"The nights that were days, and the days that were nights,
Griefs and glories and vain delights,
With Fame before us in fancy flights,
We mocked each other and cried 'All's well'!"
LOVE IN BOHEMIA.
Of her first act Arithelli had no fear. She knew that she was safe in
trusting to the skill and training of her horse to accomplish
successfully all the stereotyped movements of the _haute école_. She
had only to sit still and look graceful, and guide him through his
paces as he waltzed, turned or knelt. She carried a whip for show, but
she had never used it. A word, a caress had always been enough, and
she would have been beaten herself rather than touch the beautiful
creature that carried her.
In the next act it would be all different. Everything depended on her
own balance and accuracy. It would be all trick work then, not riding.
As she slid out of her habit and into the ugly ballet-skirts she
loathed, her courage vanished and she trembled as she faced the
audience for the second time, transformed in white satin and pale blue,
the thinness of her neck and arms painfully apparent.
The flying rush through the air as she jumped the hurdles and gates
made her feel horribly dazed and giddy, and unable to collect her
senses in time for the next leap. As she descended lightly in her
heelless silk slippers upon Don Juan's back after the fourth hurdle had
been passed, she swayed and only by a violent effort recovered herself.
Her heart seemed to be beating right up in her throat and choking her.
She put up one hand and pulled at her turquoise collar till the clasp
gave way and thrust the blue stones into the low-cut bodice. The band
sounded louder than ever, the light danced and waved. Round and round
and round again, while the ring-master's whip cracked monotonously.
The rhythm of the waltz beat in her brain as the music in some
delirious dream. She wondered dully why there was so little applause
now. Was she doing so badly? Once she had jumped too low and knocked
against a hurdle instead of clearing it properly. The grooms had
helped her by lowering everything as much as possible, but all they
could do had not been able to disguise her unwonted awkwardness.
She would have a few minutes' rest when the clown came on, and perhaps
that would help her to go through the rest of the act without an
absolute breakdown.
The interlude was all too short, the signal came and she sprang up and
poised herself mechanically. Again the waltz music struck up and Don
Juan's hoofs fell with a soft thud upon the tan. The hurdles and gates
had all been cleared successfully, and now she must dismount and let
her steed go round alone while she ran across from the opposite side of
the ring and vaulted from the ground to the saddle.
It was the trick she had found impossible to get through at the
rehearsal, the trick she most dreaded. Everything depended on her
coolness and steadiness. She must start exactly at the right time, and
measure the distance with unerring precision. For the first time in
her life she feared the audience. She knew too well the fickle nature
of a Spanish crowd. To a performer who failed to please them they
would be merciless. People who screamed aloud for more blood when the
sport had been tame at a bull-fight, people who habitually tortured
their animals, were not likely to show consideration to one who was
paid to entertain them. They would applaud furiously one minute and
hiss furiously the next.
As she stood alone, waiting, she glanced instinctively towards the
place where Emile always sat, and wished he had been there. He would
be angry with her if she failed, but she felt somehow that he would be
sorry for her as well. Perhaps he might even make excuses for her, for
he was the only person who knew about the episode of the previous
night, and her injured hand. Sometimes she had loved the swaying crowd
of human beings for whose amusement she risked her life and limbs. Now
she hated the eager watching faces. They only wanted to see her fall,
she told herself.
She ran blindly across the open space. The next instant she was on her
feet on the ground again and Don Juan had stopped short. Her upward
leap had carried her on to his back, but she had not been able to keep
her balance.
There was dead silence and then the hissing in the audience broke out,
vehement and unrestrained.
That she had pleased them hitherto went for nothing in her favour now.
She had been clumsy, ungraceful, had failed--that was enough.
Arithelli herself scarcely heard the sounds of execration, as she stood
swaying with one hand over her eyes to shut out the horrible glare.
She was conscious only of that and the strident noise of the band, and
the sensation of choking she had felt once before. The instinct of all
animals to hide themselves in the dark when ill, was strong upon her.
The fat little ring-master who alone had the sense to see there was
something wrong, advanced and spoke to her in an agitated whisper. She
gave him her hand and he led her out, leaving her hurriedly to go back
and apologise to the irate spectators, and to claim their indulgence on
the score of her sudden faintness.
* * * * * *
Would she ever get to her room, Arithelli wondered, as she struggled
down the passage. It had never seemed so long before. Her hand went
up to her throat again. She longed for something cool to drink to
relieve the aching and dryness. It must be caused by the heat and dust
of the ring, she thought.
A man's voice sounded behind her, and then hurrying footsteps. She
pulled her long blue cloak round her and went on without answering or
turning her head. It could only be the Manager coming to upbraid her.
An arm was flung round her protectingly and she turned with the face of
a hunted animal, and looked up into the wild dark eyes of Vardri.
"What has happened? You're ill! It's no wonder. _Mon Dieu_, those
brutes last night . . ."
He pulled her head back against his shoulder, dropping his voice to a
murmur of exquisite gentleness. "_Mon enfant--ma petite enfant_!"
"You saw me fall?" she whispered.
"The men told me when they brought Don Juan out. I didn't see what
happened. Were you hurt or only faint?"
"Oh, my hand? That's nothing. Emile says it will heal in a day or
two. But I felt so stupid. . . . Vardri, you don't think I'm going to
be ill, do you? I've never been ill in my life . . . never!"
The boy made some incoherent answer. Her piteous entreaty tore at his
heart. Every fibre in his starved body ached with the desire to give
her the rest and peace she needed above all things.
What could he do without money? His own miserable wages barely served
for necessities. He was only a useless vagabond, an outcast. He
ground his teeth together at the thought of his own impotence.
"Courage, little one. They will cheer you again to-morrow. They are
cruel, these Spaniards, and fickle. You must not care."
It did not seem strange to either of them that he should be holding her
in his arms. After last night everything had changed. Love, Youth,
and Nature were hard at work weaving the bonds that drew them together.
The fact that she suffered his caresses had given him the right of
manhood to protect her, to be her champion, to fight her battles. If
he could do nothing else for her, at least he could fight. For him the
crown of happiness could be found in loyal service. Of love-making in
its ordinary sense, Vardri neither thought nor dreamed. To have found
his Ideal, the one woman, surely that was enough. The innate
fastidiousness that goes with good breeding had kept his life clean,
his hands unsoiled.
He had hated the other women in the Circus, and felt sorry for them at
the same time; and on their side they liked him and regarded him
somewhat as a fool. Their voices, their coarse expressions, their
light jokes all jarred on him.
He pitied them, for their lives were as hard as his own, and when he
could he helped them, for among the wanderers in Bohemia there is an
ever-abiding comradeship. The element of fanaticism in his nature,
which had once been absorbed by the Cause, now spent itself upon a
human being.
The firm yet gentle clasp in which he held her, was the outward symbol
of the love and courage that made him tense as steel. To every man
there comes his hour, and his was now. Both for her sake and his own
he dare not keep her with him. That they had been left undisturbed so
long was a miracle. Besides, as she was ill, the sooner she was in bed
the better.
He half led, half carried her to the door of her dressing room, and she
thanked him with a smile, a gesture. Her throat hurt so much that all
speech was an effort.
"You must go now," she whispered. "You will get into trouble again
through me."
The boy threw a quick furtive glance along the whitewashed passage.
With characteristic recklessness he had forgotten that the chances of
his summary dismissal were looming exceedingly near.
He had left half his work undone the previous night, he had appeared
late that morning, and now he was in a part of the building to which
all the grooms and stable helpers were forbidden entrance.
"You'll let me bring you home," he pleaded.
Arithelli shook her head. "You can't."
"Is Emile coming for you? You shall not go alone, that I swear!"
"Emile will send someone. They never let me go alone. If you will,
you may do this. If I am not down at the stables at half-past eight
to-morrow, will you find Emile and ask him to come to me. He will be
there doing my work."
"And you will sleep and be well to-morrow? To-morrow you will ride
again, and there will be the applause."
Even as he spoke he knew his words were foolishness. The feverish
skin, dry lips and eyes that were like burning holes in the thin oval
face were signs and tokens enough for the most unseeing of men. And
Vardri had suffered sufficiently himself to be able to recognise
genuine illness.
She slipped from his arms.
The little dreary laugh made him shiver.
"_Mille remerciments, mon camarade_. I'm a failure, and failures are
best left alone. _C'est ainsi que la vie_!"
* * * * * *
Hers was the sole fiasco in an otherwise successful performance.
The final spectacle was a lurid representation of the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah.
This species of scriptural tableaux was frequently given, and was
greatly to the taste of the spectators.
Such scenes were regularly presented in the theatres and heartily
enjoyed by the superstitious and devout populace, who found in them
nothing incongruous or repulsive to their piety.
In this particular display the Manager had excelled himself, and
achieved above all things a most vivid realism.
The gentleman who impersonated the patriarch Lot had a distinctly
modern air, and resembled a third-rate Anarchist in depressing
circumstances.
He was dark and swarthy, and possessed a ferocious expression, and on
the whole suggested a caricature of Emile in his worst frame of mind.
He appeared in company with his reluctant spouse, whom he dragged along
by the hand, she meanwhile obviously unwilling to leave the urban
delights of the Cities of the Plain for a pastoral and dull existence
in the desert, and as she was several sizes larger than her husband,
she seemed likely to get the best of the encounter.
She was the same fat Englishwoman who had driven Arithelli's horses in
the chariot. She was by no means young, she had applied her rouge with
a lavish hand, and her golden wig was an outrage. Her airs and graces
were those of a well-fed operatic soprano.
She advanced in jerks, she clutched at her plump anatomy and she rolled
her eyes appealingly at the gallery, which responded with delighted
yells.
In her train came a small flock of dejected-looking, but real sheep,
which were seemingly inspired by sufficient intelligence to wish to
avoid the coming catastrophe.
The city (or cities) was represented by coarsely-painted scenery, and,
owing to some defect in the perspective, appeared to be only a few feet
from the travellers, though doubtless intended to fill the distant
horizon.
The fleeing pair jerked slowly across the stage in time to subdued but
brassy music from the Hippodrome band, the sheep followed, and thunder
and lightning were heard and seen.
Flashes and bangs resounded, the doomed city rocked upon its
foundations, and the audience joined in the uproar.
Sacks full of flour descended from Heaven and burst, converting the
fleshly Mrs. Lot into the traditional pillar of salt, and the house and
the curtain were brought down together.
Restored to good-humour, the audience had forgotten the disgrace and
failure of their favourite _equestrienne_.