The Prophet's Mantle. Эдит Несбит
Читать онлайн книгу.
how this song had been able to stir men to such deeds as she had read of—had nerved ragged, half-starved, untrained battalions to scatter like chaff the veteran armies of Europe. She understood it all as she listened to the mingled pathos, defiance, confidence of victory, vengeance and passionate patriotism, which Rouget de Lisle alone of all men has been able to concentrate and to embody in one immortal song, in every note of which breathes the very soul of Liberty.
As the last note was struck and Litvinoff turned round from the piano, he almost smiled at the contrasts in the picture before him—a girl leaning forward, her face lighted up with sympathetic fire, and her eyes glowing with sympathetic enthusiasm, and an old gentleman standing on the hearthrug, very red in the face, very wide awake, and unutterably astonished. The girl was certainly very lovely, and if the exile thought so, as he glanced somewhat deprecatingly at the old gentleman, who shall blame him?
'How splendid!' said Clare.
'Very fine, very fine,' said her father; 'but—er—for the moment I didn't know where I was.'
This reduced the situation to the absurd—and they all laughed.
'I hope I haven't brought down the suspicions of the waiters upon you, Mr Stanley, by my boisterous singing; but it's almost impossible to sing that song as one would sing a ballad. I evidently have alarmed someone,' he added, as a tap at the door punctuated his remark.
But the waiter, whatever his feelings may have been, gave them no expression. He merely announced—
'Mr Roland Ferrier,' and disappeared.
'I'm very glad to see you, my dear boy,' said Mr Stanley, as Roland came forward; 'though it's about the last thing I expected. Mr Litvinoff—Mr Ferrier.'
Both bowed. Roland did not look particularly delighted.
'We've come to London on business,' said he.
'We? Then where is your brother?' questioned Clare.
'Well,' said Roland, 'it is rather absurd, but I can't tell you where he is; he's lost, stolen, or strayed. We came up together, dined together, and started to come here together. We were walking through a not particularly choice neighbourhood between here and St Pancras, when I suddenly missed him. I waited and looked about for something like a quarter of an hour, but as it wasn't the sort of street where men are garrotted, and as he's about able to take care of himself, I thought I'd better come on. I expect he'll be here presently.'
But the evening wore on, and no Richard Ferrier appeared. Clare felt a little annoyed—and Roland more than a little surprised. Perhaps, in spite of his sang froid, he was a trifle anxious when at eleven o'clock Litvinoff and he rose to go, and still his brother had not come.
CHAPTER V.
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
AS a rule, it was not an easy matter to turn Richard Ferrier from any purpose of his, and when his purpose was that of visiting Miss Stanley and at the same time of putting a stop to any chance of a tête-à-tête between his divinity and his brother, no ordinary red herring would have drawn him off the track.
As he walked through the streets with Roland all his thoughts were with the girl he was going to see—all his longing was to hasten as much as might be the moment of their meeting. In his mind just then she was the only woman in the world; and yet it was a woman's face in the crowd that made him start so suddenly—a woman's figure that he turned to follow with so immediate a decision as to give his brother no time to notice his going until he had gone.
The street was one of those long, straight, melancholy streets, the deadly monotony and general seediness of which no amount of traffic can relieve—which bear the same relation to Regent Street and Oxford Street as the seamy side of a stage court suit does to the glitter and gaudiness that charm the pit, and stir the æsthetic emotions of the gallery. There are always plenty of people moving about in these streets whom one never sees anywhere else—and you may pass up and down them a dozen times a day without meeting anyone whose dress does not bear tokens, more or less pronounced, of a hand-to-hand struggle with hard-upness. It is a peculiarity of this struggle that in it those who struggle hardest appear to get least, or at any rate those who get least have to struggle hardest. This Society recognises with unconscious candour—and when it sees a man or woman shabbily dressed and with dirty hands, it at once decides that he or she must belong to the 'working' classes; thus naïvely accepting the fact that those whose work produces the wealth are not usually those who secure it.
The face which had attracted Dick's notice was as careworn as any other in that crowd—the figure as shabbily clad as the majority. But the young man turned and followed with an interest independent of fair features or becoming raiment—an interest which had its rise in a determination to solve a problem, or at any rate to silence a doubt.
Yet it was a young woman he was following—more than that, a pretty young women; and the very evident fact that this handsome, well-dressed young man was openly following this shabby girl with a parcel inspired some of the loafers whom they passed to the utterance of comments, the simple directness of which would perhaps not have pleased the young man had he heard them. He heard nothing. He was too intent on keeping her in sight. Presently she passed into a quieter street, and Dick at once ranged alongside of her, and, raising his hat said, 'Why, Alice, have you forgotten old friends already?'
The girl turned a very white face towards him.
'Oh, Mr Richard! I never thought I should see you again, of all people.'
'Why, everybody is sure to meet everyone else sooner or later. How far are you going? Let me carry your parcel.'
'Oh, no, it's not heavy,' she said; but she let him take the brown-paper burden all the same.
'Not heavy!' he returned. 'It's too heavy for you.'
'I'm used to it,' she answered, with a little sigh.
'So much the worse. I'm awfully glad I've met you, my dear girl. Why did you leave us like that? What have you been doing with yourself?'
'Oh, Mr Richard, what does it matter now? And don't stand there holding that parcel, but say good-bye, and let me go home.'
'And where is home?'
'Not a long way off.'
'Well, I'll walk with you. Come along.'
They walked side by side silently for some yards. Then he said,—
'Alice, I want you to tell me truly how it was you left home.'
A burning blush swept over her face, from forehead to throat, and that was the only answer she gave him.
'Come, tell me,' he persisted.
'Can't you guess?' she asked in a low voice, looking straight before her.
'Perhaps I can.'
'Perhaps? Of course you can. Why do girls ever leave good homes, and come to such a home as mine is now?'
'Then he has left you?'
'No,' she said, hurriedly; 'no, no, I've left him. But I can't talk about it to you.'
'Why not to me, if you can to anyone?' he asked.
'Because—because— Don't ask me anything else;' and she burst into tears.
'There, there,' he said, 'don't cry, for heaven's sake. I didn't mean to worry you; but you will tell me all about it by-and-by, won't you? What are you doing now?'
'Working.'
'What sort of work? Come, don't cry, Alice. I hate to think I have been adding to your distress.'
She dried her eyes obediently, and answered:
'I do tailoring work. It seems to be the only thing I'm good for.'
'That's paid very badly, isn't it?' he asked, some vague reminiscences of "Alton Locke" prompting the question.
'Oh, I manage to get along pretty well,' she replied, with an effort at a smile, which was more pathetic in Dick's eyes than her tears had been. He thought gloomily of the time, not so very long ago either, when her face had been the brightest as well as the fairest in Thornsett