin about an ingenuous boy.
"Would she be a fit companion for Blanquette and Narcisse and myself?"
Having deep convictions as to the essential virtues of Fanchette, I swore that she could not disgrace so respectable a company.
"We will all picnic together in the woods of Fontainebleau on Sunday," said he.
We picnic-ed. Fanchette had no shynesses. She found Paragot peculiarly diverting, and though I enjoyed the day prodigiously, I realised afterwards that I had spent most of it in the company of Blanquette.
"My son," said he, "there never was a model so like all the other models that have posed for the well-of-course-you-know-how-it-is, since the world began."
A week later, when I found my particular friend Ewing, whom as a tongue-tied Englishman I had relieved of many embarrassments, and for whom I had secured an easel, branding it myself in twenty places with his name, and for whom I had engineered a good position next to mine in the Life School – when I saw Ewing hugging Fanchette on the stairs, on the very landing sacred to my embraces, I knew that Paragot was right, and that Fanchette was just a fickle, naughty little model like the others. But if Paragot had not taken her measure before my eyes at Fontainebleau and made a figured drawing so to speak of her heart and soul, shewing their exiguous dimensions, I might have cast myself beneath the wheels of an omnibus like the pig Népomucène, or blacked the eyes of Ewing who was smaller than myself. As it was, I put my hands in my trousers' pockets and surveyed the abashed couple in Paragot's best manner.
"Amuse yourselves well, my children," I laughed, in French, and turned away heart-whole.
This is an instance of the wisdom of Paragot. He smiled on the vanity of my youth, and personally conducted me to the barrenness whither it led. In this particular case the result was more positive still. Ewing in admiration of my magnanimity at the time, and a fortnight later of my profound knowledge of women – for he in his turn witnessed the alien osculations of Fanchette – cultivated my friendship to the extent of urging me to spend some of the summer recess at his father's country vicarage in Somerset.
"But you'll have to get some other togs," said he, eyeing my attire dubiously. "If you come like that to church on Sunday, my governor would forget and want to baptise you. He was once a missionary, you know."
When I mentioned the invitation, Paragot insisted on acceptance.
"The Latin Quarter confers an exuberance of tone which conflicts with the reposeful ideal of manners required in the beau monde which I destined you to grace when I took you from the maternal soapsuds. You will find an English Parsonage exerts a repressive influence. But for Heaven's sake don't fall in love with Ewing's eldest sister, who, I am sure, is addicted to piety and good works. She will try to make a good work of you and thus all my labour will have been in vain."
In his heart, however, I believe he was immensely proud at having trained me to meet gentlefolk on more or less equal terms. Ewing's invitation was a tribute to himself. To fit me for church on Sunday and other functions of civilisation he took Ewing (as counsellor) and myself to a tailor's and plunged enthusiastically into the details of my outfit. I can see him now, shaggy and shabby, fingering stuffs with the anxious solicitude of a woman at a draper's counter.
"That's a nice country suiting. It expresses its purpose, suggests the right gaiety of mood. What says Arbiter elegantiarum?"
"Don't you think it might make the cart-horses shy?" says Ewing, and Paragot drops reluctantly the thunder-and-lightning check that has seized his unaccustomed fancy.
My wardrobe included a dress suit.
At Paragot's bidding, I donned it when it arrived, and on my way to him transfixed the Rue des Saladiers with awe and wonder. Upstairs, Paragot twirled me slowly round as if I were a mannequin on a pivot, and called Blanquette to admire, and uttered strange oaths in the dozen languages of which he was master. Was I not beautiful?
Blanquette admitted that I was. All that was most beautiful; without a doubt. I resembled the stylish people who went to expensive funerals. In fact, she added with a sigh, I was too beautiful.
She saw her brother Asticot transfigured into the resplendent gentleman beyond her sphere, and sighed womanlike at my apotheosis. She could no longer walk by my side, bareheaded, in the streets. The dress suit was a symbol of change detested by woman. She gave the matter however her practical attention.
"He ought to have patent-leather shoes," she observed.
"That's true," said Paragot, pulling his beard reflectively. "Ewing should have mentioned it; but I have noticed a singular lack of universality in the sons of English clergymen."
"And now my son," said he on the eve of my departure, "I too have the nostalgia of green fields and the smell of hay and manure and the fresh earth after rain. I have at last an inspiration. As this confounded ankle will not let me walk, I shall hire a donkey and let him take me whither he will. Narcisse shall accompany me."
"And Blanquette, will she trudge beside the donkey?"
"I have arranged for Blanquette to go into villégiatura at the farm of La Haye."
"With Monsieur and Madame Dubosc?"
"Your logical faculty does you credit, my son. They are most excellent people, although they could not tell me how many towers the Cathedral of Chartres possessed. You will remember an excursion we made on Sunday, and I lectured learnedly on the archæology of the fabric. My learning impressed them less than my skill in curing a pig according to a Dalmatian recipe. They will board and lodge Blanquette for ten francs a week and she will be as happy as Marie Antoinette while haymaking at the Petit Trianon. She will occupy herself with geese and turkeys while I shall be riding my donkey."
"Master," said I, "I only have one fear. You will adopt that donkey and bring it to live in the Rue des Saladiers."
Paragot laughed, drained his glass of absinthe and ordered another.
CHAPTER XV
Thus the three of us were again separated. Blanquette was enjoying herself amongst the pigs and ducks of La Haye, whence she wrote letters in which her joy in country things mingled with anxiety as to the neglected condition of the Master; I led a pleasant but somewhat nervous life in Somersetshire, spending hours in vain attempts to reconcile the cosmic views of Paragot and an English vicar, and learning sometimes with hot humiliation the correctitudes of English country vicarage behaviour; and Paragot, his long legs dangling on each side of his donkey, rode, as I thought, picturesquely vagrant, through the leafy byways of France.
A fortnight after my arrival, however, he informed me by letter of his resolve to stay in Paris. He had failed to find an ass of the true vagabond character. The ideal ass he sought should be a companion as well as a means of locomotion. He would not take an urban donkey into the country against its will. To force any creature, man, woman, or ass, out of the groove of its temperament were a crime of which he could not be guilty. Then, again, Narcisse did not enter into the spirit of the pilgrimage. He laid his head along his forepaws and glowered sullenly instead of barking with enthusiasm. Again, when he announced his intention of leaving Paris, Hercule groaned aloud and Madame Boin wept so profusely that sitting beneath her counter he had to put up a borrowed umbrella. Cazalet too, and a few others too poor for railway fares, were staying in town. Also the Café Delphine had spoiled him for the horrible alcohols of wayside cafés. And, lastly, what did it matter where the body found itself so long as the soul had its serene habitations?
The letter depressed me. I was beginning to see Paragot with the eyes of a man. I felt that this inability to carry out an inspiration was a sign of decay. The springs of action had weakened. Though the spirit thirsted for sweet things, habit chained him to the squalor of the Café Delphine. When the quiet Somersetshire household knelt around the drawing-room for evening prayers, I speculated on the stage of intoxication at which my lonely master had arrived.
I was a million miles from speculating on what was really happening, and when I received a curt uncharacteristic note from Paragot a fortnight later begging me to return to Paris at once, a day or two before the formal expiry of my visit, it only occurred to me that he might be ill.
The crowded train steamed into the Gare Saint-Lazare at half past seven in the morning. I was desperately anxious to get to Paragot, and bag in hand I stood with a sickening feeling of suspense by the open door, waiting for the train to slow down. I sprang out. In an instant the line of porters were odd dots of blue in the throng that swarmed out of the carriages. I became a mere ant in the heap, and struggled with the others towards the barrier. After giving up my ticket, I set down my bag to rest my strained arm for a minute, and looked around me. Then I noticed a stranger approaching whose smiling face had an air of uncanny familiarity. Where had I seen the long gaunt man before? He wore a silk hat and a frock coat. My acquaintance with silk-hatted gentlemen in Paris was limited. I picked up my bag.
"Ah! My little Asticot," cried the stranger. "How good it is to see you."
I dropped my bag. I dropped my jaw. I would have dropped my brains had they been loose. This cadaverous image of respectability was Paragot – but a Paragot transmogrified beyond recognition even by me. His hair was cropped short. His face was clean shaven. On his transfigured head shone a flat brimmed silk hat. He wore a villainously fitting frock coat buttoned across his chest, with long wrinkly creases stretching horizontally from each button. His hands were encased in lemon coloured gloves a size too large for him. When he extended his hand even my bewilderment did not blind me to the half-inch of flat dead tips to the fingers. Beneath his arm was an umbrella – on a broiling August morning! He wore spats – in mid-summer! His trousers were fawn coloured. I could only gape at him as he wrung me by the hand.
"You are surprised, my son."
"I did not expect you to meet my train, Master," said I.
"If one could anticipate all the happenings of life it would lose its fascination. My son, go your way and do your duty, but believe in the unexpected."
"But what has happened?" I asked, again surveying his ill-fitting glory.
"The Comte de Verneuil is dead," he answered.
"Are you going to his funeral?"
"In these?" he cried holding up the lemon kids, "and this cravat?"
I noticed that he wore a floppy purple tie adorned with yellow spots, outside the lapels of his coat. It required more than two glances to take in all his detail.
"Besides," he added, "my distinguished patient was buried a fortnight ago."
He looked at me with an amused smile, enjoying my mystification like a child.
"You didn't know me."
"No, Master." I rubbed my eyes. "In fact I scarcely recognise you now."
"That is because I am again Gaston de Nérac," said he magnificently.
I had an idea that he must have come into the family fortune. But what had the death of the Comte de Verneuil to do with it? I picked up my bag again and walked with him to the exit. The hurrying crowd of passengers by my train and of clerks and work-people pouring from suburban platforms rendered conversation impossible.
At the station gates Paragot stood and watched the brisk life that swarmed up and down the Rue Saint-Lazare and the Rue du Havre. Paris awakens a couple of hours earlier than London. Clerks hurried by with flat leather portfolios under their arms. Servants trotted to market, or homewards, with the end of a long golden loaf protruding from their baskets. Work-girls sped by in all directions. Omnibuses lumbered along as at midday. Before the great cafés opposite, the tables were already set out on the terrace and the awnings lowered, and white-aproned waiters stood expectant. The whole scene was bathed in the gay morning sunshine.
"It is good to be alive, Asticot," said my master. "It is good to be in Paris. It is good to get up early. It is good to see the world's work beginning. It is also good to feel infernally hungry and to have the means of satisfying one's desires. But as, in the absence of Blanquette, my establishment is disorganised, I think we had better have our breakfast at a crêmerie than in the Rue des Saladiers. We can talk over our coffee."
I accompanied him across the street in a muddled condition of intellect, casting sidelong glances at him from time to time, as if to assure myself that he was real. Having just come from an English environment where the niceties of costume were as rigidly observed as the niceties of religion, I could not help marvelling at Paragot's attire. He looked like a tenth-rate French provincial actor made up to represent a duke, and in a country where none but actors and footmen are clean-shaven this likeness was the more accentuated. Also the difference between Paragot hairy and bearded and Paragot in his present callow state was that between an old unbroken hazel nut and its bald, shrivelled kernel.
We entered the crêmerie, sat down and ordered our coffee and crisp horse-shoe loaves. I think the petit déjeuner at a crêmerie is one of the most daintily served meals in France. The morning dew glistens so freshly on the butter, the fringed napkin is so spotless, the wide-mouthed cups offer themselves so delicately generous. If everyone breakfasted there crime would cease. No man could hatch a day's iniquity amid such influences.
When we were half-way through, Paragot unbuttoned his frock coat and took from his pocket a black-edged letter which he flourished before my eyes. It was then that I noticed, to my great surprise, that he had cut his finger-nails. I thought of Madame Boin.
"It is from the Comtesse de Verneuil, and it gives you the word of the enigma."
"Yes, Master," said I, eyeing the letter.
"Confess, my little Asticot," he laughed, "that you are dying of curiosity."
"You would tell me," said I, "that it was no death for a gentleman."
"You have a way of repeating my unsaid epigrams which delights me," said he, throwing the letter on the table. "Read it."
I read as follows:
"Château Marlierprès de Nevers.13th Aug. 18 —
"My dear Gaston:
"The newspapers may have told you the news of my husband's death on the 1st August. Since then I have been longing to write to you but I have not found the strength. Yet I must.
"Forgive me for the cruel things I said on the last unhappy night we met. I did not know what I do now. Before my husband died he told me the true circumstances of the money transaction. My husband bought me, it is true, Gaston, but you did not sell me. You sacrificed all to save my father from prison and me from disgrace. You have lived through everything a brave, loyal gentleman, and even on that hateful night you kept silent. But oh, my friend, what misery it has been to all of us!
"I shall be in Paris on the 28th – Hôtel Meurice. If you care to see me will you make an appointment? I would meet you at any place you might suggest. The flat in the Avenue de Messine is dismantled and, besides, I shrink from going back there. Yours sincerely,
"Joanna de Verneuil."
"You see, my son, what she calls me – a brave, loyal gentleman," he cried, with his pathetic boastfulness. "Thank Heaven she knows it. I have kept the secret deep in my heart all these years. One must be a man to do that, eh?" He thumped his heart and drank a draught of coffee. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
He eyed the brown stain disgustedly.
"That," said he, "is Paragot peeping out through Gaston de Nérac. You will have observed that in the polite world they use table-napkins."
"The Comtesse de Verneuil," said I, bringing back the conversation to more interesting matters, "writes that she will be in Paris on the 28th. It was the 28th yesterday."
"I am aware of it. I have been aware of it for a fortnight. Yesterday I had a long interview with Madame la Comtesse. It was very satisfactory. To-day I pay her a ceremonious visit at eleven o'clock. At twelve I hope you will also pay your respects and offer your condolences to Madame. You ought to have a silk hat."
"But, Master," I laughed, "If I went down the Boul' Mich' in a silk hat, I should be taken up for improper behaviour."
"You at least have gloves?"
"Yes, Master."
"Remember that in this country you wear both gloves while paying a call. You also balance your hat on your knees."
"But Madame de Verneuil is English," I remarked.
"She has learned correct behaviour in France," he replied with the solemnity of a professor of deportment. "You will have noticed in her letter," he continued, "how delicately she implies that the Hôtel Meurice would not be a suitable rendezvous. In my late incarnation I doubtless should have surprised the Hôtel Meurice. I should have pained the Head Porter. In my live character of Gaston de Nérac I command the respect of flunkeydom. I give my card – "
He produced from his pocket and flourished in the air an ornate, heavily printed visiting-card of somewhat the size and appearance of the Three of Spades. I felt greatly awed by the sight of this final emblem of respectability.
"I give my card," he repeated, "and the Hôtel Meurice prostrates itself before me."
While Paragot was playing on the lighter side of the conjuncture, my mind danced in wonder and delight. I read the letter, which he left in my hands, several times over. He was cleared in Joanna's eyes; nay more, he stood revealed a hero. The generous ardour of youth bedewed my eyelids.
"Master," I cried, "this must be wonderful news for you."
He nodded over his coffee cup.
"You are right, my little Asticot; it is," he answered gravely.
When I called at the Hôtel Meurice at noon, I was conducted with embarrassing ceremony to Madame de Verneuil's private sitting-room, and on my way I rehearsed, in some trepidation, the polite formula of condolence which Paragot had taught me. When I entered, the sight of Joanna's face drove polite formulæ out of my head. She was dressed in black, it is true, but the black only set off the shell pink of her cheeks and the blue of her eyes which were no longer frozen, but laughed at me, as if a visit of condolence were the gayest event possible.
"It is so good of you, Mr. Asticot, to come and see me. Mr. de Nérac tells me you have travelled straight from Somerset in order to do it. How is the West Country looking? I am of the West Country myself – one of these days you will let me shew it you. I like him much better, Gaston, dressed like an Englishman, instead of in that dreadful student get-up, which makes him look like a brigand. Yes, England has agreed with him. Oh! do take off your gloves and put your hat down. I am not a French mamma with a daughter whose hand you are asking. Gaston, I am sure you told him to keep on his gloves!"
"I am responsible for his decorum, Joanna," said my Master, solemnly.
I noticed that he too had discarded hat, gloves and umbrella which lay forlorn on a distant table. Still his coat was buttoned, and he sat bolt upright on his chair. Madame de Verneuil's silvery voice rippled on. She was girlishly excited.
"I have persuaded Mr. de Nérac to lunch with me," she said happily. "And you must do the same. Will you ring the bell? We'll have it up here. And now tell me about Somerset."
Never was there a sweeter lady than mine. Yes, I call her mine; and with reason. Was she not the first vision of gracious womanhood that came into my childhood's world? Up to then woman to me was my mother and Mrs. Housekeeper. Joanna sprang magically, as in an Arabian Night, out of an old stocking. Never was there a sweeter lady than mine. She welcomed me as if such things as wash-tubs, tambourines, Café Delphines and absinthiated Paragots had never existed, and I were one of her own people.
"How I long to get back," she cried when I had told her of my modest exploits at the Ewings. "I have not been to Melford for five years. When will you come, Gaston?"
They had evidently made good use of their previous interviews.
"I am going to live in England," she explained. "At first I shall stay with my mother at Melford. She is an old friend of Mr. de Nérac's. Oh, Gaston, she does so want to see you – I have told her the whole story – of course she knew all my poor father's affairs. And I have a cousin whose people live at Melford too, Major Walters – I don't think you know him – a dear fellow. He has just been at Nevers helping me to settle up things. He is my trustee. You must be great friends."
"I remember the name," said Paragot.
"Why of course you ought to," she cried prettily with a laugh and a blush. "I had forgotten. You were pleased to be jealous of him. Mr. Asticot, you will have to forgive us for dragging memories out of the dust heap. It is all so very long ago. Dear me!" Her face grew pathetic. "It is very long ago, Gaston."
"Thirteen years," said he.
I calculated. Joanna was a grown-up woman about to be married when my age was six. I suddenly felt very young indeed.
The waiters set the lunch. Joanna, most perfect of hostesses, presided gaily, cracked little jokes for my entertainment and inspired me with the power of quite elegant conversation. Paragot preserved his correct demeanour and, to my puzzledom, spoke very little. I wondered whether the repressive influence lay in the spats or the purple cravat with the yellow spots. As a painter I didn't like the cravat. He drank a great deal of water with his wine. I noticed him once pause in the act of conveying to his mouth a bit of bread held in his fingers with which he had mopped up the sauce in his plate, and furtively conceal it between his cutlet bones – a manœuvre which, at the time, I could not understand. In the Quartier Latin we cleaned our plates to a bright polish with bits of bread. How else could you consume the sauce?
At the end of the meal Joanna gave us permission to smoke.
"I won't smoke, thank you," said Paragot politely.
"Rubbish!" laughed Joanna, whereupon Paragot produced a cigarette case from the breast pocket of his frock coat. Paragot and a cigarette-case! Once more it was abracadabrant! He also refused cognac with his coffee.
After a time, still feeling that I was very young, and that my seniors might have further confidential things to say to each other, I rose to take my leave. Paragot rose too.
"I would ask you to stay, Gaston, if I hadn't my wretched lawyer to see this afternoon. But you'll come in for an hour after dinner, won't you? No one knows I'm in Paris. Besides, at this time of year there is no one in Paris to know."
"Willingly," said Paragot, "but les convenances– "
Joanna's pretty lips parted in astonishment.
"You – preaching the proprieties? – My dear Gaston!"
I turned to the window and looked at the Tuileries Gardens which baked in the afternoon sun. The two spoke a little in low voices, but I could not help overhearing.
"Is it true, Gaston, that you have wanted me all these years?"
"I want you as much now as I did then."
"I, too," whispered Joanna.
