JULIAN VISITS THE LADY OF THE FEATHERS
From that night, and almost imperceptibly, the relations existing between
Valentine and Julian slightly changed. It seemed to Julian as if a door
previously shut in his friend's soul opened and as if he entered into
this hitherto secret chamber. He found there an apparent strange humanity
which, as he grew accustomed to it, warmed him. The curious refined
saintliness of Valentine, almost chilly in its elevation, thawed gently
as the days went by, but so gently that Julian scarcely knew it, could
scarcely define the difference which nevertheless led him to alter his
conduct almost unconsciously. One great sameness, perhaps, gave him a
sensation of safety and of continuity. Valentine's face still kept its
almost unearthly expression of intellectuality and of purity. When Julian
looked at him no passions flamed in his blue eyes, no lust ever crawled
in the lines about his mouth. His smooth cheeks never flushed with
beaconing desire, nor was his white forehead pencilled with the shadowy
writing that is a pale warning to the libertine. And yet his speech about
the spring that night, as they leaned out over Victoria Street, had
evidently not been a mere reckless rhapsody. It had held a meaning and
was remembered. In Valentine there seemed to be flowering a number of
faint-hued wants, such wants as had never flowered from his nature
before. The fig-tree that had seemed so exquisitely barren began to put
forth leaves, and when the warm showers sang to it, it sang in tremulous
reply.
And the spring grew in London.
Never before had Julian been so conscious of the growth of the year as
now. The spring stirred inside him, as if he were indeed the Mother
Earth. Tumults of nature shook him. With the bursting of the crocus,
the pointing of its spear of gold to the sun, a life gathered itself
together within him, a life that held, too, a golden shaft within its
colour-stained cup. And the bland scent of the innumerable troops of
hyacinths in Hyde Park was a language to him as he strolled in the sun
towards the Row. Scents speak to the young of the future as they speak
to the old of the past; to the one with an indefinite excitement, to the
other with a vague regret. And especially when he was in the company of
Valentine did Julian become intensely alive to the march of the earth
towards summer, and feel that he was in step with it, dragooned by the
same music. He began to learn, so he believed, what Valentine had called
the lesson of his strength, and of all the strength of the spring. His
wild blood leaped in his veins, and the world was walking with him to a
large prospect, as yet fancifully tricked out in mists and crowned with
clouds.
The spring brought to Valentine an abounding health such as he had never
known before, a physical glory which, without actually changing him, gave
to him a certain novelty of aspect which Julian felt without actually
seeing. One day, when they were out riding together in the Park, he said:
"How extraordinarily strong you look to-day, Val."
Valentine spurred his horse into a short gallop.
"I feel robust," he said. "I think it is my mind working on my body. I
have attained to a more healthy outlook on things, to a saner conception
of life. For years you have been learning from me, Julian. Now I think
the positions are reversed. I am learning from you."
Julian pressed his knees against his horse's sides with an iron grip,
feeling the spirited animal's spirited life between them. They were now
on a level with the Serpentine and riding parallel to it. A few vigorous
and determined bathers swam gaily in the pale warmth of the morning sun.
Two boys raced along the grassy bank to dry themselves, whooping with
exultation, and leaping as they ran. A man in a broad boat, ready to save
life, exchanged loud jokes with the swimmers. On a seat two filthy
loafers watched the scene with vacant eyes. They had slept in the Park
all night, and their ragged clothes were drenched with dew.
"I could race with those boys," Valentine said. "But not so long ago I
was like the men on the bench. I only cared to look on at the bathing of
others. Now I could swim myself."
He sent his horse along at a tremendous pace for a moment, then drew him
in, and turned towards Julian.
"We are learning the lesson of the spring," he said.
As he spoke a light from some hidden place shot for an instant into his
eyes and faded again. Julian laughed gaily. The ride spurred his spirits.
He was conscious of the recklessness created in a man by exercise.
"I could believe that you were actually growing, Val," he said, "growing
before my eyes. Only you're much too old."
"Yes; I am too old for that," Valentine said.
A sudden weariness ran in the words, a sudden sound of age.
"The truth is," he added, but with more life, "my nature is expanding
inside my body, and you feel it and fancy you can see the envelope echo
the words of the letter it holds. You are clever enough to be fanciful.
Gently, Raindrop, gently!"
He quieted the mare as they turned into the road. Just as they were
passing under the arch into the open space at Hyde Park corner a woman
shot across in front of them. They nearly rode over her, and she uttered
a little yell as she awkwardly gained the pavement. Her head was crowned
with a perfect pyramid of ostrich feathers, and as she turned to bestow
upon the riders the contemptuous glance of a cockney pedestrian, who
demands possession of all London as a sacred right, Julian suddenly
pulled up his horse.
"Hulloh!" he said to the woman.
"What is it?" asked Valentine, who was in front.
"Wait a second, Val. I want a word with this lady."
"Rather compromising," Valentine said, laughing, as his eyes took in with
a swift glance the woman's situation in the economy of the town.
The woman now slowly advanced to the railing, apparently flattered at
being thus hailed from horseback. Her kinsmen doubtless always walked.
"Don't you remember me?" Julian said.
She was in fact the lady of the feathers, with whom he had foregathered
at the coffee-stall in Piccadilly. The lady leaned her plush arms upon
the rail and surveyed him with her tinted eyes.
"Can't say as I do, my dear," she remarked. "What name?"
"Never mind that. But tell me, have you ever had a cup of coffee and a
bun in Piccadilly early in the morning?"
The mention of the bun struck home to the lady, swept the quivering
chords of her memory into a tune. She pushed her face nearer to Julian
and stared at him hard.
"So it is," she said. "So it is."
For a moment she seemed inclined to retreat. Then she stood her ground.
Her nerves, perhaps, had grown stronger.
"I should like to know you," Julian said.
The lady was obviously gratified. She tossed her head and giggled.
"Where do you live?" Julian continued.
The lady dived into the back part of her skirt, and, after a long and
passionate pursuit, ran a small purse to earth. Opening it with
deliberation, she extracted a good-sized card, and handed it up to
Julian.
"There you are, dearie," she said.
On the card was printed, "Cuckoo Bright, 400 Marylebone Road."
"I will come at five this afternoon and take you out to tea," said
Julian.
"Right you are, Bertie," the lady cried, in a voice thrilling with pride
and exultation.
Julian rode off, and she watched him go, preening herself against the
rail like some gaudy bird. She looked up at a policeman and laughed
knowingly.
"Well, copper," she said; "how's that, eh?"
The policeman was equal to the occasion.
"Not out," he answered, with a stiff and semi-official smile. "Move
along."
And Cuckoo Bright moved as one who walked on air.
Julian had joined Valentine, who had observed the colloquy from afar,
controlling with some difficulty the impatience of his mare, excited by
her gallop.
"You know that lady?" he asked, still laughing, with perhaps a touch of
contempt.
"Very platonically. We met at a coffee-stall in Piccadilly as I was going
home after your trance. She was with me when I saw that strange flame."
"When you imagined you saw it."
"If you prefer it, Val. I am going to see her this afternoon."
"My dear fellow--why?"
"I'll tell you," Julian answered gravely. "I believe she is the woman
who went to the 'European' with Marr, who must have been with Marr when
he was taken ill, and who fled. I have a reason for thinking so."
"What is it?"
"I'll tell you later, when I have talked to her."
"Surely you don't suspect the poor creature of foul play?"
"Not I. It's sheer curiosity that takes me to her."
"Oh."
They rode on a step or two. Then Valentine said:
"Are you going to take her out? She's--well, she is a trifle
unmistakable, Julian."
"Yes, I know. You are right. She's not for afternoon wear, poor soul.
What damned scoundrels men are."
Valentine did not join in the sentiment thus forcibly expressed.
Between four and five that afternoon Julian hailed a cab and drove to
Marylebone Road. The houses in it seemed endless, and dreary alike, but
at length the cab drew up at number 400, tall, gaunt and haggard, like
the rest. Julian rang the bell, and immediately a shrill dog barked with
a piping fury within the house. Then the door was opened by an old woman,
whose arid face was cabalistic, and who looked as if she spent her
existence in expecting a raid from the police.
"Is Miss Cuckoo Bright at home?"
"Miss Bright! I'll see."
The old dame turned tail, and slithered, flat-footed, to a room opening
from the dirty passage. She vanished and Julian heard two gentle voices
muttering. The old woman returned.
"This way, sir!" she said, in a voice that perpetually struggled to get
the whip-hand of an obvious bronchitis.
A moment more and Julian stood in the acute presence of the lady of
the feathers. At first he scarcely recognized her, for she had discarded
her crown of glory and now faced him in the strange frivolity of her
hatless touzled hair. She stood by the square table covered with a green
cloth, that occupied the centre of the small room, which communicated by
folding doors with an inner chamber. A pastile was burning drowsily in a
corner, and the shrill dog piped seditiously from its station on a black
horsehair-covered sofa, over which a woolwork rug was thrown in easy
_abandon_. Julian extended his hand.
"How d'you do?" he said.
"Pretty bobbish, my dear," was the reply; but the voice was much less
pert than he remembered it, and looking at his hostess, Julian perceived
that she was considerably younger than he had imagined, and that she was
actually--amazing luxury!--a little shy. She had a box of safety-matches
in her hand, and she now struck one, and applied it to a gas-burner. The
day was dark.
"Pleased to see you," she added, with an attempt at a hearty and
untutored air. "Jessie, shut up."
Jessie, the dog, of the toy species, and arched into the shape of a note
of interrogation, obeyed, lay down and trembled into sleep. The gaslight
revealed the details of the sordid room, a satin box of sweetmeats on the
table, a penny bunch of sweet violets in a specimen-glass, one or two
yellow-backed novels, and a few photographs ranged upon the imitation
marble mantelpiece. There was one arm-chair, whose torn lining indecently
revealed the interior stuffing, and there were three other chairs with
wooden backs. The lady of the feathers did not dwell in marble halls,
unless, perhaps, imaginatively.
"You've got cosey quarters," Julian said, amiably lying.
"Yes, they're not bad, but they do cost money. Sit down, won't you!"
The lady shoved the one arm-chair forward, and after a polite skirmish,
Julian was forced to take it. He sat down, disguising from his companion
his sudden knowledge that the springs were broken. She, on her part, laid
hold of Jessie, dumped the little creature into her lap, and assumed an
air of abrupt gentility, pursing her painted lips, and shooting sidelong
glances of inquiry at the furniture. Julian could not at once explain his
errand. He felt that caution was imperative. Besides, the lady doubtless
expected to be entertained at Verrey's or possibly even at Charbonnel's.
But Julian had resolved to throw himself upon the lady's hospitality.
"It's an awful day," he said.
The lady assented, adding that she had not been out.
"We are very cosey here," Julian continued, gazing at the small fire that
was sputtering in the grate.
The lady looked gratified. She felt that the meagre abode which she must
name home had received the hallmark of a "toff's" approval.
"Now I am going to ask you something," Julian said. "Will you let me
have tea with you to-day, and--and--come out with me some evening to
the Empire or somewhere, instead?"
The lady nodded her fringed head.
"Certainly, my dear," she responded. "Proud to give you tea, I'm sure."
Suddenly she bounced up, scattering Jessie over the floor. She promenaded
to the door, opened it and yelled:
"Mrs. Brigg! Mrs. Brigg!"
The expostulating feet of the old person ascended wearily from the lower
depths of the house.
"Lord! Lord! Whatever is it now?" she wheezed.
"Please bring up tea for me and this gentleman."
The lady assumed the voice of a sucking dove.
"Tea! Why, I thought you'd be out to--"
The lady shot into the passage and shut the door behind her. After a
moment she put her head in and said to Julian:
"I'll be back in a minute. She's in a rare tantrum. I must go down and
help her. Pardon."
And she vanished like a flash.
Julian sat feeling rather guilty. To distract himself he got up and
looked at the photographs on the mantelpiece. Most of them were of men,
but there were two or three girls in tights, and there was one of a
stout and venerable woman, evidently highly respectable, seated in an
arm-chair, with staring bead-like eyes, but a sweet and gentle mouth. Her
hair was arranged in glossy bands. Her hands held a large book, probably
a Bible. Julian looked at her and wondered a little how she chanced to be
in this _galère_. Then he started and almost exclaimed aloud. For there,
at the end of the mantelpiece, was a cabinet photograph of Marr. He was
right then in his suspicion. The lady of the feathers was also the lady
at the "European."
"Sorry to keep you waiting," said a voice behind him.
There was a clatter of crockery. His hostess entered bearing a tray,
which held a teapot, cups, a large loaf of bread, and some butter, and a
milk-jug and sugar-basin. She plumped it down on the table.
"Mrs. Brigg _wouldn't_ make toast," she explained. "And I didn't like to
keep you."
"Let's make some ourselves," said Julian, with a happy inspiration.
He felt that to perform a common and a cosey act must draw them together,
and awaken in the lady's breast a happy and progressive confidence. She
was evidently surprised at the suggestion.
"Well, I never!" she ejaculated. "You are a queer one. You are taking a
rise out of me now!"
"Not at all. I like making toast. Give me a fork. I'll do it, and you sit
there and direct me."
She laughed and produced the fork from a mean cupboard which did duty as
a sideboard.
"Here you are, then. 'Cut it pretty thick. It ain't so high class, but it
eats better. That's it. Sit on this stool, dear."
She kicked an ancient leather one to the hearth, and Julian, tucking his
long-tailed frock coat under him, squatted down and thrust forward the
bread to the bars of the grate. The lady opened the lid of the teapot and
examined the brew with an anxious eye.
"It's drawin' beautiful," she declared. "Well, I'm d--" she caught
herself up short. "Well this is bally funny," she said. "Turn it,
dearie."
Julian obeyed, and they began to talk. For the ice was broken now,
and the lady was quite at her ease, and simple and human in her
hospitalities.
"This is better than the bun," Julian said.
"I believe you, dear. And yet that bun did me a deal of good that
mornin'."
Her voice became suddenly reflective.
"A deal of good."
"Are you often out at such a time?"
"Not I. But that night I'd--well, I didn't feel like bein' indoors.
There's things--well, there, it don't matter. That toast's done, dearie.
Bring it here, and let me butter it."
Julian brought it, and cut another slice from the loaf. He toasted while
the lady buttered, a fine division of labour which drew them close
together. Jessie, meanwhile, attracted by these pleasant preparations,
hovered about, wriggling in pathetic anxiety to share the good things of
life.
"Anything wrong that night?" Julian said, carelessly.
The lady buttered, like an angry machine.
"Oh no, dearie," she said. "Make haste, or the tea'll be as black as
coal. Jessie, you're a pig! I do spoil her."
Julian called the little dog to him. She came voraciously, her minute and
rat-like body tense with greed.
"She's a pretty dog," he said.
"Yes," the lady rejoined proudly. "She's a show dog. She was give to
me, and I wouldn't part with her for nuts, no, nor for diamonds neither.
Would I, Jessie? Ah, well, dogs stick to you when men don't."
She was trying to be arch, but her voice was really quivering to tears,
and in that sentence rang all the tragedy of her poor life. Julian looked
across at her as she sat by the tray, buttering now almost mechanically.
She was naturally a pretty girl, but was growing rapidly haggard, and was
badly made up, rouged in wrong places consumptively, powdered everywhere
disastrously. Her eyes were pathetic, but above them the hair was
dreadfully dyed, and frizzed into a desolate turmoil. She had a thin
young figure and anxious hands. As he looked Julian felt a profound pity
and a curious manly friendship for her. She had that saddest aspect of a
human being about whom it doesn't matter. Only it matters about every
living creature so much.
The lady caught his eye, and extended her lips in a forced smile.
"You never know your luck!" she cried. "So it don't do to be down on it.
Come on, dearie. Now then for the tea."
She poured it out, and Julian drew up to the table. Already he felt oddly
at home in this poor room, with this poor life, into which he longed to
bring a little hope, a little safety. Jessie sprang to his knees, and
thence, naughtily, to the table, snuffling towards the plate of toast.
The lady drew it away and approached it to her nose by turns, playfully.
"She is a funny one," she said. "Is your tea right, dearie?"
"Perfect," said Julian. "Is my toast right?"
"Right as ninepence, and righter."
She munched.
"I like you," she said. "You're a gentleman."
She spoke naturally, without coquetry. It was a fine experience for her
to be treated with that thing some women never know--respect. She warmed
under it and glistened.
"We must be friends," Julian said.
"Pals. Yes. Have some more sugar?"
She jumped two lumps into his cup, and laughed quite gaily when the
tea spouted over into the saucer. And they chatted on, and fed Jessie
into joy and peace. Gradually Julian drew the conversation round to the
photographs. The lady was expansive. She gave short histories of some
of the men, summing them up with considerable shrewdness, kodaking their
characters with both humour and sarcasm. Julian and she progressed
along the mantelpiece together. Presently they arrived at the old lady
with the Bible.
"And this?" Julian said.
The lady's fund of spirits was suddenly exhausted.
"Oh, that," she said, and a sort of strange, suppressed blush struggled
up under the rouge on her face. "Well, that's mother."
"I like her face."
"Yes. She thinks I'm dead."
The lady turned away abruptly.
"I'll just carry the tray down to Mrs. Brigg," she said, and she
clattered out with it, and down the stairs.
Julian heard her loudly humming a music-hall song as she went, the
requiem of her dead life with the old woman who held the Bible on her
knees. When she returned, her mouth was hard and her eyes were shining
ominously. Julian was still standing by the mantelpiece. As she came in
he pointed to the photograph of Marr.
"And this?" he asked. "Who's this?"
The lady burst into a shrill laugh of mingled fear and cunning.
"That's the old gentleman!"
"What do you mean?"
"What I say,--the old gentleman, Nick, the devil, if you like it."
"Now you are trying to take a rise out of me."
"Not I, dear," she said. "That's the devil, sure enough."
Either the tea and toast had rendered her exuberant, or the thought
of the old woman who believed her to be dead had driven her into
recklessness. She continued:
"I'd been with him that night I met you, and I was frightened, I tell
you. I'd been mad with fright."
"Why? What had he done to you?"
Julian strove to conceal his eager interest under a light assumption of
carelessness.
"Done!--never mind. It don't do to talk about it."
She laid her thin hand on his arm, as if impelled to be confidential.
"Do you believe in people being struck?" she said.
"Struck! I don't understand."
"Struck," she repeated superstitiously. "Down, from up there?"
Her eyes went up to the ceiling, like the child's when it thinks of
heaven.
"Was he?" Julian asked.
She nodded, pursing her red lips.
"That's what I think. It came so sudden. Just when I was going to
scream somethin' seemed to come over him, like madness it was. He seemed
listening. Then he says, 'Now--now!' And he seemed goin' right off. He
stared at me and didn't seem to know me. Lord, I was blue with it, I tell
you, dear! I was that frightened I just left him and bunked for it, and
never said a word to anybody. I ran downstairs and got out of the house,
and I daren't go home. So I just walked about till I met you."
She sighed.
"I did enjoy that coffee, I tell you straight, but when you began about
seein' things, I couldn't stow it. My nerves was shook. So off I trotted
again."
Julian put a question to her.
"Do you know what has become of him?"
"Not I. He'll never get in here again. Mrs. Brigg won't let him. She
never could abide him."
She shook her shoulders in an irrepressible shudder.
"I wish he was dead," she said. "I never go out but what I'm afraid I
shall meet him, or come back late but what I think I shall find him
standin' against the street door. I wish he was dead."
"I knew him. He is dead."
She looked at him, at first questioning, then awe-stricken.
"Then he was struck? Lord!"
Her red mouth gaped.
"It was in the papers," Julian said, "At the European Hotel."
"That was the place. Lord! I never see the papers. Dead is he? I am
glad."
Her relief was obvious, yet almost shocking, and Julian could not
question her good faith. She had certainly not known. He longed to find
out more about her relations with Marr, and his treatment of her, but
she shied away from the subject. Obviously she really loathed and
detested the remembrance of him.
"But why do you keep his photograph?" Julian asked at last.
The lady seemed puzzled.
"I dunno," she said at last. "I don't seem as if I could burn it. But if
he is gone--dead, I mean--really--"
"He is."
"I know."
She sat thoughtfully. Then she said:
"He didn't look a fellow to die. It seems funny. No; he didn't look it."
And then she dropped the subject, and nothing would induce her to
return to it. Presently they heard a church clock strike. It chimed
seven. Julian was astonished to find that time had gone so quickly.
"I must be going," he said.
The lady looked at him with an odd, half-impudent, half-girlish, and
wistful scrutiny.
"I say," she began, and stopped.
"Yes?"
"I say--why ever did you come?"
The short question that expressed her wondering curiosity might well have
driven any thoughtful man into tears. And Julian, young and careless as
he often was, felt something of the terror and the pain enshrined in it.
But he did not let her see this.
"I wanted to have a talk with you," he answered.
"A talk; you like a talk with me?"
"Yes, surely."
She still stared at him with pathetic eyes. He had stood up.
"Oh," she said. "Well, dearie, I'm glad."
Julian took up his hat.
"I'm going out too," she said.
"Are you?"
"Yes."
She threw a sidelong glance at him, then added hardily, although her
painted lips were suddenly quivering:
"I've got to go to work."
"I know," Julian said. "Well, I will wait till you are ready and drive
you wherever you want to go."
"_Want_ to go," she began, with a little, shrill, hideous laugh. Then,
pulling herself up, she added in a subdued voice:
"Thank you, dearie. I won't be long."
She opened the folding doors and passed into the inner room,
accompanied by Jessie. Julian waited for her. He found himself
listening to her movements in the other room, to the creak of wood,
as she pulled out drawers, to the rustle of a dress lifted from a
hook, the ripple of water poured from a jug into a basin. He heard the
whole tragedy of preparation, as this girl armed herself for the piteous
battle of the London streets. And then his ears caught the eager patter
of Jessie to and fro, and a murmured expostulation from her mistress.
Evidently the little dog had got hold of some article of attire and was
worrying it. There was a hidden chase and a hidden capture. Jessie was
scolded and kissed. Then the sitting-room slowly filled with the scent
of cherry-blossom. A toothbrush in action was distinctly audible. This
tragedy had its comic relief, like almost all tragedies. Julian sighed
and smiled, but his heart was heavy with the desolate and sordid wonder
of life, as his mind heard--all over London--a thousand echoes of the
bedchamber music of the lady of the feathers.
The folding doors opened wide and she appeared, freshly painted and
powdered, crowned once again with the forest of ostrich tips, and holding
the struggling Jessie in her arms.
"Jessie must go to basket," she said, and she dropped the dog into a tiny
basket lined with red flannel, and held up a warning finger.
"Naughty--go bials!" she cried. "Go bials, Jessie."
"What's that?"
"Bials--by-bye. She don't like bein' left. Well, dearie, we've had a nice
time."
Suddenly she put her hands on Julian's shoulders and kissed his mouth.
"I wish there was more like you," she whispered.
He kissed her too, and put his arms around her.
"If I give you something, will you--will you stay at home to-night, just
to-night, with Jessie?" he said.
But she drew away and shook her head.
"I won't take it."
"Yes."
"I won't. No--we're pals--not--not the other thing. You're the only one
I've got--of that kind. I won't spoil it--no, I won't."
Her decision was almost angry. Julian did not persist.
"I'll come again," he said.
She looked at him wistfully.
"Ah--but you won't," she answered.
"I will."
He spoke with energy. She nodded.
"I'd like you to."
Then they went out into the evening and hailed a hansom.
"Put me down at the Piccadilly end of Regent Street," said the lady of
the feathers.