"Cartouche! Cartouche!"
The call came from a young Englishman, who, having just walked through
the streets of Florence on his way from the station, now found himself
before a small house which stood not far from the Cascine in an open
space, pleasantly planted with trees, and within view of the Arno. The
house itself was white, if so cold a colour may be taken to represent
that mellow and golden effect which quickly enriches the plaster of
Italy; and it was gay with green shutters and striped awnings, for it
was yet early autumn, and the City of Flowers had not long cooled down
from the extreme heats which make it unbearable in summer. There was
still a hot and languid glow lying on the violet-tinted hills which on
either side surround the plain; still the Lung' Arno was avoided, and
people kept close under the shadows of the narrow streets; or, if they
must needs cross the river, crossed it by the Ponte Vecchio, under the
shelter of its quaint old shops.
The door of the house at which the young man had arrived was open, but
his call having produced no effect, instead of entering he stood still
and repeated it. "Cartouche!"
This time there was a dull thud on the ground to his right; a great
black poodle had jumped from an upper window, and recovering himself in
a moment, broke into the most extravagant demonstrations of welcome,
leaping upon the new-comer, barking and rushing about with every hair
flying out from his body. The young man, who was fair and curly-haired,
and tall, though inclined to stoop, looked at the window and then at the
dog, and gave a whistle of surprise.
"Let me advise you not to try that too often, my friend," he said
seriously. "It is just as well for you that the house is not a trifle
higher, as I presume you would not have taken the difference into your
calculations. And a nice time your mistress must be having, if these
are the ways in which you indulge."
The dog's answer was a vigorous bound, which almost upset the young
man's balance; then rushing wildly round and round the open place under
the plane trees, his black hair streaming in the wind, he suddenly
pulled himself up and stood watching his friend, his head on one side,
his small eyes gleaming from a dishevelled tangle, and his long tongue
hanging out of his mouth.
"Yes," said the tall Englishman, still regarding him meditatively, "I
understand what all that means, old fellow. You have a good supply of
animal spirits, and a difficulty in working off the steam under present
circumstances. I don't know that I feel as sympathetic as you have a
right to expect, but, at any rate, I shall be able to do something for
you, and if you could contrive to make over a little of what is really
inconveniencing you, I have not the slightest objection to be troubled
with it. Where is your mistress?"
As he spoke he turned towards the door and went in. The house seemed to
have fallen by accident among all the great buildings of Florence: it
had no porter, no staircase with flats going on and on; it had been
built or altered by some Englishman, who had a fancy for a home that
should be like England, although the beautiful Italian skies were
overhead; and Jack Ibbetson, when he came out with his aunt, Miss
Cartwright, to look for a house, fell upon this place, and did not rest
until he got hold of it for her. Inside the door there were flowers; a
few steps led into a passage which turned off at right angles, and then
Ibbetson opened the door of a small salon, and walked through it towards
the window, while his eye took in certain evidences that Cartouche had
been holding high revel there to the detriment of cushions and covers.
"So you still go on the rampage, old fellow?" he said to the dog, who
kept close to his heels in a state of suppressed excitement. "If I were
you I would leave off this style of thing, I really would. It is
nothing short of tyranny on your part. Hallo! what's up now?"
For with a wild swoop Cartouche pounced into a corner, dragged out a
basket, rushed to the window, and in a moment more was careering round
and round the little garden in which the proprietor had indulged his
English tastes. It was an odd little garden, with a wall round it, and
a poor pretence at English grass, but the wall had capers and pretty
hanging things growing out of it, and lizards darting up and down; and
the beauty of the garden lay in its great flowering shrubs, in the
magnolias, just beginning to show scarlet flames of seed among their
glossy leaves, in the bright green of an orange tree and the broad
ribbed foliage of Japanese medlars. That some one was sitting there
became evident in another moment, when there were uttered a series of
appeals in a feminine voice--
"Cartouche, Cartouche! Oh, Cartouche, how can you! Come here, you
naughty, naughty dog! I shall be obliged to beat you, you know I shall!
Come, now, like a good dog. Cartouche, Cartouche, come here!"
The young Englishman, standing back at the window, smiled at the little
scene, at the pretty soft little lady who had got up anxiously and left
her work on the chair, at the dog's evident enjoyment, his pretence of
remorse and abandonment, the slow wag of his tail as he waited for his
mistress to approach, the swift rush with which he made his escape. At
last, when he had drawn her to the limit of the garden, he suddenly
dropped the basket, raced back to her chair, and seizing a loose tassel
which she had been about to sew on to a cushion, pranced up to the young
man with an air of infinite triumph. Miss Cartwright turned round and
saw her nephew emerging.
"Jack, is it you?" she cried. And then she hurried towards him with
both her kind hands outstretched. "My dear, dear boy, I can hardly
believe it; this is delightful, this is why I have had no letter! Have
you just come? Have you had nothing to eat? Angela shall send up
something at once, and Winter shall go to Franconi's. My dear, it is so
good to see you, and I was thinking of nothing but that naughty dog.
What is that you are taking out of his mouth?"
"I'm afraid it's a tassel," said Jack gravely. "Shall I flog him?"
Miss Cartwright was one of those kind gentle people whose conscience and
soft-heartedness are always falling foul of each other.
"Perhaps it does not so much matter," she said hurriedly; "it is only
the same tassel which he has torn off so often before, that I daresay he
fancies he has a sort of right to it."
"I'm very much afraid he is giving you no end of trouble," said Jack
remorsefully.
"Oh, my dear, no! He is wonderfully good, and so affectionate that
sometimes it quite brings the tears into my eyes. But of course he is
young, and one can't expect him to understand everything at once, can
one?"
"That is the old story, Aunt Mary," said Jack, smiling kindly; "I have
got too much good out of the excuse myself to begrudge it to Cartouche."
But Miss Cartwright hardly heard his words; she was looking at him, her
face full of that sweet warm happiness which often brightens lives which
seem to us on-lookers grey and commonplace. What do we know, after all?
The passionate thrills, the great tides of emotion, which we call
happiness, are often more nearly allied to pain; true bliss creeps out
from strange, unlooked-for crannies, from the unselfishness which has
seemed to set it aside. Jack was struck and touched by the gladness in
her face, by the peace of the little garden, its vines and its roses.
He had a feeling as if it could not last, as if he himself were bringing
in the element of unrest. He stopped his aunt when she was beginning to
question him.
"You have not heard how Cartouche got at me."
"No--did he know your step? Oh, my dear," she said, pausing blankly.
"Well?"
"I have just remembered I had shut him into an upstairs room, and the
key is in my pocket."
"It's quite safe, you need not feel for it," said Jack gravely. "The
fact is, he jumped out of the window."
"Oh, but I hope, I do hope you are mistaken," said Miss Cartwright in
great perturbation. "I have always felt so safe when we have got him
upstairs; it really will be serious if this is no restraint. Because,
even if the windows were closed"--she stopped and looked doubtfully at
Cartouche, who presented an aspect of complete indifference.
"He would go through them--not a doubt of it."
"My dear boy, don't say such dreadful things! But then, what can we do?
Never mind, I dare say he will not be naughty again," she went on,
bringing her unlimited hopefulness to bear; "besides, it was owing to
your coming so unexpectedly, and you have explained nothing as yet. I
shall just go and see Winter, and tell her to get everything ready for
you, and then I shall come back, and hear all that you have been doing."
Left to himself, Ibbetson sat down on a garden bench, and with his head
sunk between his shoulders, his long legs stretched stiffly out, and his
hands disposed of in his pockets, fell into a reverie, which, to judge
from his looks, was not of an altogether agreeable nature. So absorbed
by it was he, that Cartouche, tired of a short-lived goodness, went off
to relieve his spirits by bullying the cat of the household, an animal
which, having been always distinguished for a singularly placid
disposition, was now rapidly acquiring the characteristics of a vixen,
goaded thereto by a good-humoured but unceasing persecution. What with
barks and spittings, there was noise enough to disturb a less profound
meditation, but when Miss Cartwright at length came hurrying out, her
nephew kept the same attitude, and was unaware of her approach.
Thinking that he was asleep, she stood looking at him with a tender
wistfulness in her soft eyes; for now that his face was in repose she
noticed a tired and grave expression which she fancied should not have
been there. It was not a handsome face, for there was a greater
squareness than is considered consistent with good looks, and the mouth
was large. But his eyes were grey and honest, and all the features gave
you a pleasant impression of openness and health which in itself was a
strong attraction to less partial observers than his aunt. Nor was the
partiality itself wonderful, when it was considered that she had acted
as mother to Jack since the time when his own mother had died, a time so
long ago that he was too small to know anything about it--or so they
decided. When it happened, Miss Cartwright went to live with her
brother-in-law, and to bring up Jack.
She did this--the more loyally and creditably that she and her
brother-in-law never got on well together. It was not that they
quarrelled, but that they had little in common. Sir John Ibbetson was a
poor squire who farmed his own land, and never seemed to grow any the
richer for it; perhaps the truth was, that being haunted by the
impression that ill-luck dogged his footsteps, he could scarcely be
induced to take any but a gloomy view of whatever concerned him. That
Jack's early life was not coloured by such grim presentiments was owing
to Miss Cartwright's persistent cheerfulness, which, while a perpetual
trial to Sir John, made the home atmosphere healthy for the boy. Few
people could have retained their sweet temper and interest in minor
matters so thoroughly as she retained them, in spite of constant
rebuffs; nor could she ever be talked into taking despairing views of
Jack's juvenile naughtinesses, or into foreshadowing future disgrace
from his inability or unwillingness to master the intricacies of the
Latin grammar. But perhaps her best service both to father and son was
in keeping well before the boy his father's actual affection, and thus
preventing Sir John's over-anxiety from alienating his son, which might
have been a not unnatural result. As it was, the lad grew up
high-spirited and perhaps a little wilful, but generous in his impulses,
and with a sweet temper which it was difficult to ruffle. He was
universally liked at Harrow and Oxford, and, like other men, got both
good and bad out of his popularity; but being too lazy for hard work,
only scrambled through what had to be done, and grievously disappointed
his father, although the latter had never professed to look forward to
better things. It might have been owing to this disappointment that Sir
John took a step which caused the most lively amazement to Jack, Miss
Cartwright, his servants, and, in a lesser degree, to the whole circle
of his acquaintances. He announced his engagement to a rich widow.
When the first astonishment had been got over, nobody had a word to say
against it except Jack. He disliked it so vehemently as even to
surprise his aunt, who, with all her knowledge of him, was unaware how
tenderly he cherished the idea--for remembrance it could scarcely be
called--of his lost mother, or how much he resented a step of his
father's which seemed to prove her to be forgotten. However, though the
sore remained, his nature was too sweet not to suffer it to be
mollified, although he entirely refused to benefit by the substantial
kindnesses which his stepmother--to her credit be it spoken--would
willingly have heaped upon him. It seemed, indeed, as if the necessary
spur had at last touched his life. He studied for the bar more closely
than he had ever done before, was constant in his attendance at the
courts, and in his letters to his aunt expressed such an eager desire
for her briefs, that if her disposition had not been absolutely
peaceful, she might have returned to England on purpose to seek for a
lawsuit. As it was, she began to develop what seemed like a sanguinary
thirst for crime, reading the police reports in her English papers with
less horror at the wickedness there brought to light, than anxiety that
something should turn up for Jack.
Sir John's marriage had taken place nearly a year ago, and Miss
Cartwright, uprooted from what had been her home for a long series of
years, had, partly from old associations, partly to please Jack, and
partly because an old maiden friend was bent upon the scheme, determined
to make Florence her home for a time. It was the last thing anyone
expected from her, but those are just the things which people do. She
and Miss Preston had moved to Siena for the summer, and now had come
back to the pretty homelike little house on which they had fallen. Miss
Preston was the part of the arrangement against which Jack protested in
vain. She was tall, hook-nosed, commanding: she did not believe in him;
she set her face against weaknesses of all kinds, and considered it her
mission to protect Miss Cartwright. When people's worth takes this sort
of disagreeable shape, it is astonishing how much more indignation it
raises amongst their neighbours than falls to the share of real sinners;
and perhaps this was the tie which kept these two--unlike as they were--
together. Miss Cartwright, who looked up to her friend with all her
heart, was really filled with a vague and tender pity which Miss Preston
never knew. It was she who was the actual protector--smoothing down,
explaining, thinking no evil, and making people ashamed of their own.
Then there was Cartouche. Jack had picked him up as a puppy in the
South of France, and insisted upon his aunt taking charge of him.
"He will have plenty of room here to run about and get himself tamed
down a little," he explained, "whereas in London he would be miserable.
You need not trouble yourself about him, he is clever enough to take
care of himself and you into the bargain. If you don't really like him
I can send him to my fathers, only it struck me he would be just what
you want here; what do you say about it?"
He put the question, but would perhaps have been surprised had a third
person pointed out how little doubt he felt about the answer. Miss
Cartwright would have looked upon herself as a barbarian if she had
refused any gift offered her by Jack, and immediately set herself to
apply to Cartouche the same hopefulness which she had brought to bear
upon her nephew's education. Miss Preston's wrath was great, but there
was another power in the house--Winter, Miss Cartwright's maid, and
Winter hated Miss Preston. Opposition, therefore, carried Winter to the
side of Cartouche, and opposition forms as strong a bond as anything
else.