In Bohemia with Du Maurier | Page 7

Felix Moscheles
represented."
[Illustration: HOW RAG TRIES TO DÉSILLUSIONER CARRY ON
BOBTAIL, AND BOBTAIL TRIES TO DITTO DITTO ON RAG.]
The truth of the matter is that we shared fraternally in the enjoyment of

her good graces, he having the pull of me the greater part of the week,
and only suspending operations in my favour when I came to Malines
on a Saturday to Monday visit. These occasions were productive of a
great number of drawings and sketches, illustrating our little adventures,
and all plainly showing that the incidents recorded occurred to us at
that pleasant time of life, when bright illusions and buoyant spirits lead
the way, and when sorrow itself has more of the rose colour than many
a rose of a later day.
Malines was, and perhaps is still, a dull, deserted city, at best up to the
date of last century, beating the record for dry-as-dustiness and growing
dear little blades of grass between its cobble stones. It boasts of a great
many churches and of a very great many more priests. (_Vide_: The
ingenious use which Rag makes of Bobtail's pliable hat.) In addition to
these attractions, there was, however, a factor of paramount interest to
us. Then and there, just as now and elsewhere, there were pretty girls
about, and I need not say that, as both of us were studying art and
devoting our best energies to the cult of the beautiful, we considered it
our duty to take special notice of these pretty girls wherever we came
across them. It is probably the conscientious performance of his duty in
that direction which enabled du Maurier to evolve those ever-attractive
and sympathetic types of female beauty we are all so familiar with. Nor
would it have been becoming in me, who had everything to learn, to lag
behind, or to show less ardour in the pursuit of my studies.
[Illustration: THE INGENIOUS USE WHICH RAG MAKES OF
BOBTAIL'S PLIABLE HAT.]
Thus, whilst du Maurier's facile pen was throwing off black and white
sketches of Miss Carry, it was reserved for me to paint her portrait in
oils. Her real name was Octavie, not Carry; that appellation we had
most unceremoniously and unpoetically derived from "Cigar." All else
about her we invested, if not with ceremony with a full amount of
poetry. And certainly there was a subtle quality in Carry, well worthy
of appreciation, a faculty of charming and being charmed, of giving and
taking, of free and easiness, coupled with ladylike reserve. She seemed
to be born with the intuitive knowledge that there was only one life
worth living, that of the Bohemian, and to be at the same time well
protected by a pretty reluctance to admit as much. In fact, to give a
correct idea of her I need but say her soul was steeped in the very

essence of Trilbyism. Having got to Carry's soul, it may not be
inappropriate to say something also about her looks; but to describe
good looks is, as we all know, deliberately to court failure; far better
request every man to conjure up his own type of beauty and he will be
sure to be interested in the picture he evolves. That man will be nearest
the truth whose young lady has a rich crop of brown curly hair, very
blue inquisitive eyes, and a figure of peculiar elasticity.
Octavie L., dite Carry, was the daughter of an organist who had held a
good position at one of the principal churches of Malines. When he
died he left but a small inheritance to his widow; with what she could
realise, she purchased the goodwill of a small tobacconist's store and
set up in business. Neither the mother nor the daughter had much
previous knowledge of the concern they had started, and they were
consequently not very discriminating in the selection of their brands;
but what was lacking in connoisseurship was fully made up for by Mrs.
L.'s obliging manners and by Octavie's blue eyes. These had been
steadily gaining in expression since she first opened them about
seventeen years back. Customers soon came in, and for a time the little
business was as flourishing as anything could well be in Malines. The
average citizen of so ecclesiastically conservative, and hereditarily
stationary a city could hardly be expected to encourage a new venture
of the kind. Still even there there were some young men about town, a
sort of "jeunesse doré", not of 18-carat gold perhaps, but a "jeunesse"
quite equal to the pleasant task of buzzing around the fair tobacconist.
Mrs. L. did her share of chaperoning; du Maurier and I supplied the rest,
and watched over her with chivalrous, if not quite disinterested
devotion. We differed in every respect from the type of the young
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