Читать книгу The Man with the Scales - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

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The sky was now of a greenish hue, against which the outline of the steep gabled houses stood out sharply; the time seemed to Julius early afternoon. He could not recall when or how he had met Baron Kiss or where he had taken his midday meal. Trett, the servant, with an obliging humble air had taken his place behind his master. Julius found something familiar in the man; what it was he could not say.

There were many people going about on the cheerful business of winter; some with skates, others with wreaths of evergreens.

"I fear that I have missed my lecture," said Julius, "but it is no great matter."

"Certainly not—why, I could teach you in a few hours more than any of these pundits."

Julius was gratified by the Baron's interest in himself and by the worldly man's fluent charm. He did not regret that he had told him so much of his story; indeed, he was eager to relate more details.

"Lydia Dupree—of French descent—is the lady my mother wishes me to marry," he confided, "and I must confess that she is a fashionable beauty of a swinging fortune—"

"Yet you prefer this Annabella Liddiard?"

"Only in order to confound my enemy. She would, alas, be unhappy with him, as I have told you; he is a man of evil tendencies."

"And as such deserves to be punished," said the Baron comfortably.

"Yes, a bad landlord—one without regard for truth or honour—"

"You do well to remove him from the society of decent men."

"But Lydia is a most fair creature."

The Baron was directing their steps into a part of Leyden unknown to Julius.

"I thought you said we were going to the Breestraat?" he asked.

"I have changed my mind. There is an amusing place I should like you to see."

They paused before a building, trim and gay, of red brick and white pilasters, which Julius could not recall seeing before. Baron Kiss rapped on the door with his elegant cane. Julius now perceived that his attire had a military cut and was looped about the seams with braiding in the form of thin laurel leaves.

The door was opened at once by a smart footman in a dark livery; behind him was a vista of light, a corridor which was lit by highly polished candelabra. The servant seemed to know Baron Kiss and bowed with almost exaggerated politeness.

"I am bringing a young friend of mine, well known in Leyden for his learning and the state that he keeps."

The footman bowed again, and Julius followed the Baron into the corridor, which was painted white. Julius noticed that Trett slipped in behind his master. They were at once taken to a large door leading out of the corridor; the footman opened this to show a circular room where a close company were gathered round a table that occupied most of the space.

There was something about the place that Julius did not like. The people, all youthful, had the faces of dolls and wore fantastic straw hats over which were laid sheaves of wild flowers.

It was plain that they were gambling; cards and money were heaped on the green table cloth. Julius had never suspected that there was anything in the nature of a gambling den in Leyden.

Beyond the table was a large mirror with a shelf in front that held a vase of winter evergreens. Nearby stood a young lady who appeared to view the scene with contempt; she was beautiful in a dark Eastern style and dressed in a costly manner Close to her stood a little man of middle age who also surveyed the gamblers with a slight degree of disdain.

As Julius and Baron Kiss entered everyone became still so that it was like looking at an exhibition of waxworks; then suddenly the girl by the mirror laughed; everyone joined in the merriment, and the gamblers took off their masks, as if at a given signal, disclosing the fresh and comely faces of students and the daughters of the citizens of Leyden, many of whom were familiar to Julius.

Their laughter seemed to be pointed at him as if he had in some way been made a fool of, and he glanced at Baron Kiss in a questioning manner.

"I had no idea that this sort of pastime went on in Leyden," he said; "and still less do I know why I was brought here."

"I don't suppose that any of these had any idea of the tale you have just told me," smiled Baron Kiss. "Most people have a secret or two."

Julius now regretted that he had confided in this stranger; he tried to deny what he felt was a piece of folly.

"Oh, as to what I have told you about Martin, Annabella and the death of my father—there is no truth in it. I invented it all—"

"Perhaps you think that I have invented this building and this company?" smiled Baron Kiss.

"No, indeed. I do not take you for a magician," replied Julius; but he was vexed with everyone in the room, including himself. He felt galled that so many of his fellow students, whom he had seen so often decorously enjoying a pipe and a glass of ale in the modest elegance of the Golden Standard, should all the while have been leading this other life of which he knew nothing. He was not pleased, either, to observe, seated at a gambling table, so many young ladies to whom he had always bowed respectfully on the quays or whose finger-tips he had kissed with so distant a courtesy at the formal gatherings given by their parents.

The whole thing seemed like a trick, and he felt a dislike for Baron Kiss (if that really was the fellow's name) for placing him in so disagreeable a situation.

The quiet-looking little man by the mirror came forward and introduced himself as Dr. Jerome Entrick. He at once presented the lady, naming her as his niece who was keeping house for him. He had just, he added, come to take up his quarters in Leyden, where he now held a professorship in botany. He soothed the annoyance Julius felt at the gambling party by explaining that it was all a newly got up affair and they had not mentioned it to Julius as they considered him of too serious a bent to be interested. "As indeed I am," said Julius, eagerly swallowing this sop to his vanity. "It is my earnest wish to get my degree as soon as possible and to return to Scotland"—he glanced at the Baron and noticed for the first time that he wore a curiously shaped cap, of a military cut, the flap of which was turned over and fastened by a jewel of a blazing intensity.

The students and the girls now gathered round Julius and pressed him to join in a game of chance; the stakes were, they declared, very low. He smiled at this enticement, for he had plenty of money.

"Nothing keeps me in Leyden but my studies," he said with an air too grave for his youth.

Dr. Entrick's niece, Amalia von Hart, then asked them all to supper in the adjoining eating room; all excused themselves, however, and, taking shawls and fur coats from the hangers, went their ways, cramming their masks and hats wound with wild flowers into their pockets.

"Well, then," said Amalia, speaking directly to Julius, "will you come and have supper with us and Baron Kiss, or must you always be at your books?"

Julius sensed a challenge, perhaps a mockery, in these words.

"Do not hesitate because you think you are guarding a mystery," added Amalia. "For, of course, your story is well known in Leyden."

"I have not spoken of it to anyone before today!" exclaimed Julius.

"I dare say. But there are many Scots here, and all these feuds are publicly discussed."

"My thoughts and intentions cannot be," replied Julius. The empty gambling room now seemed desolate; he wished that he had not met the Baron, or, for that matter, Dr. Entrick and his niece; all three of them seemed to treat him in a way that made him feel raw, inexperienced, and as if his story, which had so far seemed so important to him, was remote from reality and of no consequence.

Amalia von Hart put on a pelisse of red fur with a lining of striped Roman silk; she seemed, then, in her dark, withdrawn beauty, to be much more than herself; a symbol of unseen things. Julius, for a moment, thought of both Annabella and Lydia as cast-off loves.

They came into the street. Julius was still ignorant of the time. The steep gabled houses still stood out clearly against a greenish sky; chimes were striking; two different clocks clashed the quarter-hour together yet not exactly in unison; Julius was used to the constant filling of the air with religious melodies; they were so much part of the landscape, with the low, quick-flying clouds, the canals bordered with wych elms and the causeways of clearly polished brick, that the young Scot could not set them separately in his thoughts.

The two older men had gone ahead, as if they knew the way, and Julius was obliged to offer some conversation to Amalia von Hart.

He asked her where she had been before she came to Leyden. She replied that she had lived with her uncle in Pisa; he had held a small post at the decaying University. She had found the ancient Italian town very lowering to the spirits; it was much deserted, and many of the grand palaces were falling into ruins or being used as tenements.

Julius had always had joyous thoughts of Italy, which he one day intended to visit, and he was displeased to hear this talk of Pisa, a name that had always dwelt in his mind with a certain grandeur. Amalia seemed to perceive his mood, for she added: "No doubt the city would look very differently to you, going there as a rich traveller. We had to live poorly. My father was killed in the French wars, and we have only my uncle's fees and so see the sad side of things wherever we go."

"How did you come to know this Baron Kiss, who seems a man of substance?"

"Why, he came to one of my uncle's classes. He had a whim to study botany and possesses a very pretty herbarium. Indeed, I should say that he has studied many things. As I dare say you have noticed, he is rather eccentric and has travelled a good deal. Those who have no settled home tend to become odd."

During this speech Julius was turning over his impressions of the whole episode, and finally decided on frankness.

"It seems to me," he said, "that this gentleman deliberately brought us together—"

"Yes, so it seems to me," she replied with an air of candour. "And I cannot think why. We were asked to that gambling party on the excuse that it was a gathering for music—my uncle plays the 'cello and I sing."

"But there was no music."

"None. Nor, I think, any gambling either; only all those people dressed up in masks."

"But I saw the gold and the cards," said Julius.

"Did you? I perceived nothing of that kind, but I had just come from an inner room when you arrived."

"I don't know what it all means," said Julius, slightly perplexed and even alarmed. "Perhaps it has no meaning. At least I hope that you will take no notice of a story this Baron Kiss will claim to have drawn from me."

"I knew that story before I met the Baron," smiled Amalia. "Of course I don't think it is one that does you credit."

"Indeed? May I ask what your nationality is?" asked Julius, piqued by this blame after the praise given him by the Baron.

"Oh, we are of a mixed race. But you will have perceived that I speak an excellent English—is that not sufficient for you?"

"You do not know Scotland?"

"No—but I have spoken with several Scots in Leyden, both professors and students, and all know your feuds and your design of revenge on Martin Deverent."

This statement seemed odd to Julius after what her uncle had said about their recent arrival in Leyden; nor was he aware that there were so many Scots in Leyden or that they would be likely to know of his story. He was heartily sorry that he had imparted this to Baron Kiss and hoped to be able to dispel the whole situation as a legend or delusion.

The air was balmy though keen and full of the salt spray that forever hangs over the Netherlands. Here and there wooden signs and pennants still faintly showed their colours; Julius could not tell if it were moonlight or the last glimmer of the sun that so faintly lit the streets. The few passers-by were hurrying as if intent on arriving at some important destination, and all of them were muffled against the rising cold.

Julius remembered that usually at this time of the evening (if evening it was) he was at home in his comfortable lodgings copying extracts from the vellum-covered books with the sepia inscriptions, or possibly writing a carefully worded letter home to his mother; she was his only correspondent save for his factor, Maryon Leaf, who sent Julius business reports.

They turned down a side street, where a cold light, which appeared almost like ice, covered the narrow canal. They followed Baron Kiss and Dr. Entrick into a small, quiet house of modest pretensions. Everything seemed to have been prepared for them; there was a light on the stairs, and the room they entered was adorned with flowers in Delft vases, heated by a white stove and lit by candles in sticks of blue and white porcelain. Supper for four people was set on the highly polished table.

Julius was about to exclaim at the out-of-season blooms when he recalled the profession of his host and the skill of the Dutch in raising plants under glass; these flowers were mostly white and of a frail, almost unearthly look.

"Wherever we go," said Amalia, "we contrive to find someone who will grow us flowers, even in the winter time."

"I prefer them in their proper season, when they have a more robust air," said Julius, touching a tress of white lilac of a ghostly appearance. "These have no perfume," he added. "One can see that they have never made contact with the earth."

"That has been said sometimes about me," said Amalia, pointing a finger to her bosom and thus directly drawing attention to herself.

Julius had certainly thought that there was something strange about the girl, but he did not think that she shared the remote scentless, delicate quality of the hot-house flowers.

"You wonder why you are here," she added without coquetry.

"Yes, I am rather surprised at the weakness of my own will in allowing this Baron Kiss to force me into your company."

He turned away from Amalia, who appeared to be soliciting his scrutiny, and looked keenly at the Hungarian as he spoke.

But Dr. Entrick put aside this protest. "There are places set for all of us, as you can see," he remarked. "I hope that you can endure our poor company for a short time. The truth is that I met Baron Kiss as soon as I arrived in Leyden, and begged him to come to supper tonight, bringing anyone he knew of interest—"

"And why did the tryst have to be at the gambling salon?" asked Julius.

"Music rooms, my dear sir," replied the botanist in a tone so whimsical that Julius did not trouble to remark that he had seen cards and money on the table; besides, did one have to wear a mask and a fantastic hat in order to play music?

Julius now noticed that Trett was setting the meal. The food was elegant; some delicately preserved fruits were placed in baskets of filigree silver; the wine was in long, pale green bottles; the goblets had a faint amber tinge, and the napkins were of the finest damask. Julius took his place beside Amalia; he now saw that she was wearing a gown of the most brilliant green colour, laced with gold at the seams.

"Do you recall," she asked, "when you took Annabella Liddiard to a ball—and were snowed up? What merry games you had, and how quickly the short winter days passed before the coaches could get through the snow!"

"It is astonishing that anyone should know that!" exclaimed Julius.

"Oh, I am a gossip, and you have already been reminded that there are several Scots in Leyden who know you quite well."

"I suppose that is so," agreed Julius dubiously. "Still, that anyone should recall anything so trivial—"

"Was it so trivial? You learned a good deal of the character of Annabella."

"But that could only affect myself—no one else could consider it of sufficient importance to keep it in mind—"

"But you see that it has been kept in mind. I can tell you what Annabella wore—white, like the snow, fur and slippers—come, eat up your supper and drink this good wine."

"I think that we should drink a toast to the lady we have been mentioning," said Baron Kiss, half rising, with a ceremonious bow. "The health of Miss Annabella Liddiard!"

Julius could not refuse to rise with the others and honour the name of one who seemed extremely remote. He again wished that he had not mentioned her, and he felt the toast to be not only incongruous, but something of a mockery.

As the meal proceeded he was able to take a close note of his companions. Now that Baron Kiss had removed his hat with the gleaming jewel he showed a high forehead and a smooth tuft of white hair that added to his stately appearance. Dr. Entrick, on the contrary, appeared so ordinary as to be almost featureless; Julius was sure that a few moments after leaving him he would have forgotten what he was like.

There could be no doubt about Amalia's beauty; the richness of her colouring and the precise lines of her features were accompanied by a cool self-assurance and a polished manner that made it seem odd even to the inexperience of Julius that she should be content to fill the part of housekeeper to an ill-paid pedant. Nor, indeed, did her clothes indicate poverty. Still, there it was, she lived in obscurity, and Julius wondered why; he knew that both Annabella and Lydia would fade before her as the candle before the sun.

"Will you not find life in Leyden somewhat dull?" he asked her boldly.

"Oh, I make my own world."

"There is no one like you in this old university city—"

"Perhaps not—or perhaps you have never looked for them. And maybe we shall not be here very long."

These words gave Julius a sudden pang of loneliness; yet he could have been sure that he disliked all three of these strangers, even the beautiful woman whose manner towards him was so flattering; for she seemed to give him all her attention as if she had no one better to concern herself with.

"My visit also," said Baron Kiss, "will probably be short."

"Why, when it comes to it, I don't intend to stay very long myself," said Julius. "Only until the end of the term, when I hope I shall take my degree."

"As if that degree was of any importance!" exclaimed Amalia, with a swift smile.

Julius agreed with this comment, which reminded him that he had a certain contempt for his company. At first he had taken Baron Kiss to be a man of property, and the Hungarian had referred to himself as someone who was serving a master of immense power; but if this was so, how came it that he concerned himself with Dr. Entrick, a poor pedagogue, and his jointless niece?

Julius found himself gazing at all three of these strangers with a curiosity that was touched by hostility. Even the beautiful woman looked tawdry, and the hospitality that had first appeared so elegant now seemed vulgar.

He should not have allowed himself to be drawn into this company; he was at Leyden only because of what most people would term a whim; at home his position was that of a lord, owner of a wealthy estate covering many acres of rich land and one of the mightiest castles on the Border.

"I perceive," said Baron Kiss, filling his glass, "that you begin to grow moody. Would you care for us to discuss your story? It is very familiar to all of us, I assure you."

"I do not know," replied Julius with some heat, "what the vanity of an idle moment tempted me into telling you—but I assure you it was all merely a fable."

"We can soon discover the truth of that," interrupted Dr. Entrick. He rose, calling for his hat and cane from Trett, who seemed to be as much in his service as in that of Baron Kiss.

"The host must not be the first to take his leave," said Julius, also rising. "I was about to be on my way."

"You are coming with us," put in Amalia, accepting from Trett the red fur with the silk Roman-striped lining. Julius could not be rid of them. He thought that they must intend to extract some service from him, perhaps even to offer some violence; he was still annoyed by their knowledge of his story and irritated by the social inferiority of all of them (save perhaps the Baron) to himself.