Part 1 (2/2)
”_Peut etre plus qu'un peu_,” Arith.e.l.li retorted quickly. ”I see you think he's right.”
Arrived at the lodgings she sat still, waiting in the cab with the same apparent indifference while Emile wrangled with the landlady. At length he came back to her: ”You had better try these for a week,” he said. ”They're forty _pesetas_. She will want the rent in advance as you have no recommendation.” For the first time Arith.e.l.li seemed disturbed.
”I'm afraid I can't pay it. I'm to have five pounds a week at the Hippodrome, but of course I can't ask for that in advance. I had a second-cla.s.s ticket out here, and now I've only got four-and-sixpence left.”
She held out a small blue satin bag, displaying a few coins. ”Perhaps I'd better go and explain to the Manager.” Emile shrugged his shoulders. Obviously the girl was very young.
”On the whole I think you'd better not,” he said. ”You know nothing about either myself or the Manager, and it seems you've got to trust one of us so it may as well be me.”
When he had arranged matters he departed, saying casually, ”I'll come in again to-night about nine o'clock to see how you are getting on.
Don't do anything insane, such as wandering about the streets, because you feel dull. It won't hurt you to put up with the dulness for a bit.
You'll have plenty of excitement if you're going to live in Barcelona.”
”_Tiens_!” said Arith.e.l.li to herself. ”What manners and what dirty nails! _C'est un homme epouvantable_, but very useful. But for him I should have been prancing round this place all night, looking for rooms.”
She dragged her trunk towards her, and proceeded to unpack the collection of gaudy dresses that she had bought with so much pride at the _Bon Marche_ in Paris, and which were all in the worst possible taste.
Perhaps she had been impelled to a choice of lively colours as being symbolical in their brightness of the new life on which she was about to embark. There was a green cloth rendered still more hideous by being inlet with medallions of pink silk, a cornflower blue with much silver braid already becoming tarnished in the few times it had been worn, and a mauve and orange adorned with flamboyant Eastern embroidery.
When she had tumbled them all out they showed a vivid patch of ill-a.s.sorted tints. Arith.e.l.li s.h.i.+vered as she sat back on her heels on the floor, and looked round the sordid room. The excitement of her arrival had worn off, and the element of depression reigned supreme in her mind. Certainly the apartment, which was supposed to be a bed-sitting-room, but which was merely a bedroom, was not enlivening to contemplate. No carpet, dirty boards, a large four-poster bed canopied with faded draperies against the wall facing the window. There was a feeble attempt at a washstand in a small alcove on the left, furnished with the usual doll's house crockery affected on the Continent,--no wardrobe and no dressing table.
It all looked hopeless, she told herself disgustedly. Surely there were better rooms to be found in Barcelona for forty _pesetas_ a week!
Either lodgings must be very dear or else Emile Poleski had meant to take a large commission for his trouble in finding them!
She was stiff and tired after the long journey and want of proper food, and every trifle took upon itself huge dimensions. She was daintily fastidious as to cleanliness, and everything seemed to her filthy beyond belief. The universal squalor customary in Spanish life had come as an unpleasant shock.
When she started from Paris she had conjured visions of a triumphal entry into her new career. Now she felt rather frightened and desperately lonely, and the horrible room appeared like a bad omen for the future. But, she reflected, after all, things might have been worse. She had found one friend already. Certainly he had disagreeable manners, especially after the artificial and invariable politeness of the Frenchmen she had met while travelling, but at least he promised to be useful. She picked herself up off the floor and began to consider the disposal of her garments. Three or four wooden pegs, the only accommodation to be seen, were obviously not sufficient to hold all her clothes.
Presently there was an interlude, provided by the advent of the landlady. Her dishevelment accorded well with the general look of the house; her slippers clicked on the carpetless boards at every shuffling step, and she carried a half-cold, slopped-over cup of coffee. To Arith.e.l.li's relief the woman was mistress of a limited amount of French patois, and in answer to a demand for a wardrobe of some kind, said she would send up her son. He was a carpenter and would doubtless arrange something. She gave a curious glance at the girl's witch-like beauty, a mixture of suspicion and barely-admitted pity in her thoughts.
As to Emile's share in the drama she had naturally formed conclusions.
After a respectable interval her son arrived, and having delivered himself of a remark in Spanish and being answered in French, proceeded to hammer a row of enormous nails into the wall at regular intervals.
Arith.e.l.li sat upon her trunk, which she considered cleaner than the chairs, and watched the process, her green eyes a.s.suming a curious veiled expression, a hank of copper-tinted hair falling upon her shoulders.
There was something uncanny in her capacity for keeping still, and she had none of the usual and natural fidgetiness of a young girl. In whatever position of sitting or standing she found herself she was capable of remaining for an indefinite period.
When the carpenter's manipulations had ceased she hung up her dresses carefully, put the rest of her things back into the trunk, as being the safest place, and sitting down again began to cry in a low, painful way, utterly unlike the light April shower emotion of the ordinary woman.
Here she was in Barcelona, and the fulfilled desire seemed likely to become already Dead Sea fruit. Supposing she got ill, or failed to satisfy the audience. She would see her name to-morrow when she went out in large letters on the posters of the Hippodrome:
”_Arith.e.l.li, the beautiful English equestrienne_,” and underneath some appalling picture of herself in columbine skirts, or jockey's silk jacket and cap and top boots.
She had been crazy with delight over her success in getting the engagement from the manager in Paris, and it had not occurred to her that her appearance had had a great deal to do with her having been accepted. She had signed a contract for a year; and looking forward a year seemed a very long time. There had been opposition at home.
Her father had said, ”I don't approve, but at the same time I don't know in the least what else you can do. It's Hobson's choice. You can ride, and you've got looks of the sort to take in a public career.”
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