Troubadour

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 119, 23 May 1938, Page 17

Troubadour

By .... PRINCESS PAUL TROUBETZKOY

Hi. stood at gaze, his head thrown bar:.-, Ilia dark eyes half closed, his mvti-iU, fillc-d with the soft, heady scent of the nrw mown hay, slightlv dilated, looking rather like" a young faun who had broken from the woods and gazed for the first time at the beautv of open country. And, indeed, it was beautiful enough. The wide expanse of the half-mown hay field in the immediate foreground-ju-t beyond it the long, stalely line of poplars fringing the river that gleamed like a silver thread behind them- and beyond that the hills piling cm to a landscape piled with gold" yellow and a dozen different shades of green .... Jn his nostrils the scent of the newmown hay dominated, but could not destroy, a hundred mingled perfumes of flowers, grass and trees. In his ears was the low ] .. n of the lazy, afternoon insert-lilt', and the faint murmur of a distant weir—while novv and a<min, borne on the soft breeze, came the distant sound of music and laughter. The village over there on the left was merrymaking .... Bringing all hi 3 senses into play at once—for oven his skin tingled pleasantly under the rays of the sun that blazed in the blue sky above him —the young man drank in all that beauty with something approaching ecstasy. Presently his lips moved, and he murmured: ' "Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile ....!"' Then, as he lowered his eyes to the mown hay tumbling about his very feet, his expression changed "to one of surprise and wonderment. "But,* he whispered to himself, after a moment, "unless I am seeing visions —then the poet was a liar, and I am a blasphemer!" Certainly she looked very lovely as she lay there, her fair hair mingling and blending perfectly with the pillow of golden hay upon which her head rested. Her lids, heavy lashed, were closed (he would have given much to see her eyes!) but, as compensation, the soft scarlet lips were parted, showing the tiny, white teeth within. The round of her little chin was a poem in itself.

The soft bosom rose and fell with gentle regularity—in perfect time, it seemed, to the threnody hummed by the bees. Her simple cotton frock was slightly disarranged and, half buried in the hay as it was, the symmetrical 'perfection of the silk-clad leg and ankle thus revealed was p, sight for the gods! The young man squatted on his hams (and thereby looked more like a faun than ever) and for a long time he sat there, as immovable as a statue, gazing at the sleeping girl and drinking in her beauty. It was as though he wanted to impress it upon his mind so that it should be there always—a solace for weary moments, a weapon against the sordidness and cruelty of the world beyond. < ~" - "™ rv- ~ When he moved at last, It was to take a notebook and pencil from his pocket. He wrote rapidly for a minute or so, then tore out the leaf. After that he hesitated for a moment—then detached from the black flowing tie he wore beneath the collar of his soft white shirt a gold safety pin. After that, with infinite caution, he leaned over the sleeping girl and, without disturbing her, pinned the slip of paper to the front of her blouse. Finally, crouching over her like a halffrightened animal ready to scamper away at the slightest sign of danger, he very softly laid his lips against those half-parted ones and kissed her And then, like a flash, with the speed and surencss of some wild denizen of them, he had,, Vanished into the woods behind them* The girl, cheeks beautifully flushed, wide blue eyes still misty with sleep, sat up suddenly and stared vaguely around her. £he had been dreaming. The sort of dream one would expect a lovely child, her tiny feet on the threshold of the great mystery called womanhood, might dream. A dream of an enchanted garden and' a wonderful prince who had come to her therein—who had taken her hand, gazed deeply into her eyes with his own burning dark ones, and then had suddenly taken her in his arms and kissed her She had been kissed in dreams before, but never had a dream kiss felt so real as that one. Actually it had awakened her—and even now she could feel that caress quivering on her lips. . . Subconsciously she noted that just beside her the slender twigs of the undergrowth were still swaying and the grass, recently pressed down by some weight, was slowly springing into erectness once more. And then in the breeze something fluttered at her breast

Breathless from amazement, she unpinned the slip of paper. The weight of the pin surprised her and she realised that it was real gold. And then she read the lines boldly written on the paper itself: I saw a nttle maid asleep Upon a summer's day, And watched her as she lay asleep Amid the new-mown hay. ... Wag she mid that she should sleep? And was it bad that she should sleep? Or—was s-he jflad to be asleep When all the world was gay? I kissed her ns she lay asleep And went upon my way ! She read the lines (poor enough doggerel, maybe, but they seemed wonderful to her) several times. She understood their message. Her dream had not been all a dream—for she knew now that someone had watched her while she slept. Someone who had wondered why she slept. Someone who had written a little poem to her and then—had kissed her and stolen away! With shining eyes she rose from her couch of hay, like Aphrodite arising from the waves (for she was indeed very beautiful, this child). She thrust the scrap of paper inside her blouse, as one might hide a holy relic. And then, without once looking back at the woods Wherein she knew the man who had kissed her must be lurking, she walked slowly across the liayfield, with the sun making a halo of her golden head, even as the golden hand of romance was laid upon her heart. "Well," said Enid, with a suggestion of fatalism In her tone, "in the long run—sooner or later - it will have to be Monte!" "But, my dear—" Pamela was Enid's best and "closest friend, .and the hour, of course, was the hour after bedtime, that magic hour for intimate confidences between maiden a«d maiden. "Monte is—well, eo unror* ntic, somehow*"

Short Story

Enid laughed, and her laugh was just a trifle harder and more cynical than either her age or her beauty "justified. "Oh, for heaven's sake, don't blether 1" she snapped, impatiently. "Komance became a corpse with the death of crinolines and pantalettes, and the iemains were finally cremated in the war. There is no such thing as romance to-day." (Enid, should have been more careful— it is always a dangerous thing to do to challenge the gods, even the old ones.) "Well, let's say that he's even less romantic than the others, then." "I don't think he is—more honest, that's all. Look at them! What a collection! There's Freddie—all he wants is to swap his title for my money. He'd be ju.*t as eager if I had a cast in my eye, a wooden leg and spoke with a stammer! Then there's Ralph—his idea is to use me continually for his wretched pictures, and so the expense of a model, Billy would like to marry me because, as he says, I dance divinely! And all the others are on similar lines— there isn't one of 'em wants me just because I'm me! I don't want to be any man's banker, or his model, or his dancing partner. But since I cannot find a man who'll marry me for myself alone, then Monte is the one who appeals to me most. He's not a gentleman—in fact, he's a coarse old ruffian. He want 3me so that he can parade me around and use my beauty as a sort of advertisement—but he's quite honest about it. He doesn't pretend! Also he's a man who does something—he's a great showman and a real clever impresario! At the worst, I shall live with Monte—with any of the others I should only vegetate! And that's that!" And Pamela, knowing her friend's obstinacy, let it go at that. All the same she felt it to be a terrible pity that Enid, with her wealth and her peerless beauty, should throw herself away on that coarse, uneducated, money-grubbing (for all that he was a millionaire) old showman, Monte Delane. But what could one do?

It nearly happened on a certain soft evening: in early September. Enid had accepted Monte's invitation to spend a day on his. luxurious super-launch on the Upper Thames. Enid loved the river, and if she didn't love Monte she had a great liking for him. He was a man who had done something, and that meant a lot in the eyes of Enid. It seemed to her that so few people did anything in these days. In the soft autumnal darkness they sat on the lawn of a famous and exclusive up-river club, quite close to the water's, edge. Enid, in her white river frock, looked like some shimmering, lovely, elusive spirit of the night; Monte Delane, in his blue and white yachting rig, rather like an ogre on holiday. Two men who knew them both sat at an adjacent table. "My God!" said one of them. "What a world to live in! Look at those two— what a contrast! Romance and Mammon! Beauty and the Beast! And they say she's going to marry him, some day," "The very contrast is the secret of it," said the other. "It will probably be a highly successful marriage—just because of that same contest." "Heavens, man —you have no soul! It will be like an elephant plucking a violet!" At the other table they were : not talking of love or marriage. Indeed, they seldom, if ever, talked of love." A little before Monte, for perhaps the fiftieth time, had asked Enid to marry him, and she had replied: "I will give you my final answer, Monte, when we leave here. And this time it will be final, but—l think it will be yes!" And with that Monte was satisfied.

Now he was, as usual, talking about himself —his theatres, his shows, his successes. Enid listened in a sort of dream. There was no music on the lawn —that was one of the features of the club. But the air was full of the scent of new-mown hay, borne on a light breeze from the opposite bank. And the scent of new-mown hay had always a peculiar effect on Enid. She always said it had much the same effect on her as the third month in the year had on March hares—but she could not, or .would not, ever say why. "Well, there it is!" Monte was saying. "It's the only failure I've ever had in the whole of my career! This fellow Escardo—l suppose he's some blooming Italian, but nobody knows that —must be making a pot of money. Yes, he must be- a very rich man, for every play he writes is a wow—a moneyflogger. But, if the fool could only see" it, I could make him a sight richer. But when I write and tell him that — explain it to him in detail—all I get is a polite reply from hie secretary, stating that Mr. Escardo is not interested in money!" "If it's true, I'd like to meet him. He must be a refreshing sort of man, this successful playwright who is not interested in money!" Monte laughed: "I reckon he and you wouldn't hit it off too well! You're always saying that Romance is dead as the dodo, and he writes the most romantic, fantastic, stuff ever—and all the world goes to see it, and says so in solid quids! No, you'd hardly agree!" "Perhaps not! Romance is dead— otherwise I wouldn't be thinking about marrying you, my dear Monte. The secret is that people always love to sentimentalise over a corpse! All the same I'd like to see him!" And so, once more, Enid defied the gods! (To be Concluded.)