THE LION AND THE UNICORN(狮子与独角兽)

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THE LION AND THE UNICORN

THE LION AND THE

UNICORN

by RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

IN MEMORY OF MANY HOT DAYS AND SOME HOT

CORNERS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO LT.-COL. ARTHUR H.

LEE, R.A. British Military Attache with the United States Army

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

Prentiss had a long lease on the house, and because it stood in Jermyn

Street the upper floors were, as a matter of course, turned into lodgings for

single gentlemen; and because Prentiss was a Florist to the Queen, he

placed a lion and unicorn over his flowershop, just in front of the middle

window on the first floor. By stretching a little, each of them could see

into the window just beyond him, and could hear all that was said inside;

and such things as they saw and heard during the reign of Captain

Carrington, who moved in at the same time they did! By day the table in

the centre of the room was covered with maps, and the Captain sat with a

box of pins, with different-colored flags wrapped around them, and

amused himself by sticking them in the maps and measuring the spaces in

between, swearing meanwhile to himself. It was a selfish amusement,

but it appeared to be the Captain's only intellectual pursuit, for at night, the

maps were rolled up, and a green cloth was spread across the table, and

there was much company and popping of soda-bottles, and little heaps of

gold and silver were moved this way and that across the cloth. The

smoke drifted out of the open windows, and the laughter of the Captain's

guests rang out loudly in the empty street, so that the policeman halted and

raised his eyes reprovingly to the lighted windows, and cabmen drew up

beneath them and lay in wait, dozing on their folded arms, for the

Captain's guests to depart. The Lion and the Unicorn were rather

ashamed of the scandal of it, and they were glad when, one day, the

Captain went away with his tin boxes and gun-cases piled high on a four-

wheeler.

Prentiss stood on the sidewalk and said: "I wish you good luck, sir."

And the Captain said: "I'm coming back a Major, Prentiss." But he

never came back. And one day--the Lion remembered the day very well,

for on that same day the newsboys ran up and down Jermyn Street

shouting out the news of "a 'orrible disaster" to the British arms. It was

then that a young lady came to the door in a hansom, and Prentiss went out

to meet her and led her upstairs. They heard him unlock the Captain's

door and say, "This is his room, miss," and after he had gone they watched

her standing quite still by the centre table. She stood there for a very

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

long time looking slowly about her, and then she took a photograph of the

Captain from the frame on the mantel and slipped it into her pocket, and

when she went out again her veil was down, and she was crying. She

must have given Prentiss as much as a sovereign, for he called her "Your

ladyship," which he never did under a sovereign.

And she drove off, and they never saw her again either, nor could they

hear the address she gave the cabman. But it was somewhere up St.

John's Wood way.

After that the rooms were empty for some months, and the Lion and

the Unicorn were forced to amuse themselves with the beautiful ladies and

smart-looking men who came to Prentiss to buy flowers and

"buttonholes," and the little round baskets of strawberries, and even the

peaches at three shillings each, which looked so tempting as they lay in the

window, wrapped up in cotton-wool, like jewels of great price.

Then Philip Carroll, the American gentleman, came, and they heard

Prentiss telling him that those rooms had always let for five guineas a

week, which they knew was not true; but they also knew that in the

economy of nations there must always be a higher price for the rich

American, or else why was he given that strange accent, except to betray

him into the hands of the London shopkeeper, and the London cabby?

The American walked to the window toward the west, which was the

window nearest the Lion, and looked out into the graveyard of St. James's

Church, that stretched between their street and Piccadilly.

"You're lucky in having a bit of green to look out on," he said to

Prentiss. "I'll take these rooms--at five guineas. That's more than

they're worth, you know, but as I know it, too, your conscience needn't

trouble you."

Then his eyes fell on the Lion, and he nodded to him gravely. "How

do you do?" he said. "I'm coming to live with you for a little time. I

have read about you and your friends over there. It is a hazard of new

fortunes with me, your Majesty, so be kind to me, and if I win, I will put a

new coat of paint on your shield and gild you all over again."

Prentiss smiled obsequiously at the American's pleasantry, but the new

lodger only stared at him.

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

"He seemed a social gentleman," said the Unicorn, that night, when the

Lion and he were talking it over. "Now the Captain, the whole time he

was here, never gave us so much as a look. This one says he has read of

us."

"And why not?" growled the Lion. "I hope Prentiss heard what he

said of our needing a new layer of gilt. It's disgraceful. You can see

that Lion over Scarlett's, the butcher, as far as Regent Street, and Scarlett

is only one of Salisbury's creations. He received his Letters-Patent only

two years back. We date from Palmerston."

The lodger came up the street just at that moment, and stopped and

looked up at the Lion and the Unicorn from the sidewalk, before he

opened the door with his night-key. They heard him enter the room and

feel on the mantel for his pipe, and a moment later he appeared at the

Lion's window and leaned on the sill, looking down into the street below

and blowing whiffs of smoke up into the warm night-air.

It was a night in June, and the pavements were dry under foot and the

streets were filled with well-dressed people, going home from the play,

and with groups of men in black and white, making their way to supper at

the clubs. Hansoms of inky-black, with shining lamps inside and out,

dashed noiselessly past on mysterious errands, chasing close on each

other's heels on a mad race, each to its separate goal. From the cross

streets rose the noises of early night, the rumble of the 'buses, the creaking

of their brakes, as they unlocked, the cries of the "extras," and the merging

of thousands of human voices in a dull murmur. The great world of

London was closing its shutters for the night, and putting out the lights;

and the new lodger from across the sea listened to it with his heart beating

quickly, and laughed to stifle the touch of fear and homesickness that rose

in him.

"I have seen a great play to-night," he said to the Lion, "nobly played

by great players. What will they care for my poor wares? I see that I

have been over-bold. But we cannot go back now--not yet."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and nodded "good-night" to the

great world beyond his window. "What fortunes lie with ye, ye lights of

London town?" he quoted, smiling. And they heard him close the door of

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

his bedroom, and lock it for the night.

The next morning he bought many geraniums from Prentiss and placed

them along the broad cornice that stretched across the front of the house

over the shop window. The flowers made a band of scarlet on either side

of the Lion as brilliant as a Tommy's jacket.

"I am trying to propitiate the British Lion by placing flowers before his

altar," the American said that morning to a visitor.

"The British public you mean," said the visitor; "they are each likely to

tear you to pieces."

"Yes, I have heard that the pit on the first night of a bad play is

something awful," hazarded the American.

"Wait and see," said the visitor.

"Thank you," said the American, meekly.

Every one who came to the first floor front talked about a play. It

seemed to be something of great moment to the American. It was only a

bundle of leaves printed in red and black inks and bound in brown paper

covers. There were two of them, and the American called them by

different names: one was his comedy and one was his tragedy.

"They are both likely to be tragedies," the Lion heard one of the

visitors say to another, as they drove away together. "Our young friend

takes it too seriously."

The American spent most of his time by his desk at the window

writing on little blue pads and tearing up what he wrote, or in reading over

one of the plays to himself in a loud voice. In time the number of his

visitors increased, and to some of these he would read his play; and after

they had left him he was either depressed and silent or excited and jubilant.

The Lion could always tell when he was happy because then he would go

to the side table and pour himself out a drink and say, "Here's to me," but

when he was depressed he would stand holding the glass in his hand, and

finally pour the liquor back into the bottle again and say, "What's the use

of that?"

After he had been in London a month he wrote less and was more

frequently abroad, sallying forth in beautiful raiment, and coming home by

daylight.

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

And he gave suppers too, but they were less noisy than the Captain's

had been, and the women who came to them were much more beautiful,

and their voices when they spoke were sweet and low. Sometimes one of

the women sang, and the men sat in silence while the people in the street

below stopped to listen, and would say, "Why, that is So-and-So singing,"

and the Lion and the Unicorn wondered how they could know who it was

when they could not see her.

The lodger's visitors came to see him at all hours. They seemed to

regard his rooms as a club, where they could always come for a bite to eat

or to write notes; and others treated it like a lawyer's office and asked

advice on all manner of strange subjects. Sometimes the visitor wanted

to know whether the American thought she ought to take L*10 a week and

go on tour, or stay in town and try to live on L*8; or whether she should

paint landscapes that would not sell, or racehorses that would; or whether

Reggie really loved her and whether she really loved Reggie; or whether

the new part in the piece at the Court was better than the old part at Terry's,

and wasn't she getting too old to play "ingenues" anyway.

The lodger seemed to be a general adviser, and smoked and listened

with grave consideration, and the Unicorn thought his judgment was most

sympathetic and sensible.

Of all the beautiful ladies who came to call on the lodger the one the

Unicorn liked the best was the one who wanted to know whether she loved

Reggie and whether Reggie loved her. She discussed this so interestingly

while she consumed tea and thin slices of bread that the Unicorn almost

lost his balance in leaning forward to listen. Her name was Marion

Cavendish and it was written over many photographs which stood in silver

frames in the lodger's rooms. She used to make the tea herself, while the

lodger sat and smoked; and she had a fascinating way of doubling the thin

slices of bread into long strips and nibbling at them like a mouse at a piece

of cheese. She had wonderful little teeth and Cupid's-bow lips, and she

had a fashion of lifting her veil only high enough for one to see the two

Cupid-bow lips. When she did that the American used to laugh, at

nothing apparently, and say, "Oh, I guess Reggie loves you well enough."

"But do I love Reggie?" she would ask sadly, with her tea-cup held poised

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

in air. " I am sure I hope not," the lodger would reply, and she

would put down the veil quickly, as one would drop a curtain over a

beautiful picture, and rise with great dignity and say, "if you talk like that I

shall not come again." She was sure that if she could only get some

work to do her head would be filledwith more important matters than

whether Reggie loved her or not.

"But the managers seem inclined to cut their cavendish very fine just

at present," she said. "If I don't get a part soon," she announced, "I shall

ask Mitchell to put me down on the list for recitations at evening parties."

"That seems a desperate revenge," said the American; "and besides, I

don't want you to get a part, because some one might be idiotic enough to

take my comedy, and if he should, you must play Nancy."

"I would not ask for any salary if I could play Nancy," Miss Cavendish

answered.

They spoke of a great many things, but their talk always ended by her

saying that there must be some one with sufficient sense to see that his

play was a great play, and by his saying that none but she must play

Nancy.

The Lion preferred the tall girl with masses and folds of brown hair,

who came from America to paint miniatures of the British aristocracy.

Her name was Helen Cabot, and he liked her because she was so brave

and fearless, and so determined to be independent of every one, even of

the lodger--especially of the lodger, who it appeared had known her very

well at home. The lodger, they gathered, did not wish her to be

independent of him and the two Americans had many arguments and

disputes about it, but she always said, "It does no good, Philip; it only

hurts us both when you talk so. I care for nothing, and for no one but my

art, and, poor as it is, it means everything to me, and you do not, and, of

course, the man I am to marry, must." Then Carroll would talk, walking

up and down, and looking very fierce and determined, and telling her how

he loved her in such a way that it made her look even more proud and

beautiful. And she would say more gently, "It is very fine to think that

any one can care for like that, and very helpful. But unless I cared in the

same way it would be wicked of me to marry you, and besides--" She

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

would add very quickly to prevent his speaking again--" I don't want to

marry you or anybody, and I never shall. I want to be free and to succeed

in my work, just as you want to succeed in your work. So please never

speak of this again." When she went away the lodger used to sit smoking

in the big arm-chair and beat the arms with his hands, and he would pace

up and down the room while his work would lie untouched and his

engagements pass forgotten.

Summer came and London was deserted, dull, and dusty, but the

lodger stayed on in Jermyn Street. Helen Cabot had departed on a round

of visits to country houses in Scotland, where, as she wrote him, she was

painting miniatures of her hosts and studying the game of golf. Miss

Cavendish divided her days between the river and one of the West End

theatres. She was playing a small part in a farce-comedy.

One day she came up from Cookham earlier than usual, looking very

beautiful in a white boating frock and a straw hat with a Leander ribbon.

Her hands and arms were hard with dragging a punting pole and she was

sunburnt and happy, and hungry for tea.

"Why don't you come down to Cookham and get out of this heat?"

Miss Cavendish asked. "You need it; you look ill."

"I'd like to, but I can't," said Carroll. "The fact is, I paid in advance

for these rooms, and if I lived anywhere else I'd be losing five guineas a

week on them."

Miss Cavendish regarded him severely. She had never quite

mastered his American humor.

"But five guineas--why that's nothing to you," she said. Something in

the lodger's face made her pause. "You don't mean----"

"Yes, I do," said the lodger, smiling. "You see, I started in to lay

siege to London without sufficient ammunition. London is a large town,

and it didn't fall as quickly as I thought it would. So I am economizing.

Mr. Lockhart's Coffee Rooms and I are no longer strangers."

Miss Cavendish put down her cup of tea untasted and leaned toward

him

"Are you in earnest?" she asked. "For how long?"

"Oh, for the last month," replied the lodger; "they are not at all bad--

THE LION AND THE UNICORN

clean and wholesome and all that."

"But the suppers you gave us, and this," she cried, suddenly, waving

her hands over the pretty tea-things, "and the cake and muffins?"

"My friends, at least," said Carroll, "need not go to Lockhart's."

"And the Savoy?" asked Miss Cavendish, mournfully shaking her

head.

"A dream of the past," said Carroll, waving his pipe through the smoke.

"Gatti's? Yes, on special occasions; but for necessity, the Chancellor's,

where one gets a piece of the prime roast beef of Old England, from

Chicago, and potatoes for ninepence--a pot of bitter twopence-halfpenny,

and a penny for the waiter. It's most amusing on the whole. I am

learning a little about London, and some things about myself. They are

both most interesting subjects."

"Well, I don't like it," Miss Cavendish declared helplessly. "When I

think of those suppers and the flowers, I feel--I feel like a robber."

"Don't," begged Carroll. "I am really the most happy of men-- that is,

as the chap says in the play, I would be if I wasn't so damned miserable.

But I owe no man a penny and I have assets--I have L*80 to last me

through the winter and two marvellous plays; and I love, next to yourself,

the most wonderful woman God ever made. That's enough."

"But I thought you made such a lot of money by writing?" asked Miss

Cavendish.

"I do--that is, I could," answered Carroll, "if I wrote the things that sell;

but I keep on writing plays that won't."

"And such plays!" exclaimed Marion, warmly; "and to think that they

are going begging." She continued indignantly, "I can't imagine what the

managers do want."

"I know what they don't want," said the American. Miss Cavendish

drummed impatiently on the tea-tray.

"I wish you wouldn't be so abject about it," she said. "If I were a man

I'd make them take those plays."

"How?" asked the American; "with a gun?"

"Well, I'd keep at it until they read them," declared Marion. "I'd sit

on their front steps all night and I'd follow them in cabs, and I'd lie in wait

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THELIONANDTHEUNICORN1THELIONANDTHEUNICORNbyRICHARDHARDINGDAVISTHELIONANDTHEUNICORN2INMEMORYOFMANYHOTDAYSANDSOMEHOTCORNERSTHISBOOKISDEDICATEDTOLT.-COL.ARTHURH.LEE,R.A.BritishMilitaryAttachewiththeUnitedStatesArmyTHELIONANDTHEUNICORN3Prentisshadalongleaseonthehouse,andbecauseitstoodinJermynStreettheup...

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