Chapter 56
"This is a friend of Michael Fane's," said Sylvia.
"Did you know _him_? He _was_ a nice young fellow. Very nice he was. But he wouldn't know me now. Very stay-at-home I was when he used to come to Mulberry Cottage. Why, he tried to make me ride in a hansom once, and I was actually too nervous. You know, I'd got into a regular rut. But now, well, upon me word, I don't believe now I should say 'no' if any one was to invite me to ride inside of a whale. It's her doing, the tartar."
Avery had learned a certain amount of Arabic during his stay in Morocco and he made the bazaars of Tetuan much more interesting than Don Alfonso could have done. He also had many tales to tell of the remote cities like Fez and Mequinez and Marakeesh. Sylvia almost wished that she could pack Mrs. Gainsborough off to England and accompany him into the real interior. Some of her satisfaction in Tetuan had been rather spoiled that morning by finding a visitor's book in the hotel with the names of traveling clergymen and their daughters patronizingly inscribed therein.
However, Avery decided to ride away almost at once, and said that he intended to banish the twentieth century for two or three months.
They stayed a few days at Tetuan, but the bugs were too many for Mrs.
Gainsborough, who began to sigh for a tranquil bed. Avery and Sylvia had a short conversation together before they left. He thanked her for her sympathy, held to his intention of spending the summer in Morocco, but was nearly sure he should return to England in the autumn, with a mind serenely fixed.
"I wish, if you go back to London, you'd look Jenny up," he said.
Sylvia shook her head very decidedly. "I can't imagine anything that would annoy her more, if she's the girl I suppose her to be."
"But I'd like her to have a friend like you," he urged.
Sylvia looked at him severely. "Are you quite sure that you don't want to change her?" she asked.
"Of course. Why?"
"Choosing friends for somebody else is not very wise; it sounds uncommonly like a roundabout way of developing her. No, no, I won't meet your Jenny."
"I see what you mean," Avery a.s.sented. "I'll write to Michael and tell him I've met you. Shall I tell him about Lily? Where is she now?"
"I don't know. I've never had even a post-card. My fault, really. Yes, you can tell Michael that she's probably quite happy and--no, I don't think there's any other message. Oh yes, you might say I've eaten one or two rose-leaves but not enough yet."
Avery looked puzzled.
"Apuleius," she added.
"Strange girl. I _wish_ you would go and see Jenny."
"Oh no! She's eaten all the rose-leaves she wants, and I'm sure she's not the least interested in Apuleius."
Next day Sylvia and Mrs. Gainsborough set out on the return journey to Tangier, which, apart from a disastrous attempt by Mrs.
"Let sleeping pears lie," said Sylvia.
"Well, you don't expect a fruit to be so savage," retorted Mrs.
Gainsborough. "I thought I must have aggravated a wasp. Talk about nettles. They're chammy leather beside them. p.r.i.c.kly pears! I suppose the next thing I try to eat will be stabbing apples."
They went home by Gibraltar, where Mrs. Gainsborough was delighted to see English soldiers.
"It's nice to know we've got our eyes open even in Spain. I reckon I'll get a good cup of tea here."
They reached England at the end of April, and Sylvia decided to stay for a while at Mulberry Cottage. Reading through _The Stage_, she found that Jack Airdale was resting at Richmond in his old rooms, and went down to see him. He was looking somewhat thin and worried.
"Had rather a rotten winter," he told her. "I got ill with a quinsey and had to throw up a decent shop, and somehow or other I haven't managed to get another one yet."
"Look here, old son," Sylvia said, "I don't want any d.a.m.ned pride from you. I've got plenty of money at present. You've got to borrow fifty pounds. You want feeding up and fitting out. Don't be a cad now, and refuse a 'lidy.' Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You know me by this time.
Who's going to be more angry, you at being lent money or me at being refused by one of the few, the very few, mark you, good pals I've got?
Don't be a beast, Jack. You've got to take it."
He surrendered, from habit. Sylvia gave him all her news, but the item that interested him most was her having half taken up the stage.
"I knew you'd make a hit," he declared.
"But I didn't."
"My dear girl, you don't give yourself a chance. You can't play hide and seek with the public, though, by Jove!" he added, ruefully, "I have been lately."
"For the present I can afford to wait."
"Yes, you're d.a.m.ned lucky in one way, and yet I'm not sure that you aren't really very unlucky. If you hadn't found some money you'd have been forced to go on."
"My dear lad, lack of money wouldn't make me an artist."
"What would, then?"
"Oh, I don't know. Being fed up with everything. That's what drove me into self-expression, as I should call it if I were a temperamental miss with a light-boiled ego swimming in a saucepan of emotion for the public to swallow or myself to crack. But conceive my disgust! There was I yearning unattainable 'isms' from a soul nurtured on tragic disillusionment, and I was applauded for singing French songs with an English accent. No, seriously, I shall try again, old Jack, when I receive another buffet. At present I'm just dimly uncomfortable. I shall blossom late like a chrysanthemum. I ain't no daffodil, I ain't. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that I was forced when young--don't giggle, you ribald a.s.s, not that way--and I've got to give myself a rest before I bloom, _en plein air_."
"But you really have got plenty of money?" Airdale inquired, anxiously.
"Ma.s.ses! Cataracts! And all come by perfectly honest. No, seriously, I've got about four thousand pounds."
"Well, I really do think you're rather lucky, you know."
"Of course. But it's all written in the book of Fate. Listen. I've got a mulberry mark on my arm; I live at Mulberry Cottage; and Morera, that's the name of my fairy G.o.dfather, is Spanish for mulberry-tree. Can you beat it?"
"I hope you've invested this money," said Airdale.
"It's in a bank."
He begged her to be careful of her riches, and she rallied him on his inconsistency, because a moment back he had been telling her that their possession was hindering her progress in art.
"My dear Sylvia, I haven't known you for five years not to have discovered that I might as well advise a schoolmaster as you, but what _are_ you going to do?"
"Plans for this summer? A little gentle reading. A little browsing among the cla.s.sics. A little theater-going. A little lunching at Verrey's with Mr. John Airdale. Resting address, six Rosetree Terrace, Richmond, Surrey. A little b.u.mming around town, as Senor Morera would say. Plans for the autumn? A visit to the island of Sirene, if I can find a nice lady-like young woman to accompany me. Mrs. Gainsborough has decided that she will travel no more. Her brain is bursting with unrelated adventure."
"But you can't go on from month to month like that."
"Well, if you'll tell me how to skip over December, January, and August I'll be grateful," Sylvia laughed.
"No, don't rag about. I mean for the future in general," he explained.
"Are you going to get married? You can't go on forever like this."
"Why not?"
"Well, you're young now. But what's more gloomy than a restless old maid?"