The Mountebank Part 17

Whither the commonplace adventure was leading them neither knew. For his part pity compelled superst.i.tious sentiment to the payment, in some vague manner, of a long-standing obligation. She had also given him very rare sympathy that afternoon, and he was grateful. But things ended there, in a sort of blind alley.

For her part, she let herself go with the current of destiny into which, by strange hazard, she had drifted. She had the humility which is the fiercest form of pride. Although she clung desperately to him, as to the spar that alone could save her from drowning, although the feminine within her was drawn to his kind and simple manliness, and although her heart was touched by his grief at the loss of the dog, yet never for a moment did she count upon the ordinary romantic _denouement_ of such a situation. The idea came involuntarily into her mind. Into the mind of what woman of her upbringing would not the idea come? But she banished it savagely. Who was she, waste rag of a woman, to attract a man? And even had she retained the vivid beauty and plenitude of her maidenhood, it would have been just the same. Elodie Figa.s.so had never sold herself. No. All that side of things was out of the question. She wished, however, that he was less of an enigmatic, though kindly, sphinx.

Over their modest supper of sandwiches and Cotes du Rhone wine, in an inside corner of the Cafe des Negociants--it was all the cafe could offer, and besides she swore to a plentiful dinner--they discussed their respective forlorn positions. Adroitly she tacked away from her own concerns towards his particular dilemma. If he shrank from training another dog and yet distrusted a solo performance, what was he going to do? Take a partner like his friend--she forgot the name--yes, Bakkus, on whom perhaps he couldn't rely, and who naturally would demand half his salary?

"Never again," Andrew declared, feeling better after a draught of old Hermitage. "The only thing I can think of is to engage a competent a.s.sistant."

Then Elodie's swift brain conceived a daring idea.

"You would have to train the a.s.sistant."

"Of course. But," he added in a dismal tone, "most of the a.s.sistants I have seen are abysmally stupid. They are dummies. They give nothing of themselves, for the performer to act up to."

"In fact," said Elodie, trying hard to steady her voice, "you want someone entirely in sympathy with you, who can meet you half-way--like Prepimpin."

"Precisely," said Andrew. "But where can I find a human Prepimpin?"

She abandoned knife and fork and, with both arms resting on the table, looked across at him, and it suddenly struck him that her great dark eyes, intelligent and submissive, were very much like the eyes of Prepimpin. And so, womanlike, she conveyed the Idea from her brain to his.

He said very thoughtfully, "I wonder--"

"What?"

"What have you done on the stage? What can you do? Tell me. Unfortunately I have never seen you."

She could sing--not well now, because her voice had suffered--but still she sang true. She had a musical ear. She could accompany anyone on the piano, _pas trop mal_. She could dance. Oh, to that she owed her first engagement. She had also learned to play the castagnettes and the tambourine, _a l'Espagnole_. And she was accustomed to discipline....

As she proceeded with the unexciting catalogue of her accomplishments she lost self-control, and her eyes burned and her lips quivered and her voice shook in unison with the beatings of a desperately anxious heart. Our Andrew, although an artist dead set on perfection and a shrewd man of business, was young, pitiful and generous. The pleading dog's look in Elodie's eyes was too much for him. He felt powerless to resist. His brain worked swiftly, devising all kinds of artistic possibilities. Besides, was not Fate accomplishing itself by presenting this solution of both their difficulties?

"I wonder whether you would care to try the experiment?"

With an effort of feminine duplicity she put on a puzzled and ingenuous expression.

"What experiment?"

He was somewhat taken aback: surely he must have misinterpreted her pleading. From the dispenser of fortune, he became the seeker of favours.

"I know it's not much of a position to offer you," said he, almost apologetically, "but if you care to accept it----"

"Of your a.s.sistant?" she asked, as though the idea had never entered her head.

"Why, yes. If you will consent to a month of very hard work. You would have to learn a little elementary juggling. You would have to give me instantaneous replies in act and speech. But if you would give yourself up to me I could teach you."

"But, _mon pauvre Andre_," she said, with an astonished air, "this is the last thing I ever dreamed of. I am so ignorant. I should put you to shame."

"Oh no, you wouldn't," said he, confidently. "I know my business. Wait.

_Les affaires sont les affaires_. I should have to give you a little contract. Let us see. For the remainder of my tour--ten weeks--ten francs a day with hotel _en pension_ and railway fares."

To Elodie, independent waif in theatre-land, this was wealth beyond her dreams. She stretched both hands across the table.

"Do you mean that? It is true? And, if I please you, you will keep me always?"

"Why not?" said Andrew. "And, if you show talent, we may come to a better arrangement for the next tour."

"And if I show no talent at all?"

He made a deprecating gesture and grinned in his charming way. But Elodie's intuition taught her that there was the stern purpose of a man behind the grin. She had imposed her helplessness on him this once. But if she failed him she would not have, professionally, a second chance.

"I insist on your having talent," said Andrew.

The walk home to her dingy lodgings repeated itself. She felt very humble yet triumphant. More than ever did she regard him as a G.o.d who had raised her, by a touch, from despair and starvation to hope and plenty, and in her revulsion of grat.i.tude she could have taken both his hands and pa.s.sionately kissed them. And yet she was proudly conscious of something within her, unconquerably feminine, which had touched his G.o.dship and wrought the miracle.

They halted in the narrow, squalid street, before the dark entry of the house where she lodged. Andrew eyed the poverty-stricken hole in disgust.

Obviously she had touched the depths.

"To-morrow you must move," said he. "I shall arrange a room for you at the hotel. We shall have much business to discuss. Can you be there at ten o'clock?"

"Whatever you say shall be done," she replied humbly.

He put out his hand.

"Good-night, Elodie. Have courage and all will be well."

She murmured some thanks with a sob in her voice and, turning swiftly, disappeared up the evil-smelling stone stairs. The idea of kissing her did not occur to him until he found himself alone and remembered the pretty idyll of their leave-taking long ago. He laughed, none too gaily. Between boy and girl and man and woman there was a vast difference.

Chapter X

That was the beginning of the combination known a little while afterwards as _Les Pet.i.t Patou_. Elodie, receptive, imitative, histrionic, showed herself from the start an apt pupil. To natural talent she added the desire, born of infinite grat.i.tude, to please her benefactor. She possessed the rare faculty of perfect surrender. Andrew marvelled. Had he hypnotized her she could not have more completely executed his will. And yet she was no automaton. She was artist enough to divine when her personality should be effaced and when it should count. She spoke her patter with intelligent point. She learned, thanks to Andrew's professional patience, and her own vehement will, a few elementary juggling tricks. Andrew repeated the famous Prepimpin cigar-act. Open-mouthed, Elodie followed his manipulations. When he threw away the cigar it seemed to enter her mouth quite naturally, against her will. She removed it with an expression of disgust and hurled it at Andrew, who caught it between his lips, smoked it for a second or two and grinned his thanks. With a polite gesture he threw it, as the audience thought, back to her; but by a sleight-of-hand trick the cigar vanished and she caught, to her delighted astonishment, a pearl necklace, which, as she clasped it round her neck, vanished likewise. After which he overwhelmed her with disappearing jewels. At once it became a popular item in their entertainment.

In the course of a few months he swore she was worth a hundred Prepimpins.

He could teach her anything. By the end of the year he evolved the grotesque performance that made Les Pet.i.t Patou famous in provincial France, brought them for a season to Paris at the Cirque Medrano, to London (for a week) at the Hippodrome, to the princ.i.p.al cities of Italy, and doubled and trebled the salary which he enjoyed as Pet.i.t Patou all alone with the dog.

Meanwhile it is important to note a very swift physical change in Elodie.

When a young woman, born to plumpness, is reduced by misery to skin and bone, a short term of succulent nourishment and absence of worry, will suffice to restore her to a natural condition. She had no beauty, save that of her dark and luminous eyes and splendid teeth. Her features were coa.r.s.e and irregular. Her uncared for skin gave signs of future puffiness. But still--after two or three happy months, she more or less regained the common attractiveness and the audacious self-confidence of the Ma.r.s.eilles _gamine_ who had asked him to kiss her long ago.

Thus, imperceptibly, she became less an a.s.sistant than a partner, less a paid servant on the stage than a helpmeet in his daily life. Looking at the traditions of their environment and at the enforced intimacy of their vagabondage, one sees the inevitability of this linking of their fortunes.

That there was any furious love about the affair I have very grave doubts.

Andrew in his secret soul still hankered after the Far-away Princess, and Elodie had spent most of her pa.s.sionate illusions on the unspeakable Raoul. But they had a very fair basis of mutual affection to build upon.

Philosophers will tell you that such is the basis of most happy marriages.

You can believe them or not, as you please. I am in no position to dogmatise.... At any rate Les Pet.i.t Patou started off happily. If Elodie was not the perfect housewife, you must remember her upbringing and her devil-may-care kind of theatrical existence. Andrew knew that hers were not the habits of the Far-away One, who like himself would be a tidy soul, bringing into commonplace tidiness an exquisitely harmonious sense of order; but the Far-away One was a mythical being endowed with qualities which it would be absurd to look for in Elodie. Besides, their year being mainly spent in hotels, she had little opportunity of cultivating housewifely qualities. If she neglected the nice conduct of his underlinen after the first few months of their partnership, he could not find it in his heart to blame her. Professional work was tiring. Her own clothes needed her attention. But still, the transient comfort had been very agreeable.... In Paris, too, at first she had played at house-keeping in the apartment of the Faubourg Saint-Denis. But Elodie did not understand the _bonne_, and the _bonne_ refused to understand Elodie in the matter of catering, and they emphasized their mutual misunderstanding with the unrestrained speech of children of the people. Once or twice Andrew went hungry. In his sober and dignified way he drew Elodie's attention to his unusual condition. It led to their first quarrel. After that they ate, very comfortably, at a little restaurant round the corner.

It was not the home life of which Andrew had dreamed--not even the reincarnation of Madame Flint sitting by the round table darning socks by the light of the shaded lamp. Elodie loathed domestic ideals.

"_Mon vieux_," she would declare, "I had enough sewing in my young days. My idea of happiness would be a world without needles and thread."