CHAPTER XXI

LITTLE MISS FLOWER

Little Miss Flower continued to bring Henry his lunch with great punctuality each day; and each day he found himself more and more interested in its arrival, though when it had come he ate it with no special haste. Indeed, sometimes it almost seemed that it had served its purpose in merely having been brought, judging by the moments of reverie in which Henry seemed to have forgotten it, and to be thinking of something else.

Yes, he had soon begun to watch for that bright little face, and it was hardly to be wondered at; for, particularly come upon against such a background, the face had something of the surprise of an apparition. It seemed all made of light; and when one o'clock had come, and Henry heard the expected footsteps of his little waiting-maid, and the tinkle of the tray she carried, coming up the yard, her entrance was as though some one had carried a lamp into the dark office. Surely it was more like the face of a spirit than that of a little human girl, and you would almost have expected it to shine in the dark. When you got used to the light of it, you realised that the radiance poured from singularly, even disproportionately, large blue eyes, set beneath a broad white brow of great purity, and that what at first had seemed rays of light around her head was a ma.s.s of sunny gold-brown hair which glinted even in shadow.

Strange indeed are the vagaries of the Spirit of Beauty! From how many high places will she turn away, yet delight to waste herself upon a slum like this! How fantastic the accident that had brought such a face to flower in such a spot!--and yet hardly more fantastic, he reflected, than that which had sown his own family haphazard where they were. Was it the ironic fate of power to be always a G.o.d in exile, turning mean wheels with mighty hands; and was Cinderella the fable of the eternal lot of beauty in this capriciously ordered world?

Yes, what chance wind, blowing all the way from Derbyshire, had set down Mr. Flower with his little garden of girls in this uncongenial spot?

For by this Henry had made the acquaintance of the whole family: Mr. and Mrs. Flower and four daughters in all,--all pretty girls, but not one of the others with a face like that,--which was another puzzle. How is it that out of one family one will be chosen by the Spirit of Beauty or genius, and the others so unmistakably left? There could be no doubt as to whom had been chosen here.

One day the step coming up the yard at one o'clock seemed to be different, and when the door opened it was another sister who had brought his lunch that day. Her eldest sister was ill, she explained, and in bed; and it was so for the next day, and again the next. Could it be possible that Henry had watched so eagerly for that little face, that he missed it so much already?

The next morning he bought some roses on his way through town, and begged that they might be allowed to brighten her room; and the next day surely it was the same light little tread once more coming up the yard.

Joy! she was better again. She looked pale, he said anxiously, and ventured to say too that he had missed her. As she blushed and looked down, he saw that she wore one of his roses in her bosom.

He had already begun to lend her books, which she returned, always with some clever little criticism, often girlishly nave, but never merely conventional. There were brains under her bright hair. One day Henry had run out of literature, and asked her if she could lend him a book.

Anything,--some novel he had read before; it didn't matter. Oh, yes, he hadn't read George Eliot for ever so long. Had she "The Mill on the Floss"? Yes, it had been a present from her father. She would bring that. As she lingered a moment, while Henry looked at the book, his eye fell upon a name on the t.i.tle-page: "Angel Flower."

"Is that your name, Miss Flower?" he said.

"Yes; father wrote it there. My real name is Angelica; but they call me Angel, for short," she answered, smiling.

"Are you surprised?" said Henry, suddenly blushing like a girl, as though he had never ventured on such a small gallantry before.

"Angelica! How did you come to get such a beautiful name?"

"Father loves beautiful names, and his grandmother was called Angelica."

"I wonder if I might call you Angelica?" presently ventured Henry, in a low voice.

"Do you think you know me well enough?" said Angelica, with a little gasp, which was really joy, in her breath.

Henry didn't answer; but their eyes met in a long, still look. In each heart behind the stillness was a storm of indescribable sweetness. Henry leaned forward, his face grown very pale, and impulsively took Angelica's hand,--

"I think, after all, I'd rather call you Angel," he said.

CHAPTER XXII

MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS

The gardens of Sidon had a curious habit of growing laurel-trees; laurels and rhododendrons were the only wear in shrubs. Rhododendrons one can understand. They are to the garden what mahogany is to the front parlour,--the _bourgeoisie_ of the vegetable kingdom. But the laurel,--what use could they have for laurel in Sidon? Possibly they supplied it to the rest of the world,--market-gardeners, so to say, to the Temple of Fame; it could hardly be for home consumption. Well, at all events, it was a peculiarity fortunate for Esther's purpose, as one morning, soon after breakfast, she went about the garden cutting the glossiest branches of the distinguished tree. As she filled her arms with them, she recalled with a smile the different purpose for which, dragged at the heels of one of Henry's enthusiasms, she had gathered them several years before.

At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with b.u.t.terfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,--a temptation to which moths were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance. Then, as night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness with tragic gluttony,--an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with bruised laurel leaves, which hung by a strap from his shoulder.

It was for such exciting employment that Esther had once gathered laurel leaves. And, once again, she remembered gathering them one Shakespeare's birthday, to crown a little bust in Henry's study. The sacred head had worn them proudly all day, and they all had a feeling that somehow Shakespeare must know about it, and appreciate the little offering; just as even to-day one might bring roses and myrtle, or the blood of a maiden dove to Venus, and expect her to smile upon our affairs of the heart.

But it was for a dearer purpose that Esther was gathering them this morning. That coming evening Mike was to utter his first stage-words in public. The laurel was to crown the occasion on which Mike was to make that memorable utterance: "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!"

Now while Esther was busily weaving this laurel into a wreath, Henry was busily weaving the best words he could find into a sonnet to accompany the wreath. When Angel duly brought him his lunch, it was finished, and lay about on his desk in rags and tatters of composition. Angel was going to the performance with her sisters,--for all these young people were fond of advertising each other, and he had soon told her about Mike,--so she was interested to hear the sonnet. Whatever other qualities poetry may lack, the presence of generous sincerity will always give it a certain value, to all but the merely supercilious; and this sonnet, boyish in its touches of grandiloquence, had yet a certain pathos of strong feeling about it.

Not unto him alone whom loud acclaim Declares the victor does the meed belong, For others, standing silent in the throng, May well be worthier of a n.o.bler fame; And so, dear friend, although unknown thy name Unto the shouting herd, we would give tongue To our deep thought, and the world's great among By this symbolic laurel thee proclaim.

And if, perchance, the herd shall find thee out In coming time, and many a n.o.bler crown To one they love to honour gladly throw; Wilt thou not turn thee from their eager shout, And whisper o'er these leaves, then sere and brown: 'Thou'rt late, O world! love knew it long ago?'

The reader will probably agree with Angel in considering the last line the best. But, of course, she thought the whole was wonderful.

"How wonderful it must be to be able to write!" she said, with a look in her face which was worth all the books ever written.

"And how wonderful even to have something written to one like that!"

"Surely that must have happened to you," said Henry, slyly.

"You're only laughing at me."

"No, I'm not. You don't know what may have been written to you. Poems may quite well have been written to you without your having heard of them. The poet mayn't have thought them worthy of you."

"What nonsense! Why, I don't know any poets!"

"Oh!" said Henry.

"I mean, except you."

"And how do you know that I haven't written a whole book full of poems to you? I've known you--how long now?"

"Two months next Monday," said Angel, with that chronological accuracy on such matters which seems to be a special gift of women in love. Men in love are nothing like so accurate.

"Well, that's long enough, isn't it? And I've had nothing else to do, you know."

"But you don't care enough about me?"

"You never know."

"But tell me really, have you written something for me?"

"Ah, you'd like to know now, wouldn't you?"

"Of course I would. Tell me. It would make me very happy."

"It really would?"

"You know it would."

"But why?"