CHAPTER XIII
PHILIPPA’S “studio” was a somewhat uncomfortable apartment with a north light. Its walls were covered with brown paper, upon which were pinned hasty little sketches by the latest geniuses. One recognized thelatestgenius by the newness of the drawing-pins; the genius before last had generally lost one or even two of these aids to stability, and hung at a neglected angle. Above the mantelpiece there was a framed photograph of Rossetti’sProserpine, whom Philippa was often thought to resemble. The floor of the room was stained, and over it at intervals were laid pieces of striped material of pseudo-Eastern manufacture, fringed and flimsy. The furniture was scanty, but high-principled in tone. It was that sort of uncomfortable furniture which has “exquisite simplicity of line,” and is affected by people who are more used to sitting on boards than sofas. There was an easel in a prominent position, and a cupboard with aglass front in a corner of the room, revealing various cups and bowls of coarse earthenware and foreign peasant manufacture. These were the cooking and eating utensils considered proper to the Simple Life.
It was the expense of the Simple Life which Philippa was at the moment considering, as she sat curled up on the hearth-rug before the fire, a heap of bills and other annoying documents in her lap. It was half-past three in the afternoon, but she wore a dressing-gown of rather doubtful cleanliness, and her hair was bunched up as she had twisted and pinned it when she got out of bed.
Philippa belonged to the eternal art student class; that class which subsists on very little talent and no income; the class which includes girls who would be better employed in domestic service, as well as those whom a genuine “feeling” for art has rendered unfit for any other occupation than that of painfully striving to express themselves—generally in vain. Though a member of this great sisterhood, by the possession of various rather exceptional gifts, Philippa had managed to deviate from its normal routine of monotony. She had beauty, and a mind wide enough to hold vague aspirations, as well as a useful shrewdness.Long ago she had made two discoveries. First, that seventy pounds a year is a totally inadequate income. Secondly, that infrequent work is not the best means of supplementing it. There are other ways, and Philippa had tried most of them.
There had been romantic friendships with women of property. Philippa had always been drawn to these ladies by soul-affinity—it was here that the vagueness of her mind stood her in good stead—but that fact did not lessen their balance at the bank, nor the tangible advantage which it bestowed on Philippa. With one lady, she had travelled in Italy and Greece. Another had paid for her course of instruction in enamelling, and considered herself blest in being allowed the privilege. A third had, till lately, paid the rent of her studio. Philippa accepted these benefits with a beautiful simplicity. No one better than she could gracefully bear an obligation. She had the rare art not only of making the benefactor feel privileged but of herself believing it to be the case. With such a mixture of approbation and transient tenderness for the giver, might an angel regard the devotee who has shielded him from “beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.”
But feminine friendships are proverbially evanescent, and though the proverb may contain as much truth as other conventional maxims, Philippa had certainly found them “disappointing.” She had frequently to lament the jealousy of one, the pettiness of another, the terrible coarseness of fibre of a third. And though women are numerous, their incomes are usually small, and to be disappointed in one dear friend with money is a calamity. She is not easily replaced.
Philippa was not only deeply disappointed in Miss Wetherby, the lady who for two years previous had ensured the rent of her studio; she was also considerably worried. Their quarrel had been upon a very delicate matter—a matter of money; and Miss Wetherby had taken a low but decided view upon a transaction which Philippa was accustomed to slur over in thought. An episode followed upon which, again, she refused to dwell, except at intervals when she received a little note which she hastened to put into the fire. She had that very morning burned one of these letters, but, however unwillingly, she was now obliged to consider its contents.
Bohemia is a wide country, and some of its inhabitants are unsavory. Eighteen monthsprevious, at a moment when a cheque was imperatively necessary, Philippa had allowed one of them to come to her assistance. She had not subsequently treated him very well, and his letters began to threaten her peace of mind. They hinted at danger. It was then that she first met Robert. Hitherto, in spite of her beauty, her relations with men, with one very dubious exception, had not from any material point of view been satisfactory. She had met few—of the right sort. There had been the men at the art schools, of course, mostly penniless, who had raved about her. Philippa had not encouraged them, further than Artemis might have encouraged the worshippers at her shrine. They were practically useless, except as rather shabby burners of incense. Poverty and dependence upon feminine caprice is not the bestmilieufor making the acquaintance of rich men, added to which there was the undoubted fact that the average man of the world had a tendency to regard Philippa as Mayne had regarded her. He did not care for “that kind of thing.” Accustomed to “smartness” in women, Philippa’s robes made him feel as vaguely uncomfortable as her intense style of conversation abashed and disconcerted him.Certainly it required a man who at least dabbled in art, who at least had some sympathy with the Quartier Latin, to appreciate Philippa.
For some time before she and Robert had become friends she had known him by sight. He had been pointed out to her once at the Museum as Fergus Macdonald, the novelist who was becoming well known, and bade fair presently to coin money. Before very long it was obvious that he admired her, and with no definite idea as to the result, yet with a sure instinct that it was the wise course to adopt, Philippa had extended her period of reading. The outcome had been satisfactory, though it was a blow to learn that he was married, and a blow that was not softened by the discovery that she knew his wife. In the early days of their acquaintance, Philippa read much literature which dealt with the possibility of friendship between man and woman. At a later date, when Robert was getting a little out of hand, and her own thoughts began to stray towards putting their sacred friendship upon a different plane, she discovered many treatises upon the doctrine of free love. She began to study the subject, and found it quite engrossing. It seemed to her a verybeautiful and noble attitude towards a great aspect of human life. Robert and she often discussed it together earnestly. In the meantime, the Simple Life, which, at the recommendation of Tolstoi, Miles, and others, she had adopted since the defection of Miss Wetherby, had not proved so economical as she had hoped. Besides, she was getting tired of it.
Robert frequently took her out to lunch, and the frailty of the natural man prevailing over the submission of the lover, he had, at an early date, abandoned the vegetarian restaurant for Prince’s or the Carlton. Resigning her principles, as a tender concession to Robert’s weakness, Philippa had become reconciled to six-course meals, and began to hate plasmon and suspect the efficacy of vegetables as an incentive to exalted thought.
She began to yearn, like the rich man, to fare sumptuously every day. Yet what was the use of such a desire as that when not only was she hard pressed to live at all, but also more deeply in debt than she cared to own even to herself? In old days, living in the sunshine of the smiles and the blank cheques of her dearest friends, Philippa had run up bills with alarming celerity. The“simple” dress was not cheap. Neither were the ornaments for which she had an unfortunate weakness; clasps and pendants of enamel and uncut gems of chaste and simple workmanship—but quite expensive. The bills began to come in with alarming frequency, and a growing tendency to unpleasant remark. She grew depressed. Robert, who raged over the injustice of a callous world which imposed poverty on beauty, constantly implored to be allowed to lighten the load. Philippa, smiling through her tears, as constantly refused.
It was she who had at last suggested the secretaryship. Robert had at first demurred, and seeing this she had pressed the point, had made it a test of his love for her. In no other way would she take from him so much as a farthing. He yielded, and under cover of her value to him as secretary Robert paid her an absurdly generous salary.
But even with Robert to the rescue matters were bad enough. Philippa fingered disgustedly the last bill she had received, and finally threw it into the fire. She sat gazing at the flame it made, the furrow between her eyes deepening as she thought. And in the background there was something worse. Characteristicallyshe did not face it. She thought of it hazily, indeed, but it was inexorably there. She had put a weapon into the hands of a man who, if he used it at all, would not use it like a gentleman.
A neighboring church clock struck, and she started up. Quarter to four!—and she was not dressed.
She hastened into her bedroom, which opened out of the studio, and began to make a hasty toilet. The room was untidy and not very clean, and if to the garments revealed when the dressing-gown was thrown aside the same remark applied, it must in justice be remembered that even perfect cleanliness is dependent upon the amount of living wage. By the time the downstairs bell rang at a few minutes past four, Philippa looked like the Blessed Damosel, and Mr. Nevern, as he followed her up the studio stairs, felt what it was to be on the right side of the gold bar of heaven.
“Can’t I help?” he begged, as she began to make preparations for tea. It seemed a profanation that she should stoop to put the kettle on the fire. Yet how wonderfully it became her to bend her long, graceful body, and how she seemed to dignify and makemysterious the simplest actions! By the time he received a cup from her hands, Mr. Nevern was in a state bordering on spiritual exaltation.
“I have had a holiday to-day,” she told him, leaning back in the one comfortable chair the room contained. “Mr. Kingslake is out of town on business till to-morrow.”
Her companion’s face darkened with envy of the man with whom she spent half of every day.
“How long have you—had this work?” he inquired, trying to speak naturally.
“I’ve only just begun. It’s interesting, of course. But I can’t say I’m not glad of a long day to myself sometimes. It’s good in this hurried age to have time to possess one’s soul, isn’t it?”
“It was very good of you to let me come this afternoon,—to let me disturb you,” murmured Nevern.
“On the contrary, I wanted to make my holiday complete,” she returned, with a smile which set the young man’s heart beating. “How is the book going?” she pursued, placing her left hand tenderly on a slim volume of verse which lay on the table beside her.
Nevern, following the motion of her hand, glowed with joy.
“Not well,” was all he could find to say, however, and that gloomily.
“Are you surprised?” asked Philippa, with tender raillery. “Does delicate, beautiful work like this appeal to the multitude?”
Nevern smiled deprecatingly, but his heart bounded.
“You mustn’t say such charming things,” he stammered. “You make me——” He checked himself and hurriedly drank his tea.
“I don’t know which is my favorite,” she went on, thoughtfully, turning the leaves of the book. “This, perhaps, with its beautiful refrain.” She read the lines softly, while Nevern trembled with happiness. “Or this. But they are all exquisite.” She continued to turn the leaves with her long, delicate fingers, with a touch like a caress, while she talked. The sound of her voice was music in the young man’s ears, the flattery of her words an intoxication. He was sometimes conscious that he spoke at random, while his eyes were on her face, and then he flushed and pulled himself together, but she did not seem to notice his temporary lapses; her eyes met his, limpid, full of sympathy, deeper than thedepths of waters stilled at even. He found himself repeating the lines to himself while she was giving him a second cup of tea. His hand touched hers as she passed it, and his own shook so that some of the tea was spilled. A drop or two splashed onto Philippa’s velveteen gown. With an exclamation of impatience for his clumsiness, Nevern fell on his knees and, snatching out his handkerchief, wiped away the stain.
“Your beautiful dress!” he murmured. Suddenly he stooped lower and kissed it. She did not move, and, emboldened, he touched her hand with his lips, tremblingly at first, and then passionately.
When he raised his head she was looking at him with an adorable expression of compassion and tenderness.
“Philippa!” he stammered; “I love you. Will you—will you marry me? Oh, you don’t know how I——”
For a moment she continued to look at him with an expression he found hard to read, then she rose abruptly, and moving to the mantelpiece, stood leaning against it with averted face.
Nevern also rose. For a moment he hesitated, then drawing himself up he followed her.
“Philippa,” he said again very simply, “Iknow I’m not worthy of you. But no one will ever love you better than I love you. Will you marry me?” His boyishness dropped from him as he spoke. Of his customary rather foolish affectation of voice and manner, there was not a trace. A real emotion had given him dignity.
Philippa turned. She glanced hurriedly at his face, and paused a moment before she said pleadingly, “Dear Nigel, don’t disturb our friendship—yet. It has been such happiness. I don’t want things altered—at any rate yet awhile.”
Nevern hesitated, disappointment struggling with hope. “But later?” he begged at last. “May I some time later——”
She smiled. “We shall see. Let us leave things as they are indefinitely—well, for the present at all events. And now, dear friend, I think you must go.” She put out her hand, smiling her rare, elusive smile.
Nevern seized it and covered it with kisses before she gently withdrew it.
“I may come again? Soon?” he whispered, hoarsely.
“Yes; but not till I write.” She watched him, still smiling, as he went to the door, and turned for a last look at her.
When the hall door slammed, she drew herself up with a long, weary sigh. How badly everything was arranged! Why could she not have met Nigel Nevern a year ago instead of——
She went slowly into her bedroom, and returned with a photograph at which she gazed long and earnestly, and finally put down with a sigh.
Robert was very attractive. And she was in love with him, of course. She was almost angry to remember that Nigel Nevern had two thousand a year.