X
THE WAY OF A MAID
Planche's "History of British Costume," 2 vols. 2500b, in the Library of the British Museum, is a helpful work of reference. It is replete with information, and the wood-cuts are spirited. Its size and cumbersomeness, however, are disadvantages. It is emphatically a book you would not care to read in bed. Add to this, that it is forming the summit of an unsteady pile of books with which your arms are filled—that you are handicapped further with a big black fur muff, and that your nerves are already on edge with the strangeness of the place....
Crash!!!...
One heavy morocco-bound volume lay, open and face downward, on the floor; the other was following it fast, ringleader in a tragic glissade over the smooth black fur. Fenella bit her lip and did not quite suppress a word whose most obvious rhyme is "lamb." In a terror-struck flash she saw all the results of her carelessness: attendants bearing down upon her—expostulation—disgrace and final ejectment beyond those heavy swing doors that she never, never should have passed. She was really very frightened.
A man who had been ransacking the shelves by her side, with a long arm that reached easily from top to bottom of the bookcase, turned quickly at the smothered exclamation. With a swift movement of one hand, he stayed the avalanche, and with the other picked up the fallen volume from the floor.
"Oh! thank you—thank you!" said Fenella, almost hysterically. She was looking up—a good way up—into the kindest, grayest eyes she had ever seen.... Eyes!—eyes! the little, unprotected girl encountered them everywhere. In train or 'bus, in the street, in the untempered light of the lately constructed tube railway. Hard eyes; preoccupied eyes, full of some sick trouble of their own which passed her over, unseeing; bitter, arrogant eyes that seemed to find her beauty and her pretty clothes an offence; eyes vicious and bold, the worst of all, that would not leave her, that stung her cheeks, as though the heat of the evil passions behind them were being focussed upon her through a lens, and beneath whose level, insulting conjecture her flesh crept and her hands clenched themselves in an agony of shame and helpless anger. But these eyes were different to all the others. She could look at them as steadily as at a cloudy sky: they seemed full of some tender wisdom. And of humor too. Already their twinkle mitigated what she felt to be a tragedy.
The stranger took the books from her one by one and bestowed them compactly in the hollow of his own arm.
"Have you got a seat?" he asked.
"No," said Fenella, in an agitated whisper. "Can I go anywhere I like? Are they all free?"
The man's smile broadened and showed his fine long teeth.
"We'll try and find you a free one," he said. "Come on with me." His accent was strange; not quite English, yet not foreign.
She followed her protector on tip toe, averting her eyes from the indignant glances that she was sure were being levelled at her. One lean old monkwasscowling, but he was really thinking of something else. Then there was a dreadful fat negro, like Othello turned scholar, who rolled his eyes. Fenella could not help peeping at the leaves he was turning over, to confirm an unscientific conviction of her own, that the blackdidreally come off sometimes.
Her guide stopped at an empty place, arranged her books neatly upon the flat leather-covered desk, pulled out a cane-seated chair on casters, and, bowing slightly, sat down in the next place and began to read one of a number of manuscript leaves with which it was strewn. She divested herself of gloves and furs, and commenced turning the pages of one of her books gingerly. Occasionally, she put her finger to her mouth, and then, remembering where she was, stopped with a shudder, as at danger escaped.
The man who had helped her was writing busily on a thick paper pad. When he had reached the bottom of each page, he blotted it, numbered it in the top right-hand corner, and added it carelessly to an untidy pile at his left hand. Sometimes, before tearing it off, he read it over, apparently without enthusiasm, erased words, and sometimes whole sentences, with impatient curly "twiddles" of his quill pen, wrote words in between the lines and added various cabalistic signs and letters in the margin. He was very much occupied, and Fenella, whom no book had ever absorbed, saw that she might watch him covertly and safely.
So this was the way books were written! She wondered who he was. Not Bernard Shaw—his hair was too short. Nor Rider Haggard—his face was too narrow. She could not think of any other writer with a beard. She considered him good-looking—in a strange way. She never would have, I will not say looked, but wanted to look after him in the street, still in a way she could not define, it was nice to be sitting next him. She liked his leanness and dryness. She hated fat men whose sleek hair seemed to be soaking up superabundant moisture from their bodies. Then, his beard was trimmed so closely to his cheek it was hard to say where it began, and his moustache was brushed out of the way once and for all. He didn't keep "twiddling"it. Yes; it would be quite safe to sit opposite while he ate soup.
There was a man quite like him on the very page before her.... Ah! Yes. That was what he wanted. A big ruff showing the hairy throat, and a little cloak, swung from his shoulders, and big puffy—whatever they called them—nearly to his knees, and a long rapier sticking up in the air—how awkward on staircases though—but not a silly littletoquelike that, stuck on one side, and not—oh, not earrings in his ears. Who was it? "Duc de Guise." What a pity she had forgotten (forgotten!) all her French. Yes; that was what was the matter with him, she decided. His good looks were simply out of fashion. She looked backward and forward from the book to his face, from his face to the book, two or three times. Suddenly she became aware he was looking straight at her.
"Oh! help!"
"Anything I can do?" asked the stranger helpfully, in a low voice that was far less obtrusive than any whisper.
"C-could you translate this little bit for me, please? I'm no good at French," Fenella stammered, pushing her book toward him.
"Which little bit?"
She indicated a paragraph at random and as far from the picture as possible. She caught her breath at her audacity. "Forward minx, I am." She hoped he wouldn't hang over her shoulder to translate, like handsome Mr. Curzon, the drawing master at Sharland, heedless, or perhaps not heedless, of the burning cheek so near his own, and the suppressed titters of "the girls."
M. de Guise drew the open book toward him, and, tearing off a slip of paper, began to write on it in a cranky but rapid hand, with an occasional glance at the foreign text.
"Here you are. I hope you will be able to read my writing."
"Thank you very much indeed," said Fenella, demurely.
"Anything else you want? Paper?"
She had dived into her muff and was splitting open various envelopes with her forefinger.
"If you wouldn't mind. But I'm giving you so much trouble."
"No trouble at all. Here are three sheets. You have a pencil?"
"M—m."
"If it's one you stole from the catalogue desk I wouldn't suck it. Those aren't the sort you suck. See! you've made a blue smudge on your lips."
Fenella dived into her muff again, and, drawing out what I believe is termed a vanity bag, examined her lips on the little mirror. She rubbed them hard.
"Is it gone now, please?"
"Quite." How red the child's lips were. He glanced right and left and put his fingers to his own. A few fretful knowledge seekers were looking toward the chatter. Their glances were hostile.
"A la besogne!" said he, beneath his breath, and turned to his work again.
Fenella shook her shoulders and settled herself in the most industrious attitude she could think of. At the end of an hour she had drawn three figures and could think of no further excuse for remaining. Most of the wisdom of the world was around her and above her, but she felt no temptation to disturb it. The man at her side had apparently forgotten her existence. She put her books away, one by one, trying to prevent her shoes squeaking, but making a great bustle, really, yet he did not look round. When she came back at last to get her furs and gloves, he was gone. She left the room with a little sinking of the heart, but not more than one feels when, say, an interesting fellow-traveller whom we hoped was coming on all the way to London, gets out at Rugby. It is true that in her preoccupation she forgot to claim her umbrella.
When she reached Oxford Street she was reminded by passing an Express Dairy that it was past five and that she would reach home late for tea. Tea, as a rite, retained all its old significance for Fenella. Some of her old school-fellows had studios or flats within easy reach, and, perhaps, six months ago she would have made for one of them. But, already, she thought she noticed a difference. The girls were growing up—acquiring individuality, and her own path was diverging more and more. They liked her to come in to tea, but preferably on a day when no men were expected. She was already learning the hard truth that life must be played with the lone hand. A good many of her triumphs lay behind her.
She turned to the dairy, and going upstairs as far as she could, took a seat in the smoking-room and ordered weak tea and a teacake. She liked muffins and crumpets and teacakes with "heaps and heaps" of butter. The tea-room, being near the Museum, was full of itshabitués. She saw three or four she had noticed there, playing chess or talking together in high mincing tones interspersed with cackling laughter. She did not recognize the accent of the "illuminated." Some had lined, seamed faces, with long hair, and would have looked better with a clerical collar. Those that looked strong looked rough. How different to her "courtier." She began to think of him anew, to calculate her chances of ever running across him again. One thing was certain, she would never, never go back to that terrible place again.
The teacake was long in coming, and as she looked up impatiently she saw him standing in the middle of the room. She recognized him at once by the rather rakish felt hat that had lain on his desk. He had a long blue overcoat with a belt and a funny yellow silk handkerchief round his neck. She wanted him very much to look round, but surmised he had a favorite waitress and was looking for her. Perhaps the naïve wish reached him. He turned, and, smiling, came toward her, as straight as a partner about to claim his dance.
"Hullo! Got tired? I missed you when I came back."
"I only came to draw three pictures."
He hung his coat up and sat opposite her in a matter-of-fact way that robbed the action of significance. Still, the lady who had brought the teacake waited for his order with a sub-surface smile. She had seen so many "Museum goings-on."
"You're not often here, are you?... Yes, tea, please. No—nothing with it."
Fenella leaned forward confidently. "It's my very first visit. Don't tell, will you? Ifudgeda ticket."
"'Fudged'?"
"Came with another girl's—Phyllis Harmans. Do you know her?"
The gray eyes twinkled. "No. You're the only lady I ever speak to in the Museum."
"Would I get into any trouble if I was found out?"
"We'd all get into trouble if we were found out. The best way is not to attract attention. Don't drop your books again."
"Is it hard to get a ticket?"
"It's criminally easy. But I shouldn't advise you to. It's a place for old fogies like me. You look pale. Do you get plenty of outdoor exercise?"
Fenella rubbed her cheek. "That's not paleness. You're fussy, like mummy. I'm a healthy brute. And I shouldn't call you an old fogy. You're—brown. Have you travelled much?"
"Oh!—round the world and back again."
"Coming back's nice, isn't it?"
"Only when it's coming home."
"Isn't your home here? Ithoughtyou spoke—funny. Haven't you any one who looks after you? A mother—or a sister?"
"No mother, no sister, no wife." The stranger spoke incisively. "No sweetheart, even," he added, after an appreciable pause.
Fenella blushed. Of course she hadn't meant to ask that; still, it was interesting to know. The child had a strange pertinacity in constructing correct views of new acquaintances that deceived a good many people.
A sudden squall lashed the windows with rain. She looked round in affright.
"Oh!—help!" she said again, softly.
"Now what's the matter?"
"I've forgotten my 'brolly'."
"Yourwhat?"
"My brolly: my 'mush'; ma's best gold-handled umbrella."
"I'll lend you mine."
"Oh! it isn't that. I get the 'bus at the door, and only have a step to walk at the other end. But how'm I to get it back?"
"Aren't you coming again soon?"
She shook her head. You would never have guessed the stranger felt disappointed. He felt in his pocket and pushed a card across the table.
"Write an address on that," he said, "and leave me your check. I'll have it sent to-night by a messenger boy."
Fenella considered a moment. The card lay face downward, and it was a great temptation. But her good breeding triumphed. Without turning it over she wrote her name and address, very slowly, in print letters. Meantime she soliloquized thus:
"I hate rain. It's harder on women. Your petties get wet and slop round your ankles. I wish I could always dress as a boy. It's so picture-squeak—picturesque I mean. I do sometimes. Dances, you know: in a quartette, gavottes and things. I'm a boy, 'cos you can't teach men.... There you are. I hope you can read it.... I had a ripping dress at the 'Bechway' in the spring. Blue and silver, and powdered hair, and a little diamondy sword."
"Which you could use upon occasion with great spirit, I'll wager, Monsieur le Marquis."
"Oh, rather!" rejoined Fenella. (How nicely he speaks French.) "I'm good at fencing. I was captain of the 'gym' at our school."
The man just glanced at the card and put it into his pocket absent-mindedly. He was wondering what kind the school might be that had taught this distractingly friendly child to dance and fence, but not to read French and, above all, not to be careful—with that face and figure—how she spoke to strangers.
Meantime, something in this last speech had reminded the girl of the first fine rapture of Ruritania, years ago.
"You're a novelist, aren't you?" she said.
"Of sorts," he admitted.
"I wish I was intellectual"—wistfully.
"You're better. You're cute."
"Cute—cute—!What does that mean? Clever?"
"Not exactly."
"Pretty, then?"
"Well, a kind of clever prettiness."
"You mean smart!"
"Well, smart. Let us be English at all costs."
"I don't see how you can thinkmesmart," she said, with a rueful inflection in her voice.
"Why not?"
"Talking to a strange man as I've done."
At sight of the troubled young face, something that was not exactly suspicion, but which had guarded his manner till now, disappeared. He laughed quite freely, and it was wonderful how the sudden gaiety made him look at once younger and more foreign. He put his hand across and just touched the girl's arm.
"Dear child," said he, "talk to as many strange men as you like. The stranger the better. It's ordinary ones you must be careful about."
"Ordinary ones——?"
"Yes. Beware the Least Common Multiple. Therein lies danger to you. I prophesy it."
"I must go," said Nelly, rising as she spoke. "It isn't getting any drier."
He put his coat on and followed her to the door. She noticed he left threepence for the waitress. How extravagant, after just a cup of tea! He kept beside her across the street, holding his umbrella over her head.
"I should like to read your book when it comes out," she said, as her omnibus hove in sight. "Why do you laugh?"
He was laughing because he knew the book. "How are you to ask for it without knowing the talented author's name?"
She hesitated. "Well," she said, almost reluctantly, "whatishis name?"
He noticed the effort and his manner stiffened. "It's one I needn't be ashamed to tell you, and you needn't be ashamed to hear. My name is Paul Ingram. Here's your 'bus. Good-bye. I don't ask you yours."
Fenella turned on the step and laughed at him over her muff.
"Goosey! You've got it in your waistcoat pocket."