The Hippodrome Part 20

He smoked vile tobacco,--he dropped some things and knocked over others, he shaved apparently only on _festas_, and if he happened to arrive late in the day his speech was thick and his manner excitable.

Upon one occasion Arith.e.l.li had complained that her mane of untended hair made her uncomfortably hot, and Michael brought out a pocket knife, clubbed it all together in his hand like a horse's tail, and obligingly offered to relieve her by cutting it off. Emile had arrived only just in time to prevent the holocaust, and the two men exchanged fiery words for the next ten minutes.

Another day, prompted by a desire to amuse her, Michael introduced into her room a fat mongrel puppy with disproportionate legs and an alarmed expression. His wish to provide her with what he was pleased to call a "divarsion" was, like many of his other good intentions, not entirely successful. He had deposited the excited animal on the bed, and in the course of its frantic gambols it overbalanced and fell sprawling to the floor on its back. The ancient canopied bed was high, and the puppy was frightened as well as hurt, and lifted up its voice in anguished yells.

When Michael had rescued it, and put it outside the door and finished laughing, he came back to find Arith.e.l.li weeping helplessly with her face buried in the pillow. His alarmed suggestion that he should fetch Emile helped her to recover more quickly than any amount of sympathy could have done.

Sometimes there were other visitors. The grooms and strappers from the Hippodrome came often to enquire, and Estelle, forbidden by the Manager to come at all on account of infection, sat on the stairs and showered effusive speeches in a high-pitched voice through the open door.

Arith.e.l.li had sent no word of her illness to her parents in London. She knew their views on the subject of complaints. They would consider the whole thing due to imagination, there would be unpleasant letters, and it was perfectly certain that they would send no a.s.sistance in the shape of money. Emile had wished to write, but she had begged him not to do so, and for once he had yielded to what he called her "whims."

From the sc.r.a.ps of information she had received from time to time it appeared that the uncomfortable _menage_ of her kindred had become even more disorganised. Her father had turned for consolation to the whisky of his country, her mother spent whole days in bed reading, and weaving futile dreams of a recovered fortune, and Isobel and Valerie grew taller and hungrier, and fought and wrangled after the manner of Hooligans.

Lazy and shiftless, they envied Arith.e.l.li the life she had chosen, but had neither the pluck nor the brains necessary to emulate her example.

Emile's manner had troubled her of late, for he had been strangely bad-tempered and variable in his moods. She had become more or less accustomed to his eccentricities of behaviour and speech, but this was something different, indefinable. One day he would be extraordinarily kind and considerate, the next almost brutal, either hardly speaking at all, or else finding fault with everything she said and did.

She often felt a presentiment that he had something important to tell her, but he would come and go without imparting any news, and, as always, she did not worry him with questions as many women would have done.

She wondered if he were feeling hara.s.sed over "_les affaires politiques_," or whether he was afraid that the Manager's small stock of patience would be exhausted before she was able to appear in the ring again, and that he would cancel her contract. If that happened she felt that the end of all things would have indeed arrived. She could not struggle against the Fates any longer, obviously she could not return home, and it was not fair that Emile should continue to keep her.

He came in one evening about eight o'clock to find her up for the first time since her illness, and sitting on the edge of the bed draped in the long blue cloak she used for covering her circus attire.

Her hair was parted over her ears, and divided into two long sleek braids drawn forward and falling over her shoulders, the ends resting on her lap.

She looked up, as he entered, with the haunting sea-green eyes that showed larger than ever in contrast to her hollowed cheeks. Something in her pose, in the arrangement of her hair, reminded Emile vividly of her first morning in Barcelona, when he had come in early in the morning to find her dazed with sleep. He remembered also how she had asked him to repeat his remarks, and how carelessly nonchalant had been her manner.

"You look like a witch sitting crouched up there, Fatalite," he snapped.

"What's the matter? You don't seem very cheerful."

"I don't feel very cheerful," the girl responded. She spoke with grave deliberation, and without moving a muscle. Emile grunted and sat down.

"There has been another explosion of bombs on the Rambla," he said. "A market woman killed and two work people injured--I believe one has since died. Of course a got-up affair of the Government. They hope by doing this sort of thing often enough to make the populace take vengeance on us."

"Then the Anarchists didn't do it?"

"My dear Fatalite, we don't blow up harmless people simply _pour pa.s.ser le temps_. I've told you that before, and being inside the movement yourself you ought to know. It is a favourite trick of the officials to excite public feeling against us. They have been doing it now for the last three years, letting off bombs in various parts of the city. They take care always to choose the most frequented places and to kill someone who doesn't matter, and then all the Republican journals have four columns of indignation with large head-lines, 'LATEST ANARCHIST OUTRAGE.'

They like to get their exploits well talked about. Everything seems to be against us now. Sobrenski will have it that there is treachery inside our circle as well as outside. You know whom he suspects?"

"No."

"Vardri."

"That is my fault," Arith.e.l.li said quietly. "Sobrenski has felt like that since the night Vardri made a scene about my being lowered down from the window. He just stood up for me because I'm a woman. I'm only a machine to the rest of you."

She spoke without a touch of resentment. It was purely a statement of fact.

"Ah, that's just the point. The feminine side of you is exactly what we don't want. One Felise Rivaz is enough, most of us think. Try and keep the elfish boy you were when you arrived. It will be less trouble, Fatalite, _ma chere_. With the other thing there are always complications. No, I'm not accusing you of falling in love with Vardri.

I only say, be careful. Even an elf-child can develop suddenly into a woman once she arrives at a knowledge of the fact that there is a man ready to make love to her. Perhaps you do not know it yourself, but you have changed lately. You are losing your fearlessness, your indifference. I have watched you sometimes when you have not known, and have seen your eyes soften, your face change. You started when I spoke just now."

"How did you learn things about women? From books?"

"Books? _Ma foi_, no! I liked them well enough at one time, when I hadn't studied _la vie_. Now they're _fade_."

Arith.e.l.li was silent for a little while. She knew only too well that Emile had spoken the truth, had put into blunt words what to herself was only a vague, half-formed idea. Her illness had been Vardri's golden harvest time, for it had given him the chance of being often alone with her. He had read to her, waited upon her, served her with the utmost chivalry and devotion. He had made of her a Madonna, a G.o.ddess, she who was fair game for all other men in Barcelona.

Emile's voice broke in upon her meditations.

"You shouldn't worry, Fatalite. It's not becoming. Have a cigarette to make yourself a little distraction."

She shook her head.

"No, thank you, Emile. I never wanted to smoke, and any way it would not give me a distraction to-night."

"Then what are you worrying about?"

"I've only been wondering what will be the end of me."

"What has made you suddenly become so anxious about your end?" Emile looked at her keenly.

The wide eyes raised to his were tragedy incarnate. The long nervous fingers were tightly locked together.

"I'm a coward to-night," the soft hoa.r.s.e voice went on. "I've never grumbled before, have I, Emile? I seem to have suddenly realised how hopeless everything looks for me in the future. I've had time enough to think it all out since I've been lying in bed. When I first came here I thought I was going to do all sorts of wonderful things, but now I see that this life leads to nothing, and I may go on being just a circus rider for years. When I get well and finish out this contract I shall have to try and get another engagement in Paris or Vienna. The English Consul and all the other men wait to see me come out, and throw me flowers and rings, but when they see me driving with you in the Paseo de Gracia, they look the other way, especially if they are with their wives and families. They like 'ARITh.e.l.lI OF THE HIPPODROME' in her proper place,--the ring. Gas and glare, paint and glitter! That is my life.

And they always hope that I shall fall off. I can feel it. It's the Roman arena all over again. For a long time before I had that accident I didn't know how to get through the rehearsals. I nearly fell off two or three times, but there was no one there to see. The more I practised the more cold I got, and I used to have horrible shivering fits. It's so queer. I don't believe I'm made like other people. Estelle gets hot and scarlet when she practises."

"Poor little child!"

"Why are you so nice to me? You've never said anything like that before."

"Because if when you first came here I had begun to pity you it would have made you realise your position sooner than need be. You were like one in a dream. It was not my place to awaken you. I left that for Life, '_la vie_' that you were so anxious to experience. You made yourself '_Chateaux en Espagne_.' We all do that at some time or other."

"n.o.body really cares what becomes of me except--" she broke off the sentence and continued steadily. "My people don't mind whether I am here or not. They won't like it if I come back a failure."

In his heart Emile cursed the Fates. Her awakening had been a complete one. At first novelty and excitement had served as merciful anaesthetics, but they could not last for ever.

He was not in love with her, he still told himself, but he would miss her. Women like the Roumanoff were the women to whom men made pa.s.sionate love, but Arith.e.l.li was unique. She had become part of his life in Barcelona. Their lives had touched and mingled till it was impossible to believe that he had only known her for a few short months. A future without her would be one without interest. For her he could see no future. She would have to go to the devil some way or another eventually, and there would be plenty of people ready and willing to provide her with an escort.

He threw away his cigarette, and came across the room to her, and his hands fell heavily upon her shoulders.

"Look here, Fatalite," he said roughly; "we thought you were dying a little while ago, and I helped to fight for your life, and all the time, at the back of my brain I wished you were dead. Yes, you needn't look so horrified." He gave her a fierce shake. "I hoped to see you in your coffin. Can't you understand, Fatalite? No, of course you can't, and you think me a brute. One of these days perhaps you will think differently. Probably you imagine I don't care for you, but if I didn't should I mind whether you were alive or dead? You've always been saying that you feel something is going to happen. It seems you are right.

There have been several unexpected developments during the last few days.

It is most likely that I may be chosen to go back to Russia with despatches to one of the secret societies there. Here I cannot be arrested, there I can. Of course it means Siberia--eventually. That's only what we all expect."

"Then I shall be here alone."

"Yes, and there's no future for a woman in this vile place. You know the proverb they have, 'Can any good thing come out of Barcelona?' Your looks are against you too."

"There's always the river."

"Then when the time comes choose that--if you still have the courage.

You've been _bonne camarade_ to me, Fatalite. The men you will meet later on may not want that."