Elizabeth's Pretenders/Part 2/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V.

"Was it not strange," said Elizabeth to her friend the next morning, "that your brother happened to be walking in that direction last night, and found us? I don't know how long we might have wandered about but for him."

"Yes, it was lucky he happened to be in that direction," returned Hatty, demurely.

She was secretly much pleased. Her quick intelligence divined the truth; but neither to Elizabeth nor to her brother did she hint her belief that he had followed them to the theatre. Things must be suffered to take their own course. That Alaric felt an interest in this English girl—let him say what he would—was clear. "Encouragement," as it is called, which means more or less of interference, would do more harm than good on both sides. The only point upon which she declared she could not hold her tongue was Elizabeth's toleration of Anatole Doucet.

"The moral of your adventure is—don't walk back from a theatre alone with a man who loses his way."

"You don't like my décadent poet," laughed Elizabeth, "who tells me he is writing a poem about me? I never had a man write a poem about me before, and I should not be human if I were not touched." Then she stopped short, and looked grave. After a moment or two, she continued, "Of course I don't believe a word he, or any other man, says. David said all men were liars, and I know it is true. But it would be ridiculous to take a man like Anatole Doucet seriously. He does not mean—he does not know what he is saying, half the time."

"He knows pretty well the other half," said Miss Baring; "and if the half that is unreal is bad, the half that is real is worse."

Alaric's attitude towards Elizabeth was unchanged. He did not advance in intimacy—apparently he had no desire to do so—in consequence of the incident I have narrated. He named it casually to Hatty, solely, as she believed, in order to express his contempt of Doucet, and his amazement that her friend should tolerate the poet's attentions. She did not defend Elizabeth. On the contrary, she said with feminine artfulness—

"Miss Shaw seems very dense in some respects—has evidently no discernment. She believes all men are alike untrustworthy, and looks on this Frenchman as only a poseur—an extreme example of the national vanity and proneness to flatter."

"She seems to like it," he returned dryly. "I watched her a good deal during the evening."

Hatty could hardly repress a smile. "Yes; she owns it amuses her. She regards it as experience, I suppose."

"You had better tell her that some experiences are perilous," said her brother, as he turned away.

But Elizabeth had no notion of being debarred from what she regarded as an innocent diversion, by any hints Miss Baring might drop. She talked, with unembarrassed spontaneity, across the table; her lips twitched at the poet's affectations, his paradoxes, his foamings at the mouth. She regarded him much as certain men are regarded by an indulgent public in England: men whose superficial cleverness and puerile vanity entertain for an hour, and are forgotten; or, if not forgotten, are only remembered with a disparaging smile.

But there was to be an end to this indulgence; and the end was precipitated thus.

Elizabeth sat in her room late one night, writing her journal, before going to bed, when she was startled by a gentle knock at her door. It was locked; but she sprang up, and was about to open it, when she stopped short.

"Who is there?" she asked.

"It is I," replied Doucet's voice, in a whisper.

"What do you want?"

"I am very thirsty. Have you, mademoiselle, some water to give me?"

There stood a bottle on the table before her eyes. A few weeks since—before she fled from her uncle's house—she would assuredly have opened the door, and bade the young man quench his thirst. Though still singularly fearless, and too contemptuous to be seriously suspicious of M. Anatole, Hatty's warning possibly crossed her mind, as she replied—

"No. I have no water to give you, monsieur. You will find some downstairs."

"You are very cruel. If you knew what I am suffering!"

"There is fresh water in the dining-room."

"But I have something to say to you—something very particular, mademoiselle."

"You must say it in the morning."

"Oh! my head is on fire! I have just finished the poem I have addressed to you. Will you not hear it?"

"To-morrow. You shall read it to-morrow. Monsieur Anatole."

"Mon Dieu! How shall I pass this night? J'ai de bleus recueillements! Je réve le suicide! Je———"

"Don't be disagreeable. Monsieur Anatole, and talk nonsense. Go to bed. You can't stand outside my door all night and rave in this absurd way."

"Kill me, mademoiselle! Open the door, and kill me! It would be kinder!"

"Monsieur Anatole, if you do not go away instantly, I will never speak to you again."

She heard a plaintive murmuring as she closed the inner door of her bedroom; but whether he obeyed her at once, she never knew.

Monsieur Anatole Doucet was somewhat disconcerted when, at the midday meal the following day, this strange young woman asked him, before every one, whether he had found water to quench his thirst the previous night; and furthermore, whether he would read his poem before the assembled pensionnaires after breakfast. Thereupon a general chaffing of the poet ensued, in which every one joined, except Madame de Belcour, who looked indignant. He coloured and glared, and pushed back his distraught hair, and soon after left the table. The situation was seized, and variously commented on by all.

Mdme, de Belcour (as soon as Miss Shaw and the Barings had returned to their studios). "It is disgusting! She encourages him—any one can see how she encourages him—then she turns round and betrays him! Ce pauvre cher Doucet! To make him a laughing-stock, it is cruel—unfeminine! No woman with the common instincts of her sex would treat an admirer so!"

Prof. Genron. "If more women behaved so, madame, the world would not be populated with so many fools."

Mdme. Martineau. "She gave him a good lesson, at any rate. C'est d'un inconvenant! To come, uninvited, to a young girl's room! But he is a poet. C'est tout dit. Poets are made like that."

Narishkine. "He was rehearsing for the part of 'L'Amoureux Transi.'"

Dr. Morin (laughing). "He is young, and he is enterprising; and mademoiselle is able to take care of herself. But did you see the American's face when she opened her batteries on Doucet? He flushed—he bit his lip. I thought he was going to throw the caraffe at our poet's head!"

Mdme. de B. (under her breath). "Perhaps she was waiting for him. I should not wonder. C'est une fine mouche—allez!"

Prof. Genron (grinning sardonically). "Belief in virtue, I observe, is like faith. It must be inherent. It cannot be acquired."

Dr. Morin. "Till late in life. When we are too old to do much harm, some of us believe in our own virtue."

Mdme. M. (throwing herself into a possible breach). "Mes amis, I have to announce to you the arrival of a new pensionnaire—a young Englishman, who has been here this morning, and has taken my vacant room on the third floor."

Mdme. de B. "An Englishman? Bah! Ils sont tous bêtes."

Mdme. M. (wagging her head), "Il n'en a pas l'air, celui là. Il est bien, tres bien, et élégant—tout à fait 'gentleman.'"

Narishkine. "Then we shall all hate him—that is, all the men. His name, Madame Martineau?"

Mdme. M. "Monsieur Georges. He comes to study painting."

Mdme. de B. "Poor, I suppose?"

Mdme. M. "Who knows? He has paid a week in advance."

Prof. Genron. "Those Americans will get hold of him."

Mdme. de B. "And that fine mouche!"

"Mr. George," with his fair fresh colouring, so rare in France, his blonde moustache of two months' growth, his immaculate clothes, his good spirits, and his winning smile, made a distinctly favourable impression on the ladies assembled at dinner that night. On the men, if the effect was less convincing, it was at least not one to rouse antagonism. He did not thrust himself into undue prominence; he spoke French with ease; he differed from his elders with a pretty air of deprecation calculated to disarm them. Even the cynical professor and the embittered Russian could find nothing worse to say in his disfavour than that he had apparently been fed on buttermilk, "dans le Devonshire."

Elizabeth had no recollection of ever having seen him. In point of fact, she had only done so once, it may be remembered, in going through Mr. Twisden's office, two years before. On her last visit there, she had brushed past a young man on the stairs without even looking at him. His face now pleased her; it seemed to her frank and ingenuous; and his manner certainly contrasted favourably with that of every other man in the pension. She could not except Mr. Baring; she wished she could. She had the highest respect and, indeed, admiration for a great deal in the American's character, as revealed by Hatty; but he was difficult to get on with. He never "let himself go." This young Englishman, on the contrary, was prodigal of his personality. He talked freely, he laughed merrily; there was nothing compassé (to use Madame de Belcour's phrase) about him. Perhaps the contrast to her adored brother was too great to please Miss Baring. Certain it is that she was the only woman who was not greatly taken by Mr. George. She said rather crossly—as Elizabeth thought—that no one could be quite as candid as that young man looked.

Whether Alaric Baring conceived a prejudice thus early against the new-comer I cannot say, but it soon became apparent that a fresh cause for his irritation and his taciturnity was likely to arise. What with one thing and another, he was not having "a good time." The unspeakable Frenchman was, indeed, dropped into the limbo of things despised, no longer dreaded. But the very lightness with which she treated that whole episode fortified his belief that the girl for whom he felt a growing passion—a passion against which he struggled vainly day by day, and which he sought to conceal from all the world, including the devoted Hatty—that this girl was vain and heartless. How otherwise could her conduct be accounted for? He had judged her to be proud, reticent, even contemptuous, when she arrived here, nearly three months ago. The barriers she had erected round herself had gradually broken down. He had seen with righteous indignation that they had yielded, after a while, to Monsieur Anatole Doucet's flattery, and he had feared greatly that this poetical cheap-jack would, with his good looks and his verses, make a real impression on the heart of the English girl. That dread was dispelled; but it was not to be denied that she had, up to a certain point, encouraged him—had played with him, as a cat does with a mouse, and had only dropped him when she had discovered that it was not always safe to play even with a mouse.

Yes, she was a coquette; there could be no doubt of it. He must be on his guard. Even towards himself, how wayward she was!—for it was thus he interpreted the fitful expansion and indifference of her manner. Had he been told that it was this very guardedness of his which often chilled the flow of the girl's utterance, and clouded her bright face in conversation, he would have been amazed. We often remain ignorant, to the end of the chapter, of the influence our manner—our outer being—has on the surface of others.

And now a new subject for disquietude had arisen. After the third or fourth day of Mr. George's presence at the pension, it was manifest that here was a possible rival infinitely more to be feared than any "decadent" poet. Whatever else he might be, the new-comer was manly, exhilarating; the type of a healthy Englishman with keen wits, and a ready capacity for using them. His tact was amazing. He never rubbed any one up the wrong way, and his good humour was invincible. He was certainly attractive; Alaric Baring could not deny it. Had it not been for the sharp—too sharp—flash, now and again, in his light grey eyes—a flash which seemed to the American to reveal depths of possible cunning—he would have acknowledged that here was a man whose appearance and manner inspired absolute confidence. It was soon apparent that he had so inspired Miss Shaw. At all events, any one could see that his conversation pleased her. On the day after his arrival, he hired a studio in the same house as the Barings. He had considerable ability as a draughtsman, and opposed Alaric's theories as to the right way of looking at nature courteously, but with touches of a dry humour which delighted Elizabeth. Both the Barings saw with annoyance how much more congenial to her were Mr. George's views on art than their own. More than two months with them had not made her an impressionist. She still resolutely declared that it was not the impression, but the suggestion, of a face or hand which the artists of the new school delivered to one. The suggestion was often admirable, and seen a long, long way off, the effect became lifelike. But was it necessary to look at pictures such a long way off? She preferred the "impression" left by by Titian after his kind, or a Holbein after his. And now, in support of such obsolete heresy as this, here was this healthy young Englishman, with his glibness and his suave manners, doing battle for Miss Shaw with the gloved hand of irony! It annoyed Hatty a good deal. But it annoyed her brother far more.