THE DARK FLOWER Read online

  How queer was the sound of that jerky talk!

  "You ever see old Fookes now? Been racin' at all? You live in Town? Remember good old Blenker?" And then silence, and then another spurt: "Ever go down to 'Bambury's?' Ever go racin'? . . . Come on up to my 'digs.' You've got nothin' to do." No persuading Johnny Dromore that a 'what d'you call it' could have anything to do. "Come on, old chap. I've got the hump. It's this damned east wind."

  Well he remembered it, when they shared a room at 'Bambury's'--that hump of Johnny Dromore's, after some reckless spree or bout of teasing.

  And down that narrow bye-street of Piccadilly he had gone, and up into those 'digs' on the first floor, with their little dark hall, their Van Beers' drawing and Vanity Fair cartoons, and prints of racehorses, and of the old Nightgown Steeplechase; with the big chairs, and all the paraphernalia of Race Guides and race-glasses, fox-masks and stags'-horns, and hunting-whips. And yet, something that from the first moment struck him as not quite in keeping, foreign to the picture--a little jumble of books, a vase of flowers, a grey kitten.

  "Sit down, old chap. What'll you drink?"

  Sunk into the recesses of a marvellous chair, with huge arms of tawny leather, he listened and spoke drowsily. 'Bambury's,' Oxford, Gordy's clubs--dear old Gordy, gone now!--things long passed by; they seemed all round him once again. And yet, always that vague sense, threading this resurrection, threading the smoke of their cigars, and Johnny Dromore's clipped talk--of something that did not quite belong. Might it be, perhaps, that sepia drawing--above the 'Tantalus' on the oak sideboard at the far end-- of a woman's face gazing out into the room? Mysteriously unlike everything else, except the flowers, and this kitten that was pushing its furry little head against his hand. Odd how a single thing sometimes took possession of a room, however remote in spirit! It seemed to reach like a shadow over Dromore's outstretched limbs, and weathered, long-nosed face, behind his huge cigar; over the queer, solemn, chaffing eyes, with something brooding in the depths of them.

  "Ever get the hump? Bally awful, isn't it? It's getting old. We're bally old, you know, Lenny!" Ah! No one had called him 'Lenny' for twenty years. And it was true; they were unmentionably old.

  "When a fellow begins to feel old, you know, it's time he went broke--or something; doesn't bear sittin' down and lookin' at. Come out to 'Monte' with me!"

  'Monte!' That old wound, never quite healed, started throbbing at the word, so that he could hardly speak his: "No, I don't care for 'Monte.'"

  And, at once, he saw Dromore's eyes probing, questioning:

  "You married?"

  "Yes."

  "Never thought of you as married!"

  So Dromore did think of him. Queer! He never thought of Johnny Dromore.

  "Winter's bally awful, when you're not huntin'. You've changed a lot; should hardly have known you. Last time I saw you, you'd just come back from Rome or somewhere. What's it like bein' a--a sculptor? Saw something of yours once. Ever do things of horses?"

  Yes; he had done a 'relief' of ponies only last year.

  "You do women, too, I s'pose?"

  "Not often."

  The eyes goggled slightly. Quaint, that unholy interest! Just like boys, the Johnny Dromores--would never grow up, no matter how life treated them. If Dromore spoke out his soul, as he used to speak it out at 'Bambury's,' he would say: 'You get a pull there; you have a bally good time, I expect.' That was the way it took them; just a converse manifestation of the very same feeling towards Art that the pious Philistines had, with their deploring eyebrows and their 'peril to the soul.' Babes all! Not a glimmering of what Art meant--of its effort, and its yearnings!

  "You make money at it?"

  "Oh, yes."

  Again that appreciative goggle, as who should say: 'Ho! there's more in this than I thought!'

  A long silence, then, in the dusk with the violet glimmer from outside the windows, the fire flickering in front of them, the grey kitten purring against his neck, the smoke of their cigars going up, and such a strange, dozing sense of rest, as he had not known for many days. And then--something, someone at the door, over by the sideboard! And Dromore speaking in a queer voice:

  "Come in, Nell! D'you know my daughter?"

  A hand took Lennan's, a hand that seemed to waver between the aplomb of a woman of the world, and a child's impulsive warmth. And a voice, young, clipped, clear, said:

  "How d'you do? She's rather sweet, isn't she--my kitten?"

  Then Dromore turned the light up. A figure fairly tall, in a grey riding-habit, stupendously well cut; a face not quite so round as a child's nor so shaped as a woman's, blushing slightly, very calm; crinkly light-brown hair tied back with a black ribbon under a neat hat; and eyes like those eyes of Gainsborough's 'Perdita'--slow, grey, mesmeric, with long lashes curling up, eyes that draw things to them, still innocent.

  And just on the point of saying: "I thought you'd stepped out of that picture"--he saw Dromore's face, and mumbled instead:

  "So it's YOUR kitten?"

  "Yes; she goes to everybody. Do you like Persians? She's all fur really. Feel!"

  Entering with his fingers the recesses of the kitten, he said:

  "Cats without fur are queer."

  "Have you seen one without fur?"

  "Oh, yes! In my profession we have to go below fur--I'm a sculptor."

  "That must be awfully interesting."

  What a woman of the world! But what a child, too! And now he could see that the face in the sepia drawing was older altogether-- lips not so full, look not so innocent, cheeks not so round, and something sad and desperate about it--a face that life had rudely touched. But the same eyes it had--and what charm, for all its disillusionment, its air of a history! Then he noticed, fastened to the frame, on a thin rod, a dust-coloured curtain, drawn to one side. The self-possessed young voice was saying:

  "Would you mind if I showed you my drawings? It would be awfully good of you. You could tell me about them." And with dismay he saw her open a portfolio. While he scrutinized those schoolgirl drawings, he could feel her looking at him, as animals do when they are making up their minds whether or no to like you; then she came and stood so close that her arm pressed his. He redoubled his efforts to find something good about the drawings. But in truth there was nothing good. And if, in other matters, he could lie well enough to save people's feelings, where Art was concerned he never could; so he merely said:

  "You haven't been taught, you see."

  "Will you teach me?"

  But before he could answer, she was already effacing that naive question in her most grown-up manner.

  "Of course I oughtn't to ask. It would bore you awfully."

  After that he vaguely remembered Dromore's asking if he ever rode in the Row; and those eyes of hers following him about; and her hand giving his another childish squeeze. Then he was on his way again down the dimly-lighted stairs, past an interminable array of Vanity Fair cartoons, out into the east wind.

  III

  Crossing the Green Park on his way home, was he more, or less, restless? Difficult to say. A little flattered, certainly, a little warmed; yet irritated, as always when he came into contact with people to whom the world of Art was such an amusing unreality. The notion of trying to show that child how to draw--that feather- pate, with her riding and her kitten; and her 'Perdita' eyes! Quaint, how she had at once made friends with him! He was a little different, perhaps, from what she was accustomed to. And how daintily she spoke! A strange, attractive, almost lovely child! Certainly not more than seventeen--and--Johnny Dromore's daughter!

  The wind was bitter, the lamps bright among the naked trees. Beautiful always--London at night, even in January, even in an east wind, with a beauty he never tired of. Its great, dark, chiselled shapes, its gleaming lights, like droves of flying stars come to earth; and all warmed by the beat and stir of innumerable lives-- those lives that he ached so to know and to be part of.

  He told Sylvia of his encounter. Dromore! T
he name struck her. She had an old Irish song, 'The Castle of Dromore,' with a queer, haunting refrain.

  It froze hard all the week, and he began a life-size group of their two sheep-dogs. Then a thaw set in with that first south-west wind, which brings each February a feeling of Spring such as is never again recaptured, and men's senses, like sleepy bees in the sun, go roving. It awakened in him more violently than ever the thirst to be living, knowing, loving--the craving for something new. Not this, of course, took him back to Dromore's rooms; oh, no! just friendliness, since he had not even told his old room-mate where he lived, or said that his wife would be glad to make his acquaintance, if he cared to come round. For Johnny Dromore had assuredly not seemed too happy, under all his hard-bitten air. Yes! it was but friendly to go again.

  Dromore was seated in his long arm-chair, a cigar between his lips, a pencil in his hand, a Ruff's Guide on his knee; beside him was a large green book. There was a festive air about him, very different from his spasmodic gloom of the other day; and he murmured without rising:

  "Halo, old man!--glad to see you. Take a pew. Look here! Agapemone--which d'you think I ought to put her to--San Diavolo or Ponte Canet?--not more than four crosses of St. Paul. Goin' to get a real good one from her this time!"

  He, who had never heard these sainted names, answered:

  "Oh! Ponte Canet, without doubt. But if you're working I'll come in another time."

  "Lord! no! Have a smoke. I'll just finish lookin' out their blood--and take a pull."

  And so Lennan sat down to watch those researches, wreathed in cigar smoke and punctuated by muttered expletives. They were as sacred and absorbing, no doubt, as his own efforts to create in clay; for before Dromore's inner vision was the perfect racehorse--he, too, was creating. Here was no mere dodge for making money, but a process hallowed by the peculiar sensation felt when one rubbed the palms of the hands together, the sensation that accompanied all creative achievement. Once only Dromore paused to turn his head and say:

  "Bally hard, gettin' a taproot right!"

  Real Art! How well an artist knew that desperate search after the point of balance, the central rivet that must be found before a form would come to life. . . . And he noted that to-day there was no kitten, no flowers, no sense at all of an extraneous presence-- even the picture was curtained. Had the girl been just a dream--a fancy conjured up by his craving after youth?

  Then he saw that Dromore had dropped the large green book, and was standing before the fire.

  "Nell took to you the other day. But you always were a lady's man. Remember the girl at Coaster's?"

  Coaster's tea-shop, where he would go every afternoon that he had money, just for the pleasure of looking shyly at a face. Something beautiful to look at--nothing more! Johnny Dromore would no better understand that now than when they were at 'Bambury's.' Not the smallest good even trying to explain! He looked up at the goggling eyes; he heard the bantering voice:

  "I say--you ARE goin' grey. We're bally old, Lenny! A fellow gets old when he marries."

  And he answered:

  "By the way, I never knew that YOU had been."

  From Dromore's face the chaffing look went, like a candle-flame blown out; and a coppery flush spread over it. For some seconds he did not speak, then, jerking his head towards the picture, he muttered gruffly:

  "Never had the chance of marrying, there; Nell's 'outside.'"

  A sort of anger leaped in Lennan; why should Dromore speak that word as if he were ashamed of his own daughter? Just like his sort--none so hidebound as men-about-town! Flotsam on the tide of other men's opinions; poor devils adrift, without the one true anchorage of their own real feelings! And doubtful whether Dromore would be pleased, or think him gushing, or even distrustful of his morality, he said:

  "As for that, it would only make any decent man or woman nicer to her. When is she going to let me teach her drawing?"

  Dromore crossed the room, drew back the curtain of the picture, and in a muffled voice, said:

  "My God, Lenny! Life's unfair. Nell's coming killed her mother. I'd rather it had been me--bar chaff! Women have no luck."

  Lennan got up from his comfortable chair. For, startled out of the past, the memory of that summer night, when yet another woman had no luck, was flooding his heart with its black, inextinguishable grief. He said quietly:

  "The past IS past, old man."

  Dromore drew the curtain again across the picture, and came back to the fire. And for a full minute he stared into it.

  "What am I to do with Nell? She's growing up."

  "What have you done with her so far?"

  "She's been at school. In the summer she goes to Ireland--I've got a bit of an old place there. She'll be eighteen in July. I shall have to introduce her to women, and all that. It's the devil! How? Who?"

  Lennan could only murmur: "My wife, for one."

  He took his leave soon after. Johnny Dromore! Bizarre guardian for that child! Queer life she must have of it, in that bachelor's den, surrounded by Ruff's Guides! What would become of her? Caught up by some young spark about town; married to him, no doubt-- her father would see to the thoroughness of that, his standard of respectability was evidently high! And after--go the way, maybe, of her mother--that poor thing in the picture with the alluring, desperate face. Well! It was no business of his!

  IV

  No business of his! The merest sense of comradeship, then, took him once more to Dromore's after that disclosure, to prove that the word 'outside' had no significance save in his friend's own fancy; to assure him again that Sylvia would be very glad to welcome the child at any time she liked to come.

  When he had told her of that little matter of Nell's birth, she had been silent a long minute, looking in his face, and then had said: "Poor child! I wonder if SHE knows! People are so unkind, even nowadays!" He could not himself think of anyone who would pay attention to such a thing, except to be kinder to the girl; but in such matters Sylvia was the better judge, in closer touch with general thought. She met people that he did not--and of a more normal species.

  It was rather late when he got to Dromore's diggings on that third visit.

  "Mr. Dromore, sir," the man said--he had one of those strictly confidential faces bestowed by an all-wise Providence on servants in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly--"Mr. Dromore, sir, is not in. But he will be almost sure to be in to dress. Miss Nell is in, sir."

  And there she was, sitting at the table, pasting photographs into an album--lonely young creature in that abode of male middle-age! Lennan stood, unheard, gazing at the back of her head, with its thick crinkly-brown hair tied back on her dark-red frock. And, to the confidential man's soft:

  "Mr. Lennan, miss," he added a softer: "May I come in?"

  She put her hand into his with intense composure.

  "Oh, yes, do! if you don't mind the mess I'm making;" and, with a little squeeze of the tips of his fingers, added: "Would it bore you to see my photographs?"

  And down they sat together before the photographs--snapshots of people with guns or fishing-rods, little groups of schoolgirls, kittens, Dromore and herself on horseback, and several of a young man with a broad, daring, rather good-looking face. "That's Oliver--Oliver Dromore--Dad's first cousin once removed. Rather nice, isn't he? Do you like his expression?"

  Lennan did not know. Not her second cousin; her father's first cousin once removed! And again there leaped in him that unreasoning flame of indignant pity.

  "And how about drawing? You haven't come to be taught yet."

  She went almost as red as her frock.

  "I thought you were only being polite. I oughtn't to have asked. Of course, I want to awfully--only I know it'll bore you."

  "It won't at all."

  She looked up at that. What peculiar languorous eyes they were!

  "Shall I come to-morrow, then?"

  "Any day you like, between half-past twelve and one."

  "Where?"

  He took out a card
.

  "Mark Lennan--yes--I like your name. I liked it the other day. It's awfully nice!"

  What was in a name that she should like him because of it? His fame as a sculptor--such as it was--could have nothing to do with that, for she would certainly not know of it. Ah! but there was a lot in a name--for children. In his childhood what fascination there had been in the words macaroon, and Spaniard, and Carinola, and Aldebaran, and Mr. McCrae. For quite a week the whole world had been Mr. McCrae--a most ordinary friend of Gordy's.

  By whatever fascination moved, she talked freely enough now--of her school; of riding and motoring--she seemed to love going very fast; about Newmarket--which was 'perfect'; and theatres--plays of the type that Johnny Dromore might be expected to approve; these together with 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear' were all she had seen. Never was a girl so untouched by thought, or Art--yet not stupid, having, seemingly, a certain natural good taste; only, nothing, evidently, had come her way. How could it--'Johnny Dromore duce, et auspice Johnny Dromore!' She had been taken, indeed, to the National Gallery while at school. And Lennan had a vision of eight or ten young maidens trailing round at the skirts of one old maiden, admiring Landseer's dogs, giggling faintly at Botticelli's angels, gaping, rustling, chattering like young birds in a shrubbery.

  But with all her surroundings, this child of Johnny Dromoredom was as yet more innocent than cultured girls of the same age. If those grey, mesmeric eyes of hers followed him about, they did so frankly, unconsciously. There was no minx in her, so far.

  An hour went by, and Dromore did not come. And the loneliness of this young creature in her incongruous abode began telling on Lennan's equanimity.

  What did she do in the evenings?

  "Sometimes I go to the theatre with Dad, generally I stay at home."

  "And then?"

  "Oh! I just read, or talk French."

  "What? To yourself?"

  "Yes, or to Oliver sometimes, when he comes in."

  So Oliver came in!

  "How long have you known Oliver?"