Читать книгу The Man with the Scales - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 7

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When Julius awoke it was broad daylight, and the round- faced serving-maid brought in his breakfast as if nothing curious had happened. Perhaps, he thought, it was all a dream—though he had never thought of himself as a dreamer.

He went to the window, a cup of hot coffee in his hand, and looked out at the handsome street; a lingering sweetness was in the chill air, a lingering gold in the pallid sky, yet the icy gloom of the short winter's day was already everywhere.

Where had he been last night, in the Oude Kirk or that of Saint Bavon?

Leaving his breakfast uneaten, Julius left his lodging and walked briskly in his fur-lined coat, along the tranquil back streets where the notice cubicola locanda showed in many of the gleaming windows. He walked at random; by the Weigh House and the butter market, the harbour with the Zyl Port. Not being able to come to terms with his thoughts or his roamings, Julius took himself to the stables of a man well known to him and there hired a horse; in order to have somewhere to go, he took the level road to a certain ruined castle that he knew of; he had always considered it odd that in a country so completely prosperous there should be a place so completely abandoned.

He paused by the verge of a lake, formed by the overflowing of the old moat, where a lad had gathered some sheep; Julius, who now spoke Dutch with a fair fluency, asked the youth the story of the castle; the shepherd did not know; hollow and forlorn the ruin had stood thus in the midst of the water ever since even old men could remember; the family who had built it must long since have become extinct.

The winter sky now had the quality of blond nacre dabbled with brown tossed clouds; the lake reflected these colours, also the broken walls of the Kasteel and the crumbling towers, one of which still retained a whimsical metal turret and a spire from which no weathercock glittered.

Through the hollow windows of floorless rooms Julius could see the distant outlines of a snow-flecked landscape. On the far bank some peasants watched their cattle trying to find some green amid the winter-bitten grass.

Near to the sheep and close to where Julius had stayed his horse was an uprooted tree—for the winter gales had been sharp—and one of those dark-leaved, thick plants that withstand the winter's cold. Other trees, erect but stripped of leaves, showed within the grim interior of the castle; once a fortalice built for war, and long since useless save as a passing shelter to a vagrant bird or wild beast.

Julius gazed in dreamy curiosity at this desolate building that did not even possess a legend; then, turning the head of his neat patient horse, he went back towards Leyden. His mood was now softened and calm. Had Martin Deverent now appeared before him, Julius would have granted all his requests; nay, if he had suddenly come upon Baron Kiss he would truthfully have assured the Hungarian that he desired no revenge on the man whom he had so long considered his enemy. Yet this halting of his spite caused a halting of all his activities also; it no longer seemed worth while to pursue his studies, nor did he feel any animation at the thought of returning to his native place and fulfilling his mother's wishes by marrying Lydia Dupree.

Leaving his horse at the stables, he returned, in an idle mood, to his lodgings.

The door of the great parlour was open, and he glimpsed his landlady's daughter, a studious girl, bent over her books; everything about her was luxurious and more splendid than anything that Julius might hope to find on his return to Scotland. Once more, and now without knowing that he did so, he admired the black-and-white marble floors, the leather chairs with the brass nails, the mirrors framed in gilt wood and the heavy presses and cupboards that contained, he knew, a rich store of silver, fine damask, and rolls of satin and velvet. The air was flavoured with the perfume of coffee and spice; on Persian tapestries stood carven pots holding flowers that blossomed in the heat given out by the large porcelain stove. The girl, Cornelia by name, did not look up. She took no more notice of the entry of Julius than she took of the anxious gazing greyhound that stood close to the folds of her vermilion-coloured skirt.

On the stairs he met Cornelia's mother, a woman who seemed much shut away from him.

He knew that these two Dutchwomen, who lived fastidiously on the savings of a dead professor of anatomy and their own letting of rooms to students, represented a way of life that would always be alien to him. He had lived nearly two years in their house and knew very little of them.

The older woman was carrying upstairs a bundle of cold, glossy linen. She was stout and a little bent, for she had seen much service; her strong shoulders were bowed by bending over so many cradles, so many pots and pans, so many death-beds. Julius recognized her as one who saw the will of the Lord in everything that befell her. He wished that he could gain the same serene resignation. If she had no faith in Divine Compassion, at least she credited God with great good sense.

Julius watched her as she moved into another room, leaving the door open behind her. From the oaken sideboard she took down some goblets, amber-green in colour, and, finding them without a speck of dust, returned them to their places.

Beyond the diamond-paned window behind her Julius could see the row of low, pollarded limes that bordered the canal. There, too, he saw a red fur with a lining of Roman-striped silk.

This sudden sight of Amalia von Hart had an almost overpowering effect on him. He went upstairs to his own chamber, and would have bolted the outer door had not the impulse seemed utterly childish. But evidently it was not himself that the pedant's daughter had come to see; he could hear her pretty voice, speaking Dutch with a strong foreign accent, speaking to the landlady on the stairs.

What did she want in his retreat? How had she found out about it?

Julius, lingering by his door, the key yet in his hand, overheard the conversation of the two women. Amalia von Hart was trying to obtain lodgings, for herself and her father, whose position she represented in very rosy hues.

Despising himself for eavesdropping, Julius closed the door, and, in sheer idleness, went to the window. Martin Deverent was on the other side of the canal, waiting with an interested air. He was soon joined by Amalia von Hart, who crossed swiftly over the humped bridge that arched the canal.

Julius at once felt a great tingle of anger that he could by no means understand. What was either of these people to him? Had he not resolved to put Martin out of his life? It now seemed that this was not possible; the fellow must interfere with him. Julius could not guess at his enemy's connection with the von Harts, but it was clear that there was one. He went hastily downstairs in search of his landlady, and found her standing by the door of her room with a puzzled expression on her usually serene face.

"Did that young lady come to ask after me?" he demanded impetuously.

"Do you know her?" asked the Dutch woman in surprise. "I should not have thought, Mynheer—"

"You are right," returned the young Scot resolutely. "She is not of my acquaintances—yet I met her once—and I know the man—a fellow Scot, with whom she came—"

"I did not see him. The lady came to ask for lodgings for herself and her father, who has a post at the University."

"And you had no rooms to let?"

"None," replied the old woman firmly. "Can you imagine a creature like that in my house?"

"No—but would you tell me exactly why?" asked Julius with a curiosity he could not understand very well himself.

The other replied with great simplicity:

"I have never seen anyone like that in Leyden or in Dordt, which is my native town."

"She is foreign—do you know of what race?" asked Julius.

"No. But why, sir, should it trouble you? She did not even mention your name."

Julius thought it useless to confide to this tranquil old woman the odd turn that his story had taken; for odd it appeared to him; he still could not understand why he felt so angry at the obvious friendship between Amalia von Hart and Martin Deverent. He felt that, in some obscure way, they were in a plot to make a fool of him, and that Martin's appeal in the whitewashed church had been part of this stratagem. These feelings confirmed him in his almost foregone resolve to ruin Martin.

He turned to his table and took up his law books, then turned over several portfolios that contained accounts of the various quarrels that had embroiled the family of Sale with that of Deverent, together with descriptions of the death of Kenneth Sale and the trial of Robert Deverent for his murder. He almost knew them by heart; yet there was something unsatisfactory about the whole episode, as if it had never yet been rightly told.

His mother and his friends had never doubted that Martin's father had murdered his; in fact it seemed as if the accused man had hardly attempted to defend himself. He had put in a plea of accident at the trial, certainly, but after his acquittal he had appeared to accept the unexpressed verdict of his neighbours and gone abroad, self-exiled, paying little attention to either worldly or spiritual matters. Julius could just recall the appearance of this dark man with the scowling brows, who resembled his son in so little; he had always lived like a recluse, and his wife was a sad-faced creature who shared his misfortunes with a mute constancy.

The story went—and Julius had heard it from his earliest youth—that Martin, though no more than a child of ten years or so at the time of the tragedy, had somehow helped his father, though in what way had never been made clear to Julius—either by giving false evidence in his favour, or even (for he had been present at that scene) by distracting the attention of Kenneth Sale so that Robert Deverent might shoot him as either of the men would have shot a rabbit.

This strong rumour had always nourished the hatred that Julius had felt for Martin. Other tales also had come to his ears of how Martin had boasted of the manner in which Kenneth Sale, too arrogant, too wealthy, too narrow-minded, had been disposed of as if he had been vermin.

These tales had been brought to the ears of Julius by various travellers who had met Martin unexpectedly abroad, where he would suddenly appear at some club, casino or gambling salon, always shabby, neglectful of his own interests and possessing neither discretion nor grace of manner. Many evils were imputed to his charge; the best that was known of him was his respectful wooing of Annabella Liddiard during his brief and infrequent visits to Scotland.

Turning these matters over in his mind, Julius decided that it was not, after all, so strange that Martin should have appeared in Leyden; but what had Baron Kiss and the von Harts to do with the matter? Julius, frowning over the whole exasperating situation, perceived one cause of his own annoyance; if Martin was attracted by Amalia von Hart, then he, Julius, could not irritate, slight or humiliate him by attracting the affections of Annabella Liddiard; yet Julius could not get from his mind the appeal that Martin had made in the whitewashed church, out of the shadows of the young warrior's tomb. It was difficult to believe that that was in any way feigned. Julius recalled also the gleaming half of the golden coin that had hung above the young man's faded attire.

"At least," Julius muttered to himself moodily, "the routine of my life in Leyden has been shattered. I do not see how I can get back to the lecture room—the treatise—the law book—"

Two days had surely been already spoilt; for though he was confused as to time he thought that it must be at least forty-eight hours since he had first met Baron Kiss, the man who had at first attracted him so brilliantly and who now seemed the cause of intangible misfortunes. Yet why, he asked himself, should it be a misfortune to lose a revenge, that was, whichever way one looked at it, ignoble? Julius had no answer to this question, but he felt that some powerful attraction had gone out of his life and that it would be impossible to return to Scotland and live as a landed gentleman and the husband of Lydia Dupree. At least he would go about Leyden and try to find where Martin lodged.

First he went to the Golden Standard, which was frequented by all save the very poorest students. While he ate his meal he looked about, expecting to see at least Baron Kiss, who had seemed so familiar with the place; but there was no one there he knew save some of the students he had seen in the gambling saloon, and they gave him no sign of recognition.

'Perhaps,' he thought, 'this coffee house is too costly both for the von Harts—for did not Amalia boast of poverty?—and for Martin.'

He therefore quickly finished his meal and visited several other coffee houses, some quite modest, where the students were likely to go for their hot drinks, their disputations and their readings of the Dutch gazettes.

But in none of these did he see the red fur with the Roman-striped lining, the peculiar military cap with the brilliant jewel, or the shabby clothes worn by Martin Deverent. It seemed so strange to him that in a city as small as Leyden, where there were so few places for people to congregate, he should chance not to meet any of those three that he began to wonder if all were not some trick dream engendered, perhaps, by over-attention to his studies. But against this theory, fantastic at best, was the visit of Amalia von Hart to his own lodgings and his own sight of Martin waiting for her on the other side of the canal. No, these people were somewhere in Leyden, and he, without doubt, was determined to find them.

Without giving a thought to his neglected studies, which now seemed purposeless, he wandered the wintry streets, as if, by hazard, he might find the people whom he sought. Recalling, vaguely, where he had met Martin Deverent, he turned into a church, but it was not at all like the one he had entered the evening before. The atmosphere was of great gloom, something bleak and dreary; only the windows, composed of coloured glass, filled the church with magnificence. Daylight shone through the florid designs, which were so rich that they seemed like glimpses of actual scenes between the rounded arches of the arcades. The figures, draped in veils of brilliant blues, purples and reds, moved through immense and flowing compositions and a pellucid, golden air, while the reflections of a thousand rich gems seemed to glitter.

Julius saw Cornelia, his landlady's daughter, enter the church; she carried a rush basket of flowers covered with a clean cloth. Julius then remembered, what he had never noticed before, that his rooms were kept sweet with blooms all the year round. No doubt the women had the acquaintance of a greenhouse-keeper. Yet the forced odourless flowers of winter had not made the impression on him that had been made by the displays offered by Amalia von Hart at her father's supper.

Cornelia set the basket on the floor. Dutch churches, as Julius well knew, were not adorned with anything but the beautiful glass. Cornelia began her set task of dusting and polishing, taking no heed of her mother's lodger, who sat vacantly regarding her from one of the rush-bottomed chairs Cornelia's step made a notable sound in the drowsy stillness. A large tiled stove heated the church. The girl wore a hood and cloak of pear-coloured cloth with wide bands of white fur, over a gown of lustrous grey silk; her hair, fine and pale as raw silk, was twisted in a rope like satin at the nape of her fair young neck. Julius had no interest in Cornelia and had never noticed her with detailed care before; he had always thought of her, when he had thought of her at all, as a slightly pampered child; now, as she went about the church with her duster and feather broom, she seemed like a diligent housekeeper.

Yet Julius was not really thinking of her at all, but of Amalia von Hart, who was probably nothing of a housekeeper; but he remembered the supper served at Dr. Entrick's and retracted his opinion. His vague meditations were interrupted by the appearance of the very person he had, if not hoped, at least perversely wished, to see: Martin Deverent.

"By what strange chance," he exclaimed, "do I twice come upon you in a church?"

He was indeed deeply startled, as if he had come upon an apparition at noonday. Cornelia took no more heed of the second comer than she had of himself. Martin now wore a shabby russet mantle over his worn suit.

"You disappeared yesterday before we could finish our argument."

"It was no argument," replied Martin. "Come outside and let us speak again."

They left the church; it was evening again and unclouded. They went outside the city; the sun was disappearing behind the immense distant horizon and casting long shadows that would linger until the last withdrawal of the long rays.

The distance was misted with touches of gold; here a faintly seen spire, here a bouquet of trees, here a little farm guarded by espaliers, everywhere the gleams of the waterways, the only movement the sails of a windmill quietly revolving.

"Make it possible for me to go home," said Martin Deverent.

"You know that I do not prevent you."

"I know that you evade me," replied the other. "If I could be sure that there would be no lawsuit—that Annabella would be faithful to me—"

Julius scornfully cut him short.

"You should be man enough to confront these eventualities!"

"But all the cards are in your hands," protested Martin. "You know that Annabella is much pressed by her people to accept you—and you know that winning the lawsuit—or gaining victory without one—is very likely to happen to you."

Hearing these words from the man he still disliked gave Julius a sensation of triumph.

The radiance had reluctantly faded from the landscape; but the afterglow had the same quality of clarity; purple shadows darkened the dykes; in the sombre blue-green water the stonework of the causeways and the shapes and sails of the canals were reflected, line for line, thread for thread; all was fading into darkness, but nothing was blurred. The very darkness was clear; the snowdrifts, frozen in the starved grass at the feet of Julius and his enemy, were minutely exact even in this twilight; while beyond them was the flat distance, immense, mournful, a region of immeasurable illusion of sad enchantment.

"Come," asked Julius, trying to throw off the spell of the place and hour, "how is it that you have twice brought yourself into my company in this unexpected way?"

"Surely my requests to you were made in the plainest manner?"

"Yet there is something odd about them. How did you know I was at Leyden?"

"Many people know that—it is common gossip," replied Martin sadly.

"But not my reason for being here—"

"That also is known to several—"

"Ah, you make me think of Dr. von Hart and his daughter, and that strange fellow Baron Kiss."

"What should they have to do with me?"

"That I do not know, but it seems to me as if they were the means of bringing us together."

"There is enough to bring us together without that," said Martin.

They were now re-entering Leyden. The easy, comfortable crowded city was once more about them. They passed between airy fantastic gables, houses of just proportion and elegant brickwork with a rich yet practical air; in such a house Julius lodged, and he thought of this and of how pointless was his walk with his rival; for he was resolved not to ask him into his own rooms.

"You have asked questions," he said, "to which I can give no answer. If the land you occupy belongs to me—why, I must have it. I cannot see that it brings you much. You are never in residence there—or seldom."

"It provides the few monies on which I live," replied Martin with some firmness. "Besides, if I had some hope for the future and Annabella for my wife, I should have more heart to put energy into my stewardship."

"I make no promises," said Julius, walking quicker. "I do what I like with my own and I pay court where I wish."

"If you are interested in Amalia von Hart," demanded Martin, "why cannot you undertake to leave Annabella alone?"

"You do not impress me with your stern accents and your frowns," replied Julius. "I shall do as I please."

"No doubt you are, first of all, gifted and wealthy, then you are eloquent and have the entree wherever you go," replied Martin unexpectedly. "This evening we walk the streets because you will not ask me to your lodgings; and I—who dwell in a hole in the rocks—have none."

"You are resolved to think that I hate you," said Julius; "and perhaps it is so. At least, I regard you as the heir to your father's crimes, as I have said—"

"And have not I said—pleaded—that he has paid? He died poor, in exile, under a shadow."

"I do not wish to hear all that again," said Julius. "Come, we are near to my lodging, and it is true that I do not intend to ask you to enter."

He paused before the agreeable medley of pleasant little shops, now shuttered for the evening, that surrounded his comfortable lodging.

But he added, as if against his own volition:

"It is true that you are on your estate long enough to see Annabella Liddiard and to exchange love tokens with her—"

"You speak as if that were a contemptible thing to do—"

"Perhaps I think that it is. You confess yourself ruined—you have no profession—"

Martin Deverent interrupted:

"And perhaps you would like to add that I have an evil reputation?"

"That has nothing to do with me—but I am not going to invite you into my lodgings, and I refuse your requests."

"Ah, do you, indeed? Then that means that you did intend that I should be desolate and bereft?"

"You have heard my answer."

"I should have thought that the whole affair would seem very small to you—"

"Perhaps it does—yet it is concerned with the death of my own father."

"With which I had nothing to do—"

"Some think that you had, child as you were," replied Julius. "But I cannot—will not—stand debating here with you."

"Yet you deign to spend some time with Baron Kiss, and his companions—"

"Those people!" sneered Julius. "Let me warn you that the Hungarian, at least, is no friend of yours—he urged me on to my design—"

"That of ruining me? You admit, then, that you have one."

"Not at all," said Julius impatiently. "But this stranger—who seems to have come from nowhere—has tried to urge me to make an end of your fortunes."

"Let that be as it may," replied Martin, "I dare say I can contrive to live as well as the next man. What I wanted was your promise to leave Annabella Liddiard alone—"

"You should trust her fidelity," said Julius, and closed the door in the supplicant's face.