"That"s splendid," he replied gruffly, but there was something in his voice as he said it that made the girl glance at him swiftly, with a sharp impulse of pity.
And so the queer friendship began. Twice a week they met, at the shrine of a little heathen idol. At first they confined their conversation solely to him. He was, as it were, at once a palliation of, and an excuse for their friendship. The question of his origin was widely discussed. The man insisted on attributing to him the most bloodthirsty characteristics. He depicted him as the terror and dread of his native land, insatiable for human sacrifice, and bowed down to by his people in fear and trembling. In the contrast between his former greatness and his present insignificance there lay, according to the man, all the pathos of the situation.
The Lonely Lady would have none of this theory. He was essentially a kind little G.o.d, she insisted. She doubted whether he had ever been very powerful. If he had been so, she argued, he would not now be lost and friendless, and, anyway, he was a dear little G.o.d, and she loved him, and she hated to think of him sitting there day after day with all those other horrid, supercilious things jeering at him, because you could see they did! After this vehement outburst the little lady was quite out of breath.
That topic exhausted, they naturally began to talk of themselves. He found out that his surmise was correct. She was a nursery governess to a family of children who lived at Hampstead. He conceived an instant dislike of these children; of Ted, who was five and really not naughty, only mischievous; of the twins who were rather trying, and of Molly, who wouldn"t do anything she was told, but was such a dear you couldn"t be cross with her!
"Those children bully you," he said grimly and accusingly to her.
"They do not," she retorted with spirit. "I am extremely stern with them."
"Oh! Ye G.o.ds!" he laughed. But she made him apologize humbly for his scepticism.
She was an orphan, she told him, quite alone in the world.
Gradually he told her something of his own life: of his official life, which had been painstaking and mildly successful; and of his unofficial pastime, which was the spoiling of yards of canvas.
"Of course, I don"t know anything about it," he explained. "But I have always felt I could paint something someday. I can sketch pretty decently, but I"d like to do a real picture of something. A chap who knew once told me that my technique wasn"t bad."
She was interested, pressed for details.
"I am sure you paint awfully well."
He shook his head.
"No, I"ve begun several things lately and chucked them up in despair. I always thought that, when I had the time, it would be plain sailing. I have been storing up that idea for years, but now, like everything else, I suppose, I"ve left it too late."
"Nothing"s too late - ever," said the little lady, with the vehement earnestness of the very young.
He smiled down on her. "You think not, child? It"s too late for some things for me."
And the little lady laughed at him and nicknamed him Methuselah.
They were beginning to feel curiously at home in the British Museum. The solid and sympathetic police man who patrolled the galleries was a man of tact, and on the appearance of the couple he usually found that his onerous duties of guardianship were urgently needed in the adjoining a.s.syrian room.
One day the man took a bold step. He invited her out to tea!
At first she demurred.
"I have no time. I am not free. I can come some mornings because the children have French lessons."
"Nonsense," said the man. "You could manage one day. Kill off an aunt or a second cousin or something, but come. We"ll go to a little ABC shop near here, and have buns for tea! I know you must love buns!"
"Yes, the penny kind with currants!"
"And a lovely glaze on top -"
"They are such plump, dear things!"
"There is something," Frank Oliver said solemnly, "infinitely comforting about a bun!"
So it was arranged, and the little governess came, wearing quite an expensive hothouse rose in her belt in honor of the occasion.
He had noticed that, of late, she had a strained, worried look, and it was more apparent than ever this afternoon as she poured out the tea at the little marble-topped table.
"Children been bothering you?" he asked solicitously.
She shook her head. She had seemed curiously disinclined to talk about the children lately.
"They"re all right. I never mind them."
"Don"t you?"
His sympathetic tone seemed to distress her unwarrantably.
"Oh, no. It was never that. But - but, indeed, I was lonely. I was indeed!" Her tone was almost pleading.
He said quickly, touched: "Yes, yes, child. I know - I know."
After a minute"s pause he remarked in a cheerful tone: "Do you know, you haven"t even asked my name yet?"
She held up a protesting hand.
"Please, I don"t want to know it. And don"t ask mine. Let us be just two lonely people who"ve come together and made friends. It makes it so much more wonderful - and - and different."
He said slowly and thoughtfully: "Very well. In an otherwise lonely world we"ll be two people who have just each other."
It was a little different from her way of putting it, and she seemed to find it difficult to go on with the conversation. Instead, she bent lower and lower over her plate, till only the crown of her hat was visible.
"That"s rather a nice hat," he said by way of restoring her equanimity.
"I trimmed it myself," she informed him proudly.
"I thought so the moment I saw it," he answered, saying the wrong thing with cheerful ignorance.
"I"m afraid it is not as fashionable as I meant it to be!"
"I think it"s a perfectly lovely hat," he said loyally.
Again constraint settled down upon them. Frank Oliver broke the silence bravely.
"Little Lady, I didn"t mean to tell you yet, but I can"t help it. I love you. I want you. I loved you from the first moment I saw you standing there in your little black suit. Dearest, if two lonely people were together - why - there would be no more loneliness. And I"d work, oh! how I"d work! I"d paint you. I could, I know I could. Oh! my little girl, I can"t live without you. I can"t indeed -"
His little lady was looking at him very steadily. But what she said was quite the last thing he expected her to say. Very quietly and distinctly she said: "You bought that handkerchief!"
He was amazed at this proof of feminine perspicacity, and still more amazed at her remembering it against him now. Surely, after this lapse of time, it might have been forgiven him.
"Yes, I did," he acknowledged humbly. "I wanted an excuse to speak to you. Are you very angry?"
He waited meekly for her words of condemnation.
"I think it was sweet of you!" cried the little lady with vehemence. "Just sweet of you!" Her voice ended uncertainly.
Frank Oliver went on in his gruff tone: "Tell me, child, is it impossible? I know I"m an ugly, rough old fellow -"
The Lonely Lady interrupted him.
"No, you"re not! I wouldn"t have you different, not in any way. I love you just as you are, do you understand? Not because I"m sorry for you, not because I"m alone in the world and want someone to be fond of me and take care of me - but because you"re just - you. Now do you understand?"
"Is it true?" he asked half in a whisper.
And she answered steadily: "Yes, it"s true -"
The wonder of it overpowered them.
At last he said whimsically: "So we"ve fallen upon heaven, dearest!"
"In an ABC shop," she answered in a voice that held tears and laughter.
But terrestrial heavens are short-lived. The little lady started up with an exclamation.
"I"d no idea how late it was! I must go at once."
"I"ll see you home."
"No, no, no!"
He was forced to yield to her insistence, and merely accompanied her as far as the Tube station.
"Good-bye, dearest." She clung to his hand with an intensity that he remembered afterwards.
"Only good-bye till tomorrow," he answered cheerfully. "Ten o"clock as usual, and we"ll tell each other our names and our histories, and be frightfully practical and prosaic."
"Good-bye to - heaven, though," she whispered.
"It will be with us always, sweetheart!"
She smiled back at him, but with that same sad appeal that disquieted him and which he could not fathom. Then the relentless lift dragged her down out of sight.
He was strangely disturbed by those last words of hers, but he put them resolutely out of his mind and subst.i.tuted radiant antic.i.p.ations of tomorrow in their stead.
At ten o"clock he was there, in the accustomed place. For the first time he noticed how malevolently the other idols looked down upon him. It almost seemed as if they were possessed of some secret evil knowledge affecting him, over which they were gloating. He was uneasily aware of their dislike.
The little lady was late. Why didn"t she come? The atmosphere of this place was getting on his nerves. Never had his own little friend (their G.o.d) seemed so hopelessly impotent as today. A helpless lump of stone, hugging his own despair!
His cogitations were interrupted by a small, sharp-faced boy who had stepped up to him, and was earnestly scrutinizing him from head to foot. Apparently satisfied with the result of his observations, he held out a letter.
"For me?"
It had no superscription. He took it, and the sharp boy decamped with extraordinary rapidity.
Frank Oliver read the letter slowly and unbelievingly. It was quite short.
Dearest,
I can never marry you. Please forget that I ever came into your Life at all, and try to forgive me if I have hurt you. Don"t try to find me, because it will be no good. It is really "goodbye."
The Lonely Lady
There was a postscript which had evidently been scribbled at the last moment:
I do love you. I do indeed.
And that little impulsive postscript was all the comfort he had in the weeks that followed. Needless to say, he disobeyed her injunction "not to try to find her," but all in vain. She had vanished completely, and he had no clue to trace her by. He advertised despairingly, imploring her in veiled terms at least to explain the mystery, but blank silence rewarded his efforts. She was gone, never to return.
And then it was that for the first time in his life he really began to paint. His technique had always been good. Now craftsmanship and inspiration went hand in hand.
The picture that made his name and brought him renown was accepted and hung in the Academy, and was accounted to be the picture of the year, no less for the exquisite treatment of the subject than for the masterly workmanship and technique. A certain amount of mystery, too, rendered it more interesting to the general outside public.
His inspiration had come quite by chance. A fairy story in a magazine had taken a hold on his imagination. It was the story of a fortunate Princess who had always had everything she wanted. Did she express a wish? It was instantly gratified. A desire? It was granted. She had a devoted father and mother, great riches, beautiful clothes and jewels, slaves to wait upon her and fulfil her lightest whim, laughing maidens to bear her company, all that the heart of a Princess could desire. The handsomest and richest Princes paid her court and sued in vain for her hand, and were willing to kill any number of dragons to prove their devotion. And yet, the loneliness of the Princess was greater than that of the poorest beggar in the land.
He read no more. The ultimate fate of the Princess interested him not at all. A picture had risen up before him of the pleasure-laden Princess with the sad, solitary soul, surfeited with happiness, suffocated with luxury, starving in the Palace of Plenty.
He began painting with furious energy. The fierce joy of creation possessed him.