The Transformation of Philip Jettan Read online

  Philip rustled over to the fire and stooped, warming his hands.

  “Fog, cold, damp! Brrh! The unspeakable climate! Tom, it is permitted that I stay with you until I find an abode?”

  With difficulty his uncle withdrew his gape from Philip’s claret-coloured coat of fine cloth, laced with gold.

  “Can you ask? Stay as long as you will, lad, you’re a joy to behold!”

  “Merci du compliment!” smiled Philip. “You perhaps admire the mixture of claret and biscuit as I wear it?”

  Tom’s eyes travelled down to the creaseless biscuit-coloured small-clothes.

  “Ay. I admire everything. The boots most of all. The boots—Philip, where did you obtain them?”

  Philip glanced carelessly down at his shapely leg.

  “They were made for me. Me, I am not satisfied with them. I shall give them to François.”

  “Give them to François?” cried his uncle. “Ye wicked boy! Where is the fellow?”

  “He and Jacques are struggling with my baggage and Moggat.” He stretched out a detaining hand as Tom started forward to the door. “Ah, do not disturb yourself! I have spoken with ce bon Moggat, and all is well. He will arrange everything.”

  Tom came back.

  “He will be in a frenzy, Philip! All that baggage!”

  “All—that baggage?” Philip spoke with uplifted brows. “It has arrived?” He went to the window and looked out. “But no, not yet.”

  “B—but—is there more to come?” asked Tom.

  “But of course! The bulk follows me.”

  Tom sat down weakly.

  “And you who six months ago thought yourself rich in the possession of three coats.”

  Philip came back to the fire. He made a little grimace of distaste.

  “Those far-off days! That is ended—completely!”

  Tom cast him a shrewd glance.

  “What, all of it? Cleone?”

  “Ah!” Philip smiled. “That is—another—matter. I have to thank you for your letter, Tom.”

  “It brought you back?”

  “En partie. She is here?”

  “Ay, with Sally Malmerstoke. She is already noticed. Sally takes her everywhere. She is now looked for—and courted.” His eyes twinkled.

  “Oho!” said Philip. He poured out a glass of burgundy from the decanter that stood on a small table. “So she is furious with me, yes?”

  “So I believe. Satterthwaite wrote that you and Bancroft fought over the fair name of some French lass. Did you?”

  Philip sipped his wine.

  “Not a whit. ’Twas her own fair name, à vrai dire.”

  “Oh! You’ll tell her that, of course?”

  “Not at all.”

  Tom stared.

  “What then? Have you some deep game in mind, Philip?”

  “Perhaps. Oh, I don’t know! I thank her for reforming me, but, being human, I am hurt and angry! Le petit Philippe se fâche,” he said, smiling suddenly. “He would see whether it is himself she loves, or—a painted puppet. It’s foolish, but what would you?”

  “So you are now a painted puppet?” said Tom politely.

  “What else?”

  “Dear me!” said Tom, and relapsed into profound meditation.

  “I want to have her love me for—myself, and not for my clothes, or my airs and graces. It’s incomprehensible?”

  “Not entirely,” answered Tom. “I understand your feelings. What’s to do?”

  “Merely my baggage,” said Philip, with another glance towards the window. “It is the coach that you hear.”

  “No, not that.” Tom listened. Voices raised in altercation sounded in the hall.

  Philip laughed.

  “That is the inimitable François. I do not think that Moggat finds favour in his eyes.”

  “I’ll swear he does not find favour in Moggat’s eyes! Who is the other one?”

  “Jacques, my groom and homme á tout faire.”

  “Faith, ye’ve a retinue!”

  “What would you?” shrugged Philip. He sat down opposite his uncle, and stretched his legs to the fire. “Heigh-ho! I do not like this weather.”

  “Nor anyone else. What are you going to do, now that you have returned?”

  “Who knows? I make my bow to London Society, I amuse myself a little—ah yes! and I procure a house.”

  “Do you make your bow to Cleone?”

  An impish smile danced into Philip’s eyes.

  “I present myself to Cleone—as she would have had me. A drawling, conceited, and mincing fop. Which I am not, believe me!”

  Tom considered him.

  “No, you’re not. You don’t drawl.”

  “I shall drawl,” promised Philip. “And I shall be very languid.”

  “It’s the fashion, of course. You did not adopt it?”

  “It did not entice me. I am le petit sans repos, and le petit Philippe au Coeur Perdu, and petit original. Hé, hé, I shall be homesick! It is inevitable.”

  “Are you so much at home in Paris?” asked Tom, rather surprised. “You liked the Frenchies?”

  “Liked them! Could I have disliked them?”

  “I should have thought it possible—for you. Did you make many friends?”

  “A revendre! They took me to their bosoms.”

  “Did they indeed! Who do you count amongst your intimates?”

  “Saint-Dantin—you know him?”

  “I’ve met him. Tall and dark?”

  “Ay. Paul de Vangrisse, Jules de Bergeret, Henri de Chatelin—oh, I can’t tell you! They are all charming!”

  “And the ladies?”

  “Also charming. Did you ever meet Clothilde de Chaucheron, or Julie de Marcherand? Ah, voilà ce qui fait ressouvenir! I count that rondeau one of my most successful efforts. You shall hear it some time or other.”

  “That what?” ejaculated Tom, sitting upright in his surprise.

  “A rondeau: ‘To the Pearl that Trembles in her Ear.’ I would you could have seen it.”

  “Which? The rondeau?”

  “The pearl, man! The rondeau you shall most assuredly see.”

  “Merciful heaven!” gasped Tom. “A rondeau! Philip—poet! Sacr-ré mille petits cochons!”

  *

  “Monsieur dines at home this evening?” asked François.

  Philip sat at his dressing-table, busy with many pots and his face. He nodded.

  “The uncle of Monsieur receives, without doubt?”

  “A card-party,” said Philip, tracing his eyebrows with a careful hand.

  François skipped to the wardrobe and flung it open. With a finger to his nose he meditated aloud.

  “The blue and silver . . . un peu trop soigné. The orange . . . peu convenable. The purple the purple essayons!”

  Philip opened the rouge-jar.

  “The grey I wore at De Flaubert’s last month.”

  François clapped a hand to his head.

  “Ah, sot!” he apostrophised himself. “Voilà qui est très bien.” He dived into the wardrobe, emerging presently with the required dress. He laid it on the bed, stroking it lovingly, and darted away to a large chest. From it he brought forth the pink and silver waistcoat that De Bergeret had admired, and the silver lace. Then he paused. “Les bas . . .? Les bas aux oiseaux-mouches . . . où sont-ils?” He peered into a drawer, turning over neat piles of stockings. A convulsion of fury seemed to seize him, and he sped to the door. “Ah, sapristi! Coquin! Jacques!”

  In answer to his frenzied call came the cadaverous one, shivering. François seized him by the arm and shook him.

  “Thou misbegotten son of a toad!” he raved. “Where is the small box I bade you guard with your life? Where is it, I say. Thou—”

  “I gave it into your hands,” said Jacques sadly. “Into your hands, your very hands, in this room here by the door! I swear it.”

  “Swear it? What is it to me, your swear? I say I have not seen the box! At Dover, what did I do? Nom d’un nom, did I not