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قراءة كتاب The Triumph of Jill
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
intimated that he would be glad of more work from her in the future. This was encouraging, and Jill went home in the best of spirits. That night she wrote to Mr St. John stating as briefly as possible that she regretted any inconvenience to which he had been put, but on consideration she discovered that she could not possibly take any fresh pupils just at present. Then she tossed his card into the fire with a sigh of relief, and, watching it consume, saw the last, as she supposed, of Mr John St. John.
The next day she did not go out at all, but sat at home working busily, and endeavouring her hardest not to think with regret of last night’s now irrevocable decision. What a pity it was that instead of Mr St. John it had not been some lanky school girl with short dresses and a pigtail; it would have been so nice to have someone to talk to occasionally. At present her conversation was restricted to the man who bought her pictures, and the hard-worked, lodging-house slavey on the not too numerous occasions when she brought up the coals. The following afternoon she went out as usual to try and get a few fresh orders, and if possible sell some of her present work. Neither attempt however proved successful, and she arrived home tired and worried with a distinct disinclination to climb the stairs. The ascent had to be made nevertheless, and so she trudged wearily up, and pushed open the studio door with a long drawn sigh of sheer fatigue. That night she crept into bed supperless because she did not feel hungry, and as a natural sequence cried herself to sleep.
Chapter Two.
The following morning Jill received another visit. It was a case of history repeating itself so to speak. She was seated in much the same attitude as on the former occasion, only this time she waited and allowed the visitor to stumble up the stairs as best he could and knock before she rose to open the door. It was the same quick blundering step, and, when she confronted him, the same slightly scowling face that met her glance; apparently Mr St. John did not find the stairs less intricate on further acquaintance. He held his hat in his hand and Jill noticed that he looked rather diffident.
“You got my note?” she queried with a clearly perceptible inflection of surprise in her voice.
“Yes,” he answered, “that is why I am here. I must apologise, though, for calling on your class day. As a matter of fact I came yesterday afternoon but found I had just missed you; you were out.”
“Yes,” she replied, “I was out, but I never heard that you had been. It was courageous of you to attempt those stairs a second time. Will you come in?”
He entered, and then looked round in surprise. The room was just the same as on the former occasion unoccupied save by themselves and with no visible preparation for anyone else. Jill detected the look and resented it.
“You are wondering where my pupils are,” she said quickly, “I am expecting—no,” with a proud upraising of her small chin, “I am not expecting—How could I expect anyone to mount those stairs?—I am hoping that some may turn up eventually.”
“And yet,” he said in a distinctly offended tone, “you refuse the first who presents himself. But perhaps you mistrusted my claim to respectability?”
Jill blushed uncomfortably. She had forgotten for the moment that she had refused him as a pupil on the ground of having no vacancy.
“It—it isn’t that,” she tried to explain. “I can quite believe that you are very respectable but—Oh! can’t you understand?—I wanted to teach children?”
Apparently he did not consider that sufficient reason to preclude her from teaching him also; he did not seem to think that there might be other reasons which had led up to this—to him—very trivial one.
“I don’t know any more than a child would,” he replied, “and I should pay three times the fee—double for being an adult, treble for being a male adult which some ladies seem to consider an additional inconvenience.”
“Excuse me,” put in Jill severely, “if I undertook to teach you my charge would be the same for you as for any other pupil, but I am afraid I must decline.”
“Very well,” he answered huffily, “the decision of course rests with you, but I won’t attempt to disguise the fact that I am very disappointed.”
He walked towards the door, but stopped, and came back a little way.
“If it is anything to do with—that is I mean to say—I will pay in advance,” he blurted out.
The girl bit her lip.
“It has nothing to do with that,” she cried sharply. “Oh, dear me, how very dense you are! Don’t you see that it wouldn’t do for me to teach you?”
He stared at her.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed, “you don’t mean to say that you’re afraid of Mrs Grundy? She would never get up those stairs I can assure you, and if she did why we’d stick her on the model throne and paint her.”
Jill laughed in spite of herself. It sounded very ridiculous put into plain English, and yet after all he had pretty well hit upon the truth.
“It isn’t only Mrs Grundy,” she replied, “but I—I don’t feel equal to undertaking you. I think it would be better if you went to someone—older.”
“When I read your advertisement,” he said stiffly, “I imagined that you would be older. But I don’t see that it much matters. I want to study art. You wish to teach it and have no other pupils. Why not try me for a quarter and see how it works?”
It was a great temptation, Jill still hesitated. Absurd as she felt it to be she was unmistakably nervous at the thought of teaching this big young man, while he, noting her indecision, stood waiting anxiously for her to speak, too engrossed with his project to consider her at all; she merely represented a means to an end, the object through which he might accomplish the only real ambition of his life.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly after a long pause, “I think perhaps I might try as you suggest, for the quarter but—I wish you had been a girl.”
“Thank you,” he answered. “I am sorry that I cannot agree with you. Shall I stay this morning?”
Jill looked rather alarmed at this proposal, but, she reasoned within herself, if he were coming at all he might as well begin at once, so, after another long pause, and a dubious look round the none too tidy studio, she gave an ungracious assent, whereupon he immediately commenced divesting himself of his overcoat, an action he regretted when it was too late, and, but for fear of hurting her feelings, he would have slipped into it again for the fire was nearly out and the room struck chill; he wondered how she sat there painting with her small hands almost blue with cold.
“The servant,” explained Jill airily with the astuteness of a very observant nature, “will be here with the coals shortly; she usually brings them up at about eleven.”
He looked rather disconcerted.
“Oh, I’m not cold in the least,” he exclaimed untruthfully, “it is quite warm to-day.”
“Yes,” replied the girl shortly, “the thermometer is below Zero, I should say. Will you sit here please?”
She placed him as near the fire as possible and provided him