Читать книгу The Man with the Scales - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 8

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The precisely kept, dignified house seemed in keeping with his studious days, hitherto unbroken, and the grim purpose of his life. His landlady was preceding him up the finely polished oak staircase; she had again a basket of freshly laundered linen on her stout arm; indeed, he had never seen either her or Cornelia empty-handed. Half turning, she told him that a lady waited for him in his chamber. The slow smile on her complacent face seemed to note that it was new for him to have female visitors.

Julius expected to find Amalia von Hart in possession of his handsome chamber; and it was indeed she who rose as he entered and greeted him as if she had been the hostess.

Julius rented two rooms, of which this, the outer, he used as a parlour. It contained a chance medley of objects as well as the cases and shelves of all the law books that he used in his studies. There were some brass lamps, kept cleaned to a milky whiteness; one of the windows was occupied by a seascape painted on three panes of glass, set, one behind the other, in a grooved frame; the effect, being before the light, was of a luminous green under gold, and Julius had often half-desired to make such a toy for himself.

"Why do you bother yourself with my affairs?" he asked Amalia.

"Oh, I have been amusing myself. I was looking from behind this pretty trifle and watching you rebuff the poor shabby wretch who still, I see, stands below."

Julius also looked into the placid yet gay pageant of the street. The little metallic warrior was coming out from his tower opposite and about to strike the half-hour chimes.

"There is no getting away from the sound of bells in this country—"

"And no getting away from the sight of your enemy, eh?"

"Oh, I had not seen him for a good number of years, and I shall soon miss him again," replied Julius carelessly.

"But you have been thinking of him a great deal—"

Julius laughed in her face.

"Again I ask you what has this story, that somehow, I suppose, you wheedled out of Baron Kiss, to do with you?"

He seated himself opposite her, thinking how radiant she looked in her red fur, her face flushed from the frosty weather.

"My father and I were at Drenthe lately," she said. "It was on our way from Pisa to Leyden. My father wished to find some rare bog flower; this province, as you know, is a sandy heath. He stayed at Assen and found the people dull and obstinate—" She stopped.

"Yes?"

"It is a haunted country, covered with prehistoric monuments that appear to mark the graves of giants or some such monsters—"

"Hardly the place in which to look for a flower," remarked Julius impatiently.

"Oh, but it is—and we found exactly the variety we searched for—in that sterile plain outside the old capital, Koevorden, that is now no more than a hamlet—" She looked full at Julius, and added, "It is a mean-looking white bloom."

Julius pictured with some distaste the stretches of stagnant marsh which father and daughter had wandered searching for an insignificant flower. But, no doubt, he thought, such meagre triumphs were among the glories of his dull profession.

"But none of this," he said aloud, "affects me and my affairs."

"Yes, it does, for it was at Koevorden that I met the wise woman. There are several such, living on memories of the past and inheriting some of their magic—"

"I believe nothing of that," replied Julius quickly. "You waste your time."

"Oh, that, very likely!" she conceded. "But do not be so disdainful—think a little what the word magic may mean. I do not talk of changing the weather by the beating of a Laplander's drum."

"Tell me what you do mean?"

"Suppose someone dwelt on one idea only—from infancy upwards—do you not think that that might become concrete, so that, instead of thoughts, figures might appear?"

Julius laughed; the suggestion seemed to him nonsense; he believed that Amalia must have some secret purpose in making it.

She saw his incredulity and, rising, asked him to go with her to the wise woman, who was now in Leyden, and who might have something strange to show him.

"Whatever it is," replied Julius, "she will not be able to persuade me that I am surrounded by apparitions, not human beings. But I do not think," he added, stayed by an unexpected thought, "that I have a mind to go out; Martin Deverent may still be there."

Amalia peered behind the glass seascape.

"No—he has gone—do you think he has such faith in your tenderness?"

"It is very odd that I should meet him like this in Leyden—playing the organ in some silent church."

"He wanders all over the place."

"The stranger that I should not have met him before. I had no idea that he was so strongly attached to Annabella Liddiard—"

"And to that piece of ground he calls his own. Come, will you make this visit with me?"

They went out into the street. Martin Deverent had at last left his post. The luminous green of late afternoon was again glowing behind the ornate houses and reflected in the still water of the canal, skimmed with ice; the iron warrior had come out to strike his bell, and the chimes of other clocks could be heard in the distance; people were hurrying home, their heads bent before the sharp east wind. Time seemed to have passed very swiftly with Julius Sale since he had first met Baron Kiss and his companions.

Amalia von Hart led him to a side street and into a small, brightly lit shop where sweetmeats were on display in jars and trays, together with apples dipped in sugar, known as toffee apples; in between were bunches of dried flowers and evergreens and honey cakes scattered with drops of coloured sugar.

"This is where we live," said Amalia unexpectedly, smiling at the old woman who sat behind her wares.

"Surely it is not where I came to supper with you?" exclaimed Julius.

"Yes, indeed it is, only we took you up by a side stair, not through the shop."

"I do not know," said Julius, "why you concern yourself with me at all."

"One must do something," smiled Amalia. "And it is not often that one meets anyone with a set purpose in life."

"So that attracts you? I, for my part, am vexed that Baron Kiss should have got my story out of me, and at once imparted it to you and your father."

"I think that I have already told you that we are both people of discretion."

But Julius noted that she had not answered his question why she took such an interest in him; she would have no lack of admirers, he was sure.

"In the summer this house must be very pleasant," she said. "It looks towards cool, thick trees; come upstairs with me and I shall show you a notable collection of books from the Officina Elzevirana, who, as you know, issued choice volumes to a large number."

"I did not think that we had come to see books, but a wise woman," smiled Julius.

Amalia beckoned him up a flight of back stairs that turned on themselves behind the display of sweetmeats now faintly lit by a candle in a paper shade. Amalia led Julius into a room that was indeed full of books; on shelves, in cabinets and on tables. Julius turned over one or two, the product of human hands only, and of a remarkably touching beauty and interest; most were in the ancient or Oriental languages, some produced by Louis Elzevir, some by the Daniel, some of the second Louis of that name.

Julius looked at the exquisite printing and bindings and the various strange symbols that enriched them. Among these he came constantly on the figure of a man seated at a church organ, always with his head turned away.

"How strange that I should see that!" he remarked to Amalia, who was regarding him with a quizzical air.

"Why? It is a common enough symbol."

"What of?"

"Oh, that, perhaps you will learn later on. Now do you not want to see what the wise woman from Drenthe has to show you?"

Julius put down the splendid old book he held, and turned to behold with surprise the plump, red-faced old woman he had seen in the shop behind the sweets and toffee apples.

"Did you expect someone who looked more like a witch?" asked Amalia.

"Indeed, I have no idea of what they do look like—save from some old cuts in children's books—yet there have been a number of witches in Scotland."

The shopwoman had now taken up her place in front of her two visitors. She held a large jar of a thick greenish glass, such as Julius had often seen used for water.

"She will seem to gaze into that, but it is merely to concentrate her attention."

The seer now asked him—or so he supposed—what he wished to know; he had not sufficient knowledge of Dutch to answer her; besides, he had been brought by chance and almost unwillingly to this meeting, which, coming so soon after his refusal of Martin Deverent's appeal, had put his thoughts into a confusion.

Amalia flashed a glance of scorn at his hesitation. "What! With such an important purpose in your life is there nothing that you wish to know?"

Julius was angry at what seemed this continual prying into his affairs, and turned his head away. Amalia laughed at his vexation, and, as he turned to look at her again, he noted how beautiful she was, with a rich bloom and a brilliancy of colour most uncommon. He understood also, as in a flash, that she would never give satisfaction to ordinary people; she might be an object of contempt, if not of derision, because of her peculiar manners, but she would never enjoy the pleasures and attentions that are the delight of most women. Perhaps, he thought, it was because other people avoided her, or at least overlooked her, that she had taken such an interest in him and his affairs. Perhaps her roving life, the solitary habits of her father and her own over-bright beauty had caused her to feel herself something of an outcast from society.

"Perhaps your fortune would be more interesting to follow than mine," he ventured.

"Perhaps," she answered, with that manner between haughtiness and humility that was so difficult to place. "But do women have any fortunes? Usually their lives are empty, worthless, until attached to the careers of some men."

"Well," said Julius, "I realize that I can only become a worthwhile human being by discovering some reason for my existence. I must often pause, as I do now, and ask myself why I behave as I do. For example," he added rapidly, "I do not know why I refused Martin Deverent as I did—"

"It was because this revenge gives you a purpose in your life. Annabella Liddiard is more interesting to you than any other woman could be, because she will always remind you of the exploits to which you have given all your energies."

Amalia looked strangely ill at ease as she spoke. She appeared now like a young girl of good family who has behaved imprudently with a stranger.

"Well," she added abruptly, "do you not want, in any case, to see these marvels?"

"In which I do not believe!"

"Wendela," said Amalia, turning to the old woman, who sat patiently waiting with her coarse glass jar balanced on her knees, "he feels nothing and knows not what to do—but there must be something that you can show him."

Wendela spoke to Amalia, who gave Julius the translation; it was an injunction to gaze into the glass jar.

Julius obeyed and at first saw nothing but a grey-brown swirling mist which was much the same as he had seen that winter over the flats of the Low Countries. Then these vapours cleared, and he saw the outline of a house; it was familiar to him, but he could not recall what it was; close by was a brook, so shallow as to show the pebbles, crossed by a bridge; a figure so faint as to be hardly discerned crossed this bridge and, rising to an unnatural height, tapped at one of the upper windows. After repeating this gesture several times the figure vanished; dissolved, as it seemed to Julius, into the mists.

But the window was opened, and an elderly man, wearing night attire, looked out. Astonishment was expressed on his features, which, though still handsome, were fretted with care and anxiety; he seemed extremely surprised at the summons on his windows, and looked about him in bewilderment. Soon he was joined by a woman of mature beauty, who seemed to share his wonder; then both withdrew and the casement was closed; in a very short time, however, Julius saw the couple come out from the front door. The lady was muffled, as if from the cold (Julius took the scene to be at night), while her companion also carried a mantle and held a stout single stick. As if he had been gifted by the flight and vision of a bird, Julius followed the progress of this couple, who seemed to be lit by the dim glow of a moon covered again and again, by veils of a thin vapour; so that Julius could sometimes see the couple walking over the heath or a bridle path, while at other times they were lost to his view with the darkening up of the moon; but there never seemed to be a hesitation in their walk, any faltering in the direction that they were taking. Their progress was steady, as if they followed directions explicitly given, perhaps by the creature who had tapped at their window, yet Julius could not discern any guide. He began to doubt the evidence of his sight and to wonder if he were in the room over the shop of the woman who sold toffee apples or out on the moor with the two, who seemed to be searching for something precious and to be guided in their strange quest by a person or a spirit he could not see.

The vapours of brown and grey, familiar to him from many a childhood scene, seemed to grow less dense; but all was uncertain in this blurred expanse that involved the figures of Amalia von Hart and the stout little shopkeeper.

Yet he could still discern the two figures of a man and a woman (they seemed now to have joined hands), who glided rather than walked above the rough dead heather. There was a dead kind of light, such as might come from the last flare of a lamp about to go out, and by that Julius recognized the scene. It was a piece of rising moorland close to his own home, and precisely that which formed the boundary between his own house and that of Martin Deverent.

Now the couple, who might have been described as flying rather than walking, appeared to pause and to tremble over a certain spot well remembered by Julius. It was not far from Castle Basset, which stood in a lonely and formidable situation, and it consisted of a small, still lake irregular in shape and lit by an indeterminate light; the edges seeped into the heath and were only broken by the sharp spikes of a few winter-cracked reeds.

Julius saw the two figures pause and cling together as if terrified; he himself heard a sound like the whistling of a wind in a long place where it meets with no obstacle. The two were gazing across the spread of water, which had become more defined in the brightening light; he looked as they did, and saw the figure of a young woman stretched out on the edge of the water. She appeared to be asleep, and one arm was passed over her head; her hair was unbound and her loose dress resembled in hue the stunted heather and winter-bitten grasses. The woman now called out in a low voice, making it seem like a moan; Julius thought that it was a name she uttered, but he could not be sure; the man seemed to repeat the word, and the two passed round the spreading lake. But as they neared the recumbent figure this seemingly disappeared from their eyes, for they gazed wildly about, as if searching for someone. The brown-grey mists returned to the room, and then these also disappeared, and Julius could see only the homely furniture and the woman who sold toffee apples sitting patiently with the coarse glass jar on her knee.

"Give her some money and let us go," said Amalia von Hart.