Princess Sarah, and Other Stories

  Yum-Yum: A Pug

  CHAPTER I

  For a pug Yum-Yum was perfect, and let me tell you it takes a great manyspecial sorts of beauty to give you a pug which in any way approachesperfection.

  First, your true pug must be of a certain colour, a warm fawn-colour; itmust have a proper width of chest and a bull-doggish bandiness about thelegs; it must have a dark streak from the top of its head along its backtowards the tail; it must have a double twist to that same tail, andthree rolls of fat or loose skin, set like a collar about its throat; itmust have a square mouth, an ink-black--no, no, a soot-black mask (thatis, face) adorned with an infinitesimal nose, a pair of large andlustrous goggle-eyes, and five moles. I believe, too, that there issomething very important about the shape and colouring of its toes; butI really don't know much about pugs, and this list of perfections isonly what I have been able to gather from various friends who dounderstand the subject.

  So let me get on with my story, and say at once that Yum-Yum possessedall these perfections. She may have had others, for she was withoutdoubt a great beauty of her kind, and she certainly was blessed with anadmirable temper, an angelic temper, mild as new milk, and as patient asJob's.

  And Yum-Yum belonged to a little lady called Nannie Mackenzie.

  Yum-Yum: A Pug.]

  The Mackenzies, I must tell you, were not rich people, or in any waypersons of importance; they had no relations, and apparently belonged tono particular family; but they were very nice people, and very goodpeople, and lived in one of a large row of houses on the Surrey side ofthe river Thames, at that part which is called Putney.

  Mr. Mackenzie was something in the city, and had not apparently hit upona good thing, for there was not much money to spare in the house atPutney. I rather fancy that he was managing clerk to a tea-warehouse,but am not sure upon that point. Mrs. Mackenzie had been a governess,but of course she had not started life as a teacher of small children;no, she had come into the world in an upper room of a pretty countryvicarage, where the olive branches grew like stonecrop, and mostvisitors were in the habit of reminding the vicar of certain lines inthe hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm.

  In course of time this particular olive plant, like her sisters, pickedup a smattering of certain branches of knowledge, and, armed thus, wentout into the wide world to make her own way. Her knowledge was notextensive; it comprised a fluent power of speaking her mother-tonguewith a pleasant tone and correct accent, but without any verywell-grounded idea of why and wherefore it was so. She also knew alittle French of doubtful quality, and a little less German that wasdistinctly off colour. She could copy a drawing in a woodenly accuratekind of way, with stodgy skies made chiefly of Chinese white, andexceedingly woolly trees largely helped out with the same usefulcomposition. At that time there was no sham about Nora Browne'spretensions to art--there they were, good, bad, or indifferent, and youmight take them for what they were worth, which was not much. It wasnot until she had been Mrs. Mackenzie for some years that she took to"doing" the picture-galleries armed with catalogue and pencil, andtalked learnedly about _chiar-oscuro_, about distance and atmosphere,about this school and that, this method or the other treatment. Therewere frequenters of the art-galleries of London to whom Mrs. Mackenzie,_nee_ Nora Browne, was a delightful study; but then, on the other hand,there was a much larger number of persons than these whom she impresseddeeply, and who even went so far as to speak of her with bated breath as"a power" on the press, while, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Mackenzie'slittle paragraphs were very innocent, and not very remunerative, andgenerally won for the more or less weekly society papers in which theyappeared a reputation for employing an art-critic who knew a good dealmore about the frames than about the pictures within them.

  However, all this is a little by the way! I really only give thesedetails of Mrs. Mackenzie's doings to show that the family was, byvirtue of their mother being a dabbler in journalism, in touch with theset which I saw the other day elegantly described as "Upper Bohemia."

  Now in the circles of "Upper Bohemia" nobody is anybody unless they cando something--unless they can paint pictures or umbrella vases andmilking-stools, unless they can sing attractively, or play someinstrument beyond the ordinary average of skill, unless they can writenovels or make paragraphs for the newspapers, unless they can act orgive conjuring entertainments, or unless they can compose pretty littlesongs with a distinct _motif_, or pieces for the piano which nobody canmake head or tail of. It is very funny that there should be so wide adifference necessary between the composition of music for the voice andmusic for the piano. For the first there must be a little something tocatch the ear, a little swing in the refrain, a something to make thehead wag to and fro; the words may be ever so silly if they are onlybordering on the pathetic, and if the catch in the refrain is takingenough the rest of the song may be as silly as the words, and still itwill be a success. But with a piece it is different. For that the airmust be resolutely turned inside out, as it were, and apparently if thecomposer chances to light on one or two pretty bits, he goes back againand touches them up so as to make them match all the rest. It seems oddthis, but the world does not stop to listen, but talks its hardest, andas at the end it says "How lovely!" I suppose it is all right.

  But all these people stand in the very middle of "Upper Bohemia," and,as a pebble dropped into the water makes circles and ever-wideningcircles on the smooth surface, so do the circles which constitute "UpperBohemia" widen and widen until eventually they merge into the worldbeyond! There are the amateurs and the reciters, and the artists whoput "decorative" in front of the word which denotes their calling, andthen put a hyphen between the two! And there are the thought-readers,and the palmists, and the people who have invented a new religion! Allthese are in the ever-widening circles of "Upper Bohemia." And outsidethese again come the fashionable lady-dressmakers and the art-milliners,the trained nurses and the professors of cooking. After these you maygo on almost _ad libitum_, until the circle melts into professional lifeon the one hand and fashionable life on the other.

  You have perhaps been wondering, my gentle reader, what all this canpossibly have to do with the pug, Yum-Yum, which belonged to a littlegirl named Nannie Mackenzie. Well, it really has something to do withit, as I will show you. First, because it tells you that this was theset of people to whom the Mackenzies belonged and took a pride inbelonging. It is true that they had a stronger claim to belong to a cityset; but you see Mrs. Mackenzie had been brought up in the bosom of theChurch, and thought more of the refined society in "Upper Bohemia" thanshe did of all the money bags to be found east of Temple Bar! In this Ithink she was right; in modern London it does not do for the lion to liedown with the lamb, or for earthenware pipkins to try sailing down thestream with the iron pots. In "Upper Bohemia," owing to the haziness ofher right of entry, Mrs. Mackenzie was quite an important person; in thecity, owing to various circumstances--shortness of money, most ofall--Mrs. Mackenzie was nowhere.

  Mrs. Mackenzie had not followed the example of her father and motherwith regard to the size of her family; she had only three children, twogirls and a boy--Rosalind, Wilfrid, and Nannie.

  At this time Nannie was only ten years old, a pretty, sweet, engagingchild, with frank blue eyes and her mother's pretty trick of manner, achild who was never so happy as when she had a smart sash on with aclean white frock in readiness for any form of party that had happenedto come in her way.

  Wilf was different. He was a grave, quiet boy of thirteen, alreadyworking for a scholarship at St. Paul's School, and meaning to be agreat man some day, and meanwhile spending all his spare hourscollecting insects and gathering specimens of fern leaves together.

  Above Wilf was Rosalind, and Rosalind was sixteen, a tall, willowy slipof a girl, with a pair of fine eyes and a passion for art. I do notmean a passion for making the woodenly accurate drawings with stodgyclouds and woolly trees which had satisfied her mother's soul and madeher so eminently competent to criticise the work of
other folk--no, notthat, but a real passion for real art.

  Now the two Mackenzie girls had had a governess for several years, amildly amiable young lady of the same class, and possessed of about thesame amount of knowledge as Mrs. Mackenzie herself had been. She toomade wooden drawings with stodgy clouds and woolly trees, and shepainted flowers--such flowers as made Rosalind's artistic soul risewithin her and loathe Miss Temple and all her works, nay, sometimesloathe even those good qualities which were her chiefest charm.

  Rosalind wanted to go further a-field in the art world than either hermother's paragraphs or Miss Temple's copies; she wanted to join somewell-known art-class, and, giving up everything else, go in for realhard, grinding work.

  But it could not be done, for, as I have said, money was not plentifulin the house at Putney, and there was always the boy to be thought of,and also there was Nannie's education to finish. To let Rosalind joinan expensive art-class would mean being without Miss Temple, and Mrs.Mackenzie felt that to do that would be to put a great wrong upon littleNannie, for which she would justly be able to reproach her all her lifelong.

  "It would not do, my dear," she said to Rosalind, when her elderdaughter was one day holding forth on the glories which might one day behers if only she could get her foot upon this, the lowest rung of theladder by which she would fain climb to fame and fortune; "and really Idon't see the sense or reason of your being so anxious to follow art asa profession. I am sure you paint very well. That little sketch ofwild roses you did last week was exquisite; indeed, I showed it to MissDumerique when I was looking over her new art-studio in Bond Street.She said it would be charming painted on a thrush's-egg ground for amilking-stool or a tall table, or used for a whole suite of bedroom orboudoir furniture. I'm sure, my dear, you might make quite anincome----"

  "Did Miss Dumerique _offer_ to do one--to let me do any work of thatkind for her?" Rosalind broke in impatiently.

  "No, she did not," Mrs. Mackenzie admitted, "but----"

  "But, depend upon it, she is at work on the idea long before this,"cried Rosalind. She knew Miss Dumerique, and had but small faith in anyincome from that quarter, several of her most cherished designs having_suggested_ ideas to that gifted lady.

  "If I only had twenty pounds, twenty pounds," Rosalind went on, "itwould give me such a help, such a lift I should learn so much if I couldspend twenty pounds; and it's such a little, only the price of the dressMrs. Arlington had on the other day, and she said it was so cheap--'Justa cheap little gown, my dear, to wear in the morning.' Oh! if only Ihad the price of that gown."

  "Rosalind, my dear," cried Mrs. Mackenzie, "don't say that--it sounds solike envy, and envy is a hateful quality."

  "Yes, I know it is, but I do want twenty pounds so badly," answeredRosalind in a hopeless tone.

  Mrs. Mackenzie began to sob weakly. "If I could give it to you,Rosalind, you know I would," she wailed, "but I haven't got it. I workand work and work and strain every nerve to give you the advantages; ay,and more than the advantages that I had when I was your age. But Ican't give you what I haven't got--it's unreasonable to ask it or toexpect it."

  "I didn't either ask or expect it," said Rosalind; but she said it underher breath, and felt that, after all, her mother was right--she couldnot give what she had not got.

  It was hard on them both--on the girl that she could not have, on themother that she could not give! Rosalind from this time forth keptsilence about her art, because she knew that it was useless to hope forthe impossible--kept silence, that is, from all but one person. And yetshe could not keep her thoughts from flying ever and again to theart-classes and the twenty pounds which would do so much for her. So upin the room at the top of the house, where she dabbled among her scantypaints and sketched out pictures in any colours that she happened tohave, and even went so far in the way of economy as to utilize theleavings of her mother's decorative paints--hedge-sparrow's-egg-blue,Arabian brown, eau de Nil, Gobelin, and others equally unsuitable forher purpose,--Rosalind Mackenzie dreamed dreams and saw visions--visionsof a great day when she would have paints in profusion and art-teachinggalore. There was not the smallest prospect of her dreams and visionscoming true, any more than, without teaching and without paints, therewas of her daubs growing into pictures, and finding places on the lineat the Academy and the New. It is always so with youth. It hopes andhopes against hope, and when hope is dead, there is no longer any youth;it is dead too.

  "There are youthful dreamers, Building castles fair, with stately stairways; Asking blindly Of the Future what it cannot give them."