Читать книгу Damned - E. S. Dorrance - Страница 4

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The multiple-candle glow from the Mephistophelian coat-of-arms lit the girl-soul’s features. From a veil that well might have been worn on Earth for mourning, so black was her hair and enveloping, they gleamed as if carved from Parian marble. The curve of her chin, the fullness of lips blent into faint, downward-traced lines, the tube-rose texture of her cheeks, all lent a suggestion of pliancy, even weakness. Above, her classic nose and broad forehead offered contradiction—were sculped as from a master’s inspiration.

Lesser wonders as to the personality behind the marble mask merged into that aroused by her eyes. Colored like the purpling depths of a midnight sky, they concealed, rather than revealed. From beneath straight brows they gazed forth, not as a hope that is lost in darkness, but as hope resting from its weariness, to rise again at dawn. Over her face they shed a light of mystery that made its beauty negligible—a mystery based neither on courage nor fear, pride nor shame, joy nor dole. They asked what confused the mind and haunted the imagination, that demand of why—why—to which only the Creator of souls Himself one day may make satisfactory reply.

Intently as the spirit-girl studied the new arbiter of her sorry fate was he studying her. At first he did not move. Then the finger-tips of his one hand sought those of the other. As they met, the ruby-red setting of his signet ring discharged a spark.

“The sight of you sounds like some song of Destiny,” said he.

“And only Destiny could be accountable for her present plight.” The crippled soldier, handling his crutch with the skill of long practice, approached the throne. His one heel clicked against the floor in a salute peculiar to the wars of yester-year. “Might I say a few words, sir, for this young mother? I got to know her well on the awful journey into Shadow Land.”

Satan, turning to him, saw that age had not blurred a youthful eagerness in his parchment face and the faded blue of his eyes.

“And why,” he scoffed, “should you speak a few words for her, or a couple, or even one—you, a mere piece of a man?”

“That you will know, sir, after you know her. A mere girl she is. Nothing truthful, I’m sure, could be written against her account in the records of Earth.”

“You evade my question.” Royal annoyance over the interruption was turned from him to his sponsors. “Why, you imperfect seven, a one-legged veteran of a past decade?”

The prime minister intervened. “Old One-leg here is not so weak a new idea as he looks. While he has not fought in the latest battles of Earth, he has been absorbed in them, he says, and theoretically knows all there is to be known of modern tactics.”

His Highness’ shoulders shrugged. “None can say that I am not glad to believe the worst of every man. Has he a passport?”

Aloud he read the soldier-shade’s card:

“Samuel Cummings, N.C.O. In youth deserted when battle was on. Changed his name and lost his identity for a time. Later reënlisted, was wounded in service, but not distinguished. Called from Soldier’s Home.”

The cripple’s free hand brushed one ear, as if forcefully to eject the words. “I deserted, yes. But she lay sick abed, my girl bride, and I loved her better than myself. Afterwards not a man in our company fought more careless than Corporal Sam. But we had a saying at the Home that you’ve got to be conscripted into the army of death. Only cowards volunteer.”

“Once a deserter, always one,” His Highness made remark. “Don’t you see that more important affairs than yours await? Just remember this, no wife is worth deserting a good fight for.”

Corporal Sam, with head sagging and shoulders disturbed by more than his crutch, stepped aside. But a wonderful light shone from his blue eyes into the Satanic gray ones.

“I know,” he muttered, “that what made my Mary Gertrude worth deserting for can’t ever die. I saw her in the border fields this very evening. She couldn’t go on, you see, without me. She had promised to wait around for me until——”

“Silence, old nuisance,” Sin advised. “One doesn’t mention the Second Call in The Presence.”

He need not have feared. His Majesty’s attention had returned to the girl-shade. A long moment he studied her; closed his eyes; quickly opened them to study her again. The puzzlement at first on his features changed to semi-recognition.

“That look in your eyes—— What is it, that look? I seem to know you, woman, although I cannot place you. Do you remember having seen me before?”

“I don’t think that I ever have seen you. But I’ve known men on Earth that resembled you.” Her voice was that of a cathedral bell retarding over the last phrase of the hymn.

“It must be that I have trailed you afar, probably at the start of the career that brought you here. Let us see how you’re written down in Mors’ copy from the book.”

Sin transferred the card from her clutch. With characteristic bravado, he read the start of it aloud.

“Dolores Trent, Grief to Men, and bastard babe.”

“What’s that you say?” With unwonted eagerness, Satan possessed himself of the passport. “That is quite a title, ‘Grief to Men.’ I like it.”

He smiled peculiarly while giving his eyes to Earth’s verdict of the newcomer, as transcribed from that tome called “Judgments of Men” which is in charge of Mors, keeper of the Great Gates into Shadow Land. From between the two lines of his strong, white teeth, his tongue appeared and smoothed both lips.

The girl-soul, with the equivocal expression of one both fascinated and repulsed, watched him as he read:

“Dolores Trent, known as ‘Grief to Men.’ A cause of disaster from first breath to last. Her birth caused the death of her mother, whose loss brought her father to ruin. Directly responsible is she held for the wrecked careers of a successful merchant, an eminent Divine, a skilled healer, a previously exemplary millionaire, and an attorney of repute. As a climax, the supreme crime of womanhood is hers—an illegitimate child. Through life she has spread sorrow in her wake. Unto death she carries her murdered ill-begot, a suicide without repentance or appeal.”

The King commented: “Æons have come and gone since I have felt surprise. Completely did that look of yours deceive me. And Raphael must have altered the face of his Madonna had he first seen yours.”

Arising, he stepped from the dais, settled his crown a trifle more to one side and slicked his vandyke with meticulous care. He then approached the cowering figure on the steps.

“It is unseemly that you should remain upon your knees, madam or miss, when many stand who probably are not half so bad as you. Allow me.”

Stooping, he lifted her to her feet.

She straightened to face him with a show of bravery.

“I was misunderstood on Earth,” she said. “In this existence, I hope for justice.”

“Fear not,” he assured her. “In Gehenna you shall receive justice, Dolores Trent, as meted by that world which has learned you to its sorrow and, it would seem, to your own.”

“I’ll tell you—I swear to you, sir, that I have done no man willing wrong.”

He greeted her protest with a punctilious laugh, as though over an attempt at wit.

“Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief——”

“But you will not punish my baby for my faults?” A breeze of terror swung the cathedral bell. “Only look at her, sir. She is too tiny, you see, for the vaguest thought of wrong. To her, at least, be merciful.”

“Oh, Hell, be merciful!” Satan mocked her. “That too-late wail has been dinned into my ears until it is a wonder that I can hear you at all. Cheer up. You won’t have to part from it—I beg its pardon—her. Have you not heard that a child conceived in sin must take his—its chances with her progenitors?”

At the low, protesting cry which escaped the mother, he laid a hand on her shoulder, then allowed his arm to settle about her, as though measuring her height by his own. His touch appeared to repulse her. Shuddering, she passed the infant shade to the other arm and stood irresolute, evidently trying to decide how best she might release herself.

A commotion at the door claimed the court’s attention. Through the light-striped hangings, slipping from the grip of the pygmies, two comely creatures seemed verily to float across the throne-room, a youth costumed as a knight and a guileless-looking maid. He, drawing her by the hand, pressed toward the group before the dais. Lithe of body and ardent of eye, he caught the arm of the King and sought to remove it from about the suppliant’s form. As the pursuing dwarfs seized him with their over-long reach, His Highness found himself looking down into the flower-face of the girl intruder—into eyes shy and fearless as violets at dawn.

“And whom,” he enquired, “have we here?”

The minister undertook to announce them. “A pair by the stagy names of Innocentia and Amor. They call themselves guardian spirits and have a talent, which few share with Your Excellency and myself, of absolute invisibility. They lined up in a most theatric way beside the wench Dolores outside the door. As they had no passports and did not seem to belong, I sent them back—or thought I did.”

Satan considered Sin and them. “Where is your sense of humor, Old Original, that you explain them to me? I can’t say that I should have regretted Amor. We have all varieties of him down the Lane of Labors. But Innocentia! You might have appreciated that I seldom get a chance to see her wings flutter or hear her heart beat from fear. Tell me, you two, what madness is driving you?”

“There has been some mistake about the girl Dolores,” Amor declared. “Earth has passed another false judgment. Shouldn’t I know who have been with her since first she met the father of her child?”

“You refer, I presume, to her husband?”

The love-lad’s head threw back in defiance at the jibe. But Innocentia flushed as she took up the defense.

“I have been with our dear Dolores always, more a part of her than the blood in her veins, since that has ceased to flow and I am come with her into Shadow Land. She has heeded all my cautions against the wiles of men. Never once has she offended me.”

“More sinned against than sinning, eh?” His Highness plucked an imaginary tear from one eye. “Often as a woman has been damned have I heard that plea.”

“Only see for yourself, Sire, how she shrinks from your touch—how she suffers. We pray you, release her.”

“Little pest, don’t you know that I enjoy defying you?”

Even as he scoffed, however, his clasp of the mother relaxed. He ascended the steps and reseated himself in the throne chair.

“Innocence and love—certainly a strange companionship,” he observed. “Odd that they don’t fade out, when they are less material than the dimmest spirit in the inter-world. Shoo them back whence they came, ushers. We must get to the case in hand.”

“Oh, I beg you, sir, let them stay!” Dolores interceded. “You’ll find that they enter and exit quietly as thoughts of the mind.”

“Thoughts of the mind get very much in my way,” Satan snapped.

At his show of impatience, Innocentia pressed her lips to the cheeks of the babe. “Do not distress yourself, Dolores dear. It is best that we should disappear. But in Gehenna, as on Earth and in the Fields, we see no gates and acknowledge no commands.”

“Always remember,” Amor added, “the great love of John Cabot. Send him the strength of your good faith. In your late life it did seem that he forsook you. But when he comes to the mystery world, he will seek you, never fear.”

“I shall remember,” Dolores assured them in a low aside. “That night we said our vows, I swore that I believed. Despite appearances, Amor, I do—I must believe.”

Old Original approached them. “Why unwind these fare-ye-wells when your taxi’s waiting? Accept my arm to the door, Miss Innocentia. You look almost overcome.”

Waggishly he escorted her out.

The while His Majesty’s frown lowered to the pygmean pair salaaming before the dais.

As in one whine they put the formal demand: “To what futile labors, O King, shall we consign these recruits?”

Satan shaded his eyes with one hand. He appeared not to be thinking so much as looking. As if from under a blower, the inflammable imagination of him glowed—glowed on Dolores Trent.

The prime minister, on returning, settled in his chair and claimed the keen ear which, through ages past, had considered his suggestions.

“This modern Delilah, Excellency, I consider unique in that she cannot be classed by the naked eye. She is not, so to speak, a type. Might I call your attention to the tact with which she maintains silence, while you——”

“You might not. I detest to have fine bits of the play diagramed by my seat-mate. Have I or have I not eyes of my own?”

“But, Sire——”

“But the buts! Haven’t I paid at least as much admission as you?”

All eyes focused upon the Master, except those of the ancient hypocrite. His settled appreciatively upon her who indeed had distracted the royal resentment from himself. The pause which lapsed he had the temerity to break, although in a vague voice, as if to himself:

“Hell to be lonely.... Some sympathy soul.... Boss looker like you.... Try anything once or twice.”

“Try anything once and forever except hoodwinking me.”

If Sin’s pride was hurt by the King’s public rebuke, it must have been salved next moment with the proof that his advice was being found tenable.

His Highness to the court: “As a bad lot, this earthling pair would seem to deserve labors different from any yet devised. Until I decide upon some special form of punishment I shall keep them in the palace. Dame Dolores comes highly recommended to my ingenuity. That I may observe her vices, I appoint her for the nonce First Royal Entertainer. She shall relate to me those griefs which she has caused on Earth.”

His glance veered to the veteran.

“Always have I envied the angels their ability to weep—never have lived down the ambition to emulate their pietism with just one tear. Mayhap I shall be moved to that extent by these earth-tales of Grief to Men. I am so temperamental. In view of which possibility, Samuel Cummings, I hereby create for you the office of Holder of the Crocodile Tear Bowl to my Majesty. As for the bastard babe——”

Dolores, at his flint-hard gaze, clutched closer the tiny soul of her soul. Intensely she awaited his words.

“Don’t crucify yourself with maternal fears, my beauty. We are pleased to let the Littlest Devil stick around. Ever notice how the strongest villain has weakness for a brat? Yours is about as young as they come—almost a native, one might say. He will give the palace a homey look.”

“She, sir.”

“She. I beg its pardon.”

“You are so much kinder than I was led to expect.” To his consideration the young mother lifted the radium glow of her gratitude. “From hints I heard at the Mystery Gate, I gathered that you were—that you might be——”

The delicacy of such comment was impressed upon her by the interested expression of its subject. As she paused in confusion, a Balialic smile lightened his countenance.

“Beginning on me already, sweet Grief—and with the old baby-eyed confidence game? Even so, you are different from the rest of the damned Delilahs.”

Unexpectedly he clapped his hands. Invective, sarcasm and abuse greeted the courtiers and pages who sprang to receive and execute his orders.

“Get the machinery of this court geared up, will you? Light the snuffed lucifers that are supposed to illuminate my life. Affairs in general are going to be run more according to the ways of Earth, or certain helliots will be put through their third and last degree before their appointed time. You, tell that new chef that I have some few untried torments for him if he does not excel his predecessors to-night. He’s to prepare a banquet that will taste as well as look. Dynobasco Sauce for my burnt-out stomach, the mead that sears to wash it down—all the trimmings. And you, tell the head landscape gardener that I want moonlight to-night—gobs of it—and a free play of juice through the Garden of Bad Luck. Have him throw the limit in effect—fountains and foliage and tropical bloom. I want the mistress of royal robes paged at once. Wonderful electrician though she is, she hasn’t had a worthwhile order since Cleopatra cast me for Anthony II. in a little domestic drama whose tragic last act rather overbalanced the light lines of the start. We shall see what her genius at fabric effects can do for this trail-worn lady. Remind her of how Shakespeare once remarked: ‘Glad rags don’t spoil the work of any tragedienne.’”

The crook of a royal finger brought Old Original to his side.

“Sin, I wish you personally to see to the selection of a suitable tear-bowl. Take care that it is polished. Our electro-silver plate tarnishes so quickly from its own heat. And make sure it doesn’t leak. My first crocodile tear must be preserved—a glittering trophy to adorn the filet of m’lady Grief. Now begone, all of you. The biggest little séance since Creation is going to commence to-night.”

Alone, to his reflection in the mirror, he telepathed:

“I know that she is different from the different effect on me. Because I don’t doubt that she’s bad, I don’t dislike her looking good. She is unique, this Dame Dolores. I may be able to use her. Should I approve her method in those troubles she caused on Earth, I just might show her some larger responsibilities.”

Through the seven courses of that most remarkable of feasts, the spirit-girl Dolores exerted herself to please their Satanic host, for sake of her babe if not herself. Splendid beyond words was his appearance, from his scintillant crown to the hem of a mantle charged to imitate iridescent metal cloth. Corporal Sam Cummings she scarcely had recognized, so changed was he by the steel-scaled costume of an old-time knight in which he came arrayed, a veritable “armour of light.”

Without vanity, she appreciated the kindly soldier-soul’s gasp at first sight of her, having herself been surprised by the achievement of the mistress of robes.

A twist of green flame bound her hair and suspended one large drop, like an emerald of great price, low upon her brow. The rays of her body garment clung close, representing a material sewn through with threads of gold. This fell only to her pearl-roped ankles, but a long cloak of translucent green waved behind her when she moved, like the following billows of the sea.

Her beauty she had learned to deplore. To-night she feared it. Something worse than admiration had shone in the lurid gaze of the prime minister and lesser courtier demons, something disturbing in the silent, critical inspection of His Highness.

Gracious enough had been Satan’s manner. Not until he sampled the last course of the delusive seven did his irritation break bounds. He demanded the presence of the first chef.

“What was my last promise if you didn’t concoct something I could taste?” he demanded of that unworthy. “Why do you suppose I had you heat-tormented to suicide in the Brillon kitchens in Paris if I didn’t expect you to do better by me gastronomically than your predecessors? I have been improvising tortures for cook-soul failures for more centuries than the blades of near-grass used to tint this pistache ice. Bah, heats me to look at it! Soon as I can replace you, into the hole for Traitors to Mothers you drop.”

The wretch wrung his hands. “Not there, your Majesty! I loved my mère. And is not my present labor futile enough? Almost do I despair of tempting the palate of an immortal, with nothing but chimeras as ingredients—with flour of the bleached dust of hopes and paprika and baking-powder of imaginary ground brick or brimstone.”

“I do not grant that your labor is futile,” Satan snapped. “Surely you’ll agree that the Ruler of Greater Gehenna deserves the Epicurean joys afforded gluttonous nobodies of Earth? I want to eat, I tell you. Of course I am more or less immaterial. Every soul in Shadow Land is, the new-comers less, the old-timers more. But the appetites of Earth appeal more to me than the self-sufficiency of the angels. I intend to have them—and to have them satisfied. If by to-morrow you have not risen to the concoction of something to tempt me, into the hole for Traitors to——”

With what sincerity she could assume, Dolores interposed. “I am sure I never tasted a more delicious pasty.”

“Is that true? Can you taste it?”

Satan’s gaze was upon her with the questions, his expression more than wontedly repulsive from greed. Then wrath at her caught him.

“Liars are to be commended in a bad cause, but pitiers! You must conquer such impulses. Acknowledge that you have experienced only the vaguest reminiscence of taste. Come, let us leave this farce of a feast. I have chosen my Chamber of Chance as the most fit setting for your tale of the game of life. Lady champion of griefs, precede me.”

He pushed back from the table. The attendants scrambled after his example. The head butler turned Dolores’ chair. She found herself sweeping past the demon parasites, then past His Majesty, standing with head bent and hand on heart, a derisive smile upon his face. A page, at a gesture of the King, gathered up the phosphorescent billows of her mantle.

She fell into the accent of certain strains of music which were playing a dim, yet definite march of the dead. No ocean ever sobbed more sympathetic plaint. No snarl of fife or beat of drum ever timed sterner step. The music between two spheres—had Handel heard it in his dream of Saul?

The Royal Entertainer was placed in the strongest light at a faro table which centered a room black-hung and artistically dimmed for the occasion. Satan sat opposite as a mere auditor, his eyes glowing like lit lamps from the shadow.

“A hint or two or three before you begin,” said he. “Remember that the story’s the thing. If it doesn’t grip, aside from the fact that you are telling it, you’ll have failed in your art. You’ve read some of the old-fashioned French novels, I hope?”

“Oh, yes, Sire, and in the original. My father was a translator and taught me to read in several languages, French, Russian, Spanish——”

“Doesn’t all that come in the story? Don’t insult our intelligence with repetitions. Try to emulate the speed of modern fictionists, with the—shall we say the slow-mindedness of the old? And leave out the asterisks. We who have crossed into Mystery Land have every right to know what’s behind the stars.”

“You mean——” she faltered.

“In brief, this: give us a tale with style, but all passages that should be expurgated left in.”

Dolores, confused rather than enlightened by these specifications, essayed her earth-life story with what sprightliness she might.

“You know New York City?”

“Do I know New York—I who invented it?”

Her start was fortuitous; although not intended to be humorous, won the tribute of a chuckle from him at the head of the narrow monk table.

“Since you know New York, King Satan——”

“Call me Pluto,” suggested he. “It is my friendliest name.”

“King Pluto”—she gave him a smileless nod of agreement—“you doubtless have heard of Harlem flats?”

Again he chuckled. “Some of our best little badger games, jealousies, murders and other such trivial offenses have been conceived and executed in Harlem flats. Eh, old Original? We call them ‘incubators of discontent.’ I have visited a few in person on special occasions, although generally one of the under-demons proves bad enough to start the regular Harlem crimes. The Boulevard des Capucines, Piccadilly, Unter den Linden, the Corso and a narrow street called Wall are more usual haunts of mine, offering, as they do, larger opportunities. But this side-issuance is against the rules. Assume that I am fairly well acquainted with the cubbies of modern cliff-dwellers.”

“They named me ‘Grief to Men,’ yet I have not meant to be. To explain how the cruel title came to be forced upon me, I must begin in a Harlem flat at about my nineteenth year.”

With the tremors of a spent swimmer forced to greater effort against the tide, Dolores breasted her tale. Through that evening’s recital and through those of subsequent evenings, she sought to make of herself a mere entertainer, to remember the “style” demanded, as learned from the border-line literature of the several tongues at her command, to conquer her reluctance and lay bare the facts which had been deemed worthy of so much space in the newspapers of Earth—for sake of those whom indirectly she was protecting, to tell her tale with aptitude as impersonal as though its subject were not herself.

Yet in the telling came moments when her continuity broke, when her desperate attempt was abandoned in something more convincing than “style.” Conquered by emotions which had come with her from the mortal world to this strange beyond—emotions of reverence, of love, of passion, of shame—she would fall silent, unable to proceed. At such times her hands would shield her eyes, while the shudders of a modest spirit would plead for reprieve; her head droop until her breast touched the board; her lips refuse for a space to obey her will to divert.

Fortunately His Excellency, far from disapproving such violations of the rules which he had imposed, appeared to regard them as superstrokes of a talent patent from the start. They lent to the reality of the tale, prolonged suspense and multiplied his enjoyment in her sufferings. To him, prone to delight in the inherent worst of devils and of men, the words she could not force herself to utter often meant more than those which had fallen from her lips.

Again, when his own impatience, increased by that of the demon audience, stripped bare her soul and lashed her, with malevolent threats, into renewed effort, he would chortle aloud from satisfaction in his mental degeneracy.

From his infinite fund of information regarding persons of importance whose trails had crossed the girl-soul’s own, he was able frequently to furnish facts regarding others when, at times, she failed.

The earth-story of Dolores Trent, free in version and filled in from the super-supply of Satanic intelligence, ensues.